“Escape to Reflection”

“Escape to Reflection” with music written in memory of beloved teachers, lands, and those we have lost.

Here is your invitation to escape the hustle and bustle of daily life. Let the professional musicians of the Fort Collins Symphony whisk you away to an evening of nostalgia, reflection, and peace. From its bold opening to its quiet close, you don’t want to miss the magic of a live symphony orchestra.

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“Escape to Reflection” is being performed in honor of healthcare workers, first responders, and those who have lost loved ones to Covid-19.

When:

Saturday, March 4, 2023
7:30 PM
Pre-Concert Lecture at 6:30

Where:

Lincoln Center Main Stage
417 W. Magnolia St.
Fort Collins, CO 80521

Tickets:

$25-67 adult, $10 student/child
$25 Livestream
at LCTix.com

Worried about what to wear? Where to sit? When to clap?
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What’s interesting about this concert:

– Antonio Vivaldi is best known for his Four Seasons, but he first gained international fame with a collection of music called L’Estro Armonico, or The Harmonic Inspiration. This concert features number 11, the most popular piece from the collection.

– Aaron Jay Kernis wrote his Elegy (for those we lost) at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. It is dedicated “to the families of loved ones who passed away from the coronavirus and to the doctors, nurses, and other health-care professionals who worked so tirelessly to save those loved ones.”

– The music on this concert was written by each composer to honor something or somebody important to them. Fela Sowande’s African Suite celebrates music from Nigeria, Aaron Kernis’s Elegy honors those lost in the Covid-19 Pandemic, and Britten’s Variations honor his composition teacher Frank Bridge.

– This concert highlights the string players of the Fort Collins Symphony. It features four fantastic works for an orchestra made of only string instruments: violins, violas, cellos, basses, and harp.

– Nigerian composer Fela Sowande is considered the father of Nigerian art music. His African Suite celebrates music from West Africa, including traditional and popular dances and songs. Written in 1944, it is one of the earliest and most important examples of a composer incorporating African musical styles into a traditional orchestral composition.

– This concert is sponsored by the Friends of the Symphony. The Friends of the Symphony is a non-profit organization dedicated to support and promote the growth of the FCS. Among their other contributions and support, each season the Friends band together to support the 4th Signature Concert of each season. Over 30 families contributed to help make this concert happen.

Join us for:

Composer Talk:

Join CSU professor Dr. K. Dawn Grapes on the Wednesday prior to most Signature concerts for an entertaining and informative lecture about the upcoming featured composers. Light refreshments. Sponsored by the Friends of the Symphony.

Wednesday, March 1
12 noon, at the Old Town Library
Free

Open Rehearsal:

Learn firsthand what it takes for an orchestra to bring live music to the stage. Houselights remain on during this comfortable preview of each upcoming Signature concert. The rehearsal closes to the public at 8:30 p.m. intermission.

Thursday, March 2
7:00 PM, at the Lincoln Center
Free

Maestro’s Musings:

Prior to each Signature concert, join Maestro Wes Kenney for his musings on what you are about to hear.

Saturday, March 4
6:30 PM, at the Lincoln Center
Included with ticket purchase

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes

Antonio Vivaldi, Concerto Grosso, op. 3, no. 11

Date of Composition: 1711, Duration: 9 minutes

Son of a St. Mark’s Cathedral violinist, Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was guided toward the priesthood from an early age. He entered a seminary in 1693 and ten years later was fully ordained. Already known for his extraordinary musical skills, he was hired in that same year as violin teacher for the nearby Ospedale della Pietá, a girls orphanage that also functioned as a music conservatory. The governors of the Pietá offered yearly contracts and Vivaldi, who seemed more than willing to step away from ecclesiastical life, worked at the institution off and on for more than thirty years. In 1716, he was named Maestro de Concerti (Director of Instruments).The school provided the perfect laboratory for Vivaldi’s creative experiments and many of his more than 600 sonatas and concertos were composed for his students to play.

Today Vivaldi’s Le quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) is certainly the composer’s most well-known and most often performed work, but it was his collection of concertos, the opus 3 L’estro armónico (Harmonious Inspiration), that first earned him an international reputation. The set of twelve concertos—four each featuring solo violin, violin duo, and violin quartet, all against a string ensemble with continuo (keyboard and bass instrument)—was published in 1711 by Amsterdam printer Etienne Roger. The entire collection was dedicated to Prince Ferdinando, heir to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The eleventh concerto in the group stands out as especially unique. The composition showcases a solo group of two violins and cello. While the second and third movements sound quintessentially Vivaldi, a haunting duet at the start introduces the two upper solo voices, followed by a response in the cello, creating a contrapuntal texture more akin to the style of J. S. Bach. In fact, the German composer, just twenty-six years old at the time of publication, was so taken with Vivaldi’s collection that he copied and arranged at least six of the concertos, including number 11, for keyboard. The success of opus 3 highlights Roger’s ability to market music across Western Europe, and the set saw twenty reprints, as well as publication in several other cities, keeping the music of Il Prete Rosso (the red priest) in front of orchestras for decades to come.

Chief Olufela Obafunmilayo “Fela” Sowande, African Suite

Date of Composition: 1944, Duration: 25 minutes

The music of Fela Sowande (1905–1987) is an excellent example of biculturality—music that blends elements of different socio-political artistic traditions. Born in Oyo, Nigeria, Sowande grew up in an upper-middle class family. This was almost forty-five years after Great Britain had declared Nigeria a crown colony, but only a few since the final Nigerian territorial state ceded to British rule after continued resistance. As the son of a black Anglican priest who taught at St. Andrew’s College (known as the “Church Missionary Training Institution” until 1920) and boy chorister at Lagos’s Cathedral Church of Christ, Sowande learned to sing and to play the organ in an institution steeped firmly in Western artistic ideals. Traditional music of  the Yoruba peoples, from which Sowande’s family descended, was viewed with distrust as a “pagan” entity.

In 1934, the young man moved to London, hoping to earn a degree in civil engineering. Lacking funds to cover his tuition, Sowande played the piano in London jazz clubs, where he became quite well known. He collaborated with a number of famous performers, including American entertainers such as Fats Waller, Paul Robeson, and Adelaide Hall. Sowande also formed his own seven-piece ensemble, incorporating the Hammond organ into his act while fusing jazz, European classical music, and African melodies into his own unique style. When he returned to the University of London, his focus switched to music.

After graduation, Sowande worked in a wide variety of musical settings in the early 1940s. He served as theatre organist for the BBC and musical advisor to the Colonial Film Unit of the British Ministry of Information, composing background music for African educational films. For both these roles, he gathered traditional Nigerian folk melodies as source material. Sowande’s African Suite for string orchestra was composed at this time and broadcast on BBC radio in 1944. The work’s five contrasting movements aptly demonstrate the appeal and accessibility of Sowande’s blended style. According to the composer’s notes, movements one and three, titled “Joyful Day” and “Onipe,” borrow themes from Ghanian composer E. Amu and movements four and five (“Lullaby” and “Akinla”) feature traditional Nigerian melodies. The second movement, however, stands as the heart of the work. Titled “Nostalgia,” the piece is fully Sowande’s own creation, a remembrance by “an African in England.” In the 1950s, Sowande returned to his homeland, sent by BBC administrators to head up the music division of a new Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. In this role, he founded the first NBC choir and orchestra. His new location encouraged more in-depth exploration of the music of his Yoruba heritage, and Sowande gained a reputation as an African-born pioneer in the discipline of ethnomusicology. Sowande travelled to the United States several times in the late 1950s and 1960s, performing and lecturing, and finally moved to the US permanently in 1968, when he joined the faculty at Howard University. Among Sowande’s many awards, Queen Elizabeth II named him a Member of the British Empire in 1955 for “distinguished services in the cause of music,” and in 1962, the University of Nigeria-Nsukka renamed its school of music after him. Perhaps held most dear, in 1968 he was granted a traditional chieftancy title, rounding out his bi-cultural accolades.

Benjamin Britten, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge

Date of Composition: 1937, Duration: 26 minutes

Twentieth-century British composer Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was a precocious child. By the age of fourteen, he had already composed more than one hundred works. Recognizing his talent, his viola teacher introduced the boy to Frank Bridge, a highly acknowledged composer of the time. From that point forward, Bridge became one of Britten’s most valued mentors. The younger composer later recalled, “We got on splendidly. I spent the next morning with him going over some of my music … From that moment I used to go regularly to him, staying with him in Eastbourne or in London, in the holidays from my prep school. Even though I was barely in my teens, this was immensely serious and professional study; and the lessons were mammoth. I remember one that started at half past ten, and at teatime Mrs. Bridge came in and said, ‘Really, Frank, you must give the boy a break’.” The lessons were so intense that at times Britten was reduced to tears. Yet he continued study with Bridge even after he enrolled in the Royal College of Music and was assigned other teachers. Not long after graduation, Britten took a job composing music for the governmental GPO Film Unit. Over the next three years, he composed more than 40 scores for film, radio, and theatre. Among these was a 1937 movie titled Love from a Stranger. Britten was required to work closely with the conductor of the ensemble recording the film score, Boyd Neel.

Neel served as artistic director of the London String Orchestra. That same May, his orchestra was invited to play at the Salzburg Festival in August. One of the requirements, however, was that the ensemble premiere a work by a British composer. Neel had seen how quickly Britten could produce quality work and inquired as to his availability. With time of the essence, Britten began composing on June 5 and completed his first full score draft in ten days. The entire project was wrapped up by July 12. The performance was overwhelmingly successful. Britten used the commission to honor his teacher. The result: Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge. The printed score bears the dedication, “To FB: A tribute with affection and admiration.” The opening two chords literally resound the sentiment, topped by the pitches F and B in the first violins and violas. The borrowed theme, which is heard starting about a minute in, comes from the second movement of Bridge’s 1906 Three Idylls for string quartet. Although not indicated in the printed score, Britten added annotations in his manuscript that show each variation represents some part of Bridge’s personality: his depth, energy, charm, humor, tradition, enthusiasm, vitality, sympathy, reverence, and skill and dedication, respectively. The final variation then incorporates excerpts from four of Bridge’s most important works in conversation with the initial theme. Bridge’s response to the tribute: “I don’t know how to express my appreciation in adequate terms. It is one of the few lovely things that has ever happened to me.”

Aaron Jay Kernis, Elegy (to those we lost)

Date of Composition: 2020, Duration: 7 minutes

In the spring of 2020, Yale University School of Music undertook a project titled Postcards from Confinement, in which they asked faculty, students, and alumni to create musical media in honor of the victims of COVID-19. Pulitzer Prize-winning composition professor Alan Jay Kernis (b. 1960) responded with the piano piece Elegy (for those we lost), dedicating it not specifically those who had died, but instead to their families and to the medical workers who fought so valiantly in those early days of the pandemic. These two groups were intimately connected, as at the time, medical personnel were often the only ones physically present as victims battled the disease in their final days. After completing the work, Kernis commissioned filmmaker Esther Shubinski to collaborate on a short film, in which 51 families share both celebratory and heartbreaking photographic and video images of their loved ones who died, all set against the haunting strains of Elegy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imI_7F3Gq_Y). Since that initial effort, the composer has rearranged the piece for string orchestra, full orchestra, string quartet, and various chamber ensembles. His notes on the score indicate his hope that “through this short work … listeners can find a space of solace to reflect, remember, and mourn those we have lost—known or unknown to us, and allow us to find compassion to share this time as brothers and sisters together.”

*According to the Center for Disease Control, in February 2020, 31 Americans had succumbed to COVID-19. By May, that number mushroomed to 112,084 and by year end—when Pfizer’s first vaccines were approved and became available to medical providers, the older population, and those with underlying conditions—more than 380,000 people had died in the U.S. of the disease. As of February 2023, that number has topped more than one million—an astonishing figure for sure, but one far better than what the human toll might have been if stay-at-home orders were not issued and had an immunization for public use not been formulated so quickly.

Program Notes by William E. Runyan

Concerto Grosso, op. 3, No. 11 in D Minor, RV 565—Antonio Vivaldi

 Antonio Vivaldi was the most important composer of the Italian Baroque period, although appreciation of that fact was slow in coming in later times.  But during his lifetime he was celebrated all over Europe, and his compositions were highly influential—mostly notably on J. S. Bach.  He wrote almost fifty operas, but is remembered now for his amazing fecundity in composing instrumental works.  He wrote about five hundred concertos (not, as one unappreciative wag once said, “the same concerto five hundred times.”)  While many of them feature wind instruments, the majority of them are for strings, and are practically an early eighteenth-century compendium of almost every imaginative passage or technique that one could ask of them.

Vivaldi was ordained into the priesthood early on, and his probable red hair gave him the moniker, “the red priest.”  He was a teacher on and off for most of his life at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice (you can still see the building today, just down the quay from St. Mark’s Cathedral.)  The institution was basically a school for orphaned children or those born to the Venetian nobility…under awkward circumstances, shall we say?  The school had very high musical standards, and the quality of its student orchestras was legendary.  Vivaldi, however, was a great traveler, moving around Italy working for various patrons and taking up in residencies here and there in opera houses.   His publications swept Europe, and he was influential in establishing many conventions of eighteenth-century musical composition.  His 1711 publication, L’estro armonico (The Harmonic Inspiration), was published in Amsterdam and contained twelve concertos.  He was thirty-three at the time and the publication was a smash success.

The textbook orchestration for Italian concerto grosso usually contrasts a solo group of two violins and a ‘cello with a supporting string orchestra—with the usual harpsichord, of course.  But in this collection Vivaldi employs a variety of forces—sometimes four, three, or one violin parts with the other instruments.  No. 11 consists of the conventional solo group (two violins and a ‘cello—the concertino) and the supporting string orchestra—also called the concerto grosso.

Here, we find the traditional three movements of a concerto—although the first movement has a short slow interlude in it.  As one listens to each of the movements, the “roadmap” is fairly clear.   The first movement opens with a section for the two solo violins, with no bass, followed by a section for the solo ‘cello alone with the bass and harpsichord.  Then—rather an exception—there’s a short slow section for everyone.  There follows a fugue-like section for all, and then two alternations between the concertino (the three soloists) and the full orchestra.  A short slow tag concludes it.

The second movement, traditionally the slow one, is a siciliano—the traditional Italian dance, with its characteristic dotted rhythm and “swaying” feeling.

Here, Vivaldi’s term spiccato means—as it does in the first movement—more in the manner of separation, not the “bouncing” bowing to which it later came to refer.  After a short section by the full orchestra, the two solo violins are featured like the first movement—with no bass.  A short passage similar to the opening brings the final cadence.

The last movement has all of the varied elements of the first two movements, and more.  The two solo violins again open alone, soon joined by all.  After a featured passage by the solo ‘cello, the rest of the movement is a delightful panoply of the apparently inexhaustible imagination of Vivaldi, for we hear one solo violin, two solo violins, solo ‘cello, full orchestra, bass, no bass, and so on.  L’estro armonico was the composer’s first collection of printed concertos, and its impact was immense.  It had no equal in its inspiration and as a model for other composers in the Baroque. Its imagination, technical prowess, and attractiveness make it easy to see why.

African Suite—Fela Sowande

Fela Sowande lived a remarkable life in music, both as a performer and composer.  He was known as the “father” of Nigerian classical music, and he was equally at home in jazz.  He received a thorough music education in both his native country and later, in London, England.  The son of a priest and college teacher, his early life in Nigeria was immersed in the great Anglican Church music tradition: singing in traditional cathedral choirs, and studying the organ.  As a chorister his musical experiences included not only the traditional English repertoire, but also the introduction of native Yoruba music into Nigerian ecclesiastic music.   His prowess as an organist led to the mastery of the great European organ works, sufficient for a diploma from the Royal College of Organists.  Moreover, he simultaneously became a successful jazz bandleader!

To further his education, and establish a secure financial future, Sowande immigrated to England in 1934 to study civil engineering.  That didn’t last long, for he was soon performing widely in the jazz world.  His prowess as a pianist led to association with such luminaries as Fats Waller and Paul Robeson.  He achieved signal recognition as a soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Blackbirds of 1936.  Along the way he was active as organist (including the pop Hammond organ) and choirmaster, rising to prominence in the highest echelons of the English musical world.  

In addition to mastery of the singular styles of Anglican Church music, as well as traditional jazz styles, he was particularly devoted to composing works that blended traditional Nigerian music with Western classical styles—both sacred and popular.  Dance bandleader, choir director, jazz pianist, organist, composer, he moved deftly and successfully between all those musical worlds—not to speak of African and European ones, as well.

 He was appointed MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth in 1955 and moved to the United States in 1968, where he taught at several universities until his death in 1987 while a member of the faculty at Kent State University.

In addition to his choral and organ compositions, he composed several works for orchestra, including Africa Suite for strings and harp. Written in 1944, its five movements are a study of Nigerian musical melodies, harmonies, and rhythms blended with traditional European orchestra techniques and textures.

The first movement, Joyful Day, uses a melody composed by the Ghanaian composer, Ephraim Kɔku Amu (1899-1995). Amu was a beloved teacher, cleric, musicologist, performer, composer, and collector of popular songs.

Joyful Day is an effervescent study in taking a simple repetitive tune and extending it into a substantial movement through a variety of textures, voicing, figurations, and harmonies.

Nostalgia is a lush evocation of Sowande’s homeland, away from which he spent much of his life.  While undoubtedly informed by Nigerian folk tunes, it is difficult to escape from a distinct impression that he was equally influenced by the rich string harmonies and folk-like melodies of the “pastoralist” composers of his new home in England:  Vaughan Williams, Delius, Ireland, Butterworth, and others of that ilk.

Sowande once again draws upon a melody written by his fellow African, Amu, in the third movement, Onipe, named after a small village in the Oyo State of Nigeria.  

The gentle mood of the Lullaby is based on a folk tune, and features a solo violin that contrasts with the surprising, turgid tremolos and active figures that soon become the accompaniment to the tune.

The finale to the suite is Akinla, featuring a spritely dance-like tune, an example of an important musical style in West Africa, called “Highlife.”  A combination of Colonial European, Caribbean and African elements, it’s a vigorous and popular, jazzy style that has spread throughout much of the world today.  It has many variants—“Palm Wine,” brass band, guitar band, and gospel—even a German version called “Burger Highlife.” Sowande’s take, though spirited, is a bit more sedate, but styles have evolved over the last seventy-five years or so.  Interestingly, Akinla is well known to Canadians, owing to its use as a theme on a popular radio show.

Variations of a Theme of Frank Bridge, op. 10—Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten is one of the last century’s most respected composers and unquestionably the most influential and admired British composer from WW II until his death in 1976.   Fantastically gifted from an early age (almost a thousand compositions before his first mature, published one!), he was blessed with the early attainment of an authentic personal “voice” in his musical style.  That style was at once perceived as modern, fresh, and non-derivative—and yet generally accessible and popular with the broad public for art music.   From the beginning he was practically contemptuous of the mainstream of revered British composers—Elgar, Vaughan William, Holst, and others, sometimes dubbed the “pastoralists,” but which Britten cheekily referred to as the “cowpat” school.  Their utilization of traditional English folk music as an important stylistic source was substantially criticized by Britten as evidence of a lack of imagination and a reactionary step in a century whose art was moving rapidly into the future.  

It is clear that he had a special gift for vocal music, and there are hundreds of works in various genres as evidence; in point of fact, it is in the field of opera and stage works that he made perhaps his most important contribution, starting with his first big success, Peter Grimes.  That opera was finished in 1945, and he went on to compose well over a dozen more works that collectively place him with Richard Strauss, Puccini, and Janáček as the giants of twentieth-century opera.

Nevertheless, Britten was an active and successful composer of instrumental music—the list is long, one only has to think of such works as The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes,” film scores, and several important solo concertos.

The Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge stands of equal merit with the foregoing, and is considered one of his best compositions for orchestra.  It is an early work and it brought him widespread recognition.  Britten enjoyed a long association with Bridge and studied composition with him privately early on.  Bridge was a well-known composer and violist in Great Britain in the first half of the twentieth century. He composed almost 200 works in most of the major genres.  At the age of eleven Britten was introduced to the works of Bridge at a concert, and was bowled over by one of Bridge’s symphonic poems.  A couple of years later a mutual acquaintance introduced Britten to Bridge, and the composition lessons began.  Later, of course, Britten studied at 

The Royal College of Music under luminaries such as John Ireland and Arthur Benjamin.  By the early 1930s his compositions were garnering national recognition, and his career flourished.

The Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge was composed in 1937 and received its première that year at the prestigious Salzburg Festival.  Worldwide acclaim soon followed.  The theme that Britten employed as the basis for his variations is taken from the second of Bridge’s Three Idylls for String Quartet, composed in 1906.  Following the introduction and statement of the theme, there follows ten variations.   Part of the charm and accessibility of the work is the specific genre, popular style, or allusive mood of each variation.  There are many kinds of musical variations, and Britten’s are so-called “character” variations. That is, the idea is not to clearly track the melody in each variation with the basic identity of the melody clearly preserved as each variation unfolds.   Rather, the composer—based on his own imagination, and the procedural challenge—extracts for each variation a specific, distinct element of the original tune as a basis.  The listener is generally not even expected to clearly hear the original tune lurking in each variation—it is a “private” inspiration for the composer alone.  The originality of the result is the point for the listener. 

The introduction opens dramatically with jagged figures and the theme, which will serve as the basic material throughout, soon follows—but, to be honest, it’s not really easy to spot.  What follows is a delightful—but decidedly “modern”—series of historical genres, dances, styles, and techniques.  Each of them a virtuoso exploration of familiar musical elements.  

The composer himself made clear the association of each of the unique variations with aspects of his mentor’s personality.  It’s a bit tedious, but to wit:  the Adagio, his integrity; the March, his energy; the Romance, his charm; the Aria Italiana [think of Rossini’s comic operas], his humor; the Bourrée [a Baroque dance], his tradition; the Wiener Waltzer [Viennese Waltz], his enthusiasm; the Moto perpetuo, his vitality; the Funeral March, his sympathy; the Chant, his reverence; the Fugue—and it’s a doozy—his skill.   The Finale wraps it up, and is meant to symbolize and embrace their warm relationship.

Throughout, Britten demonstrates his mastery of the panoply of special effects possible in writing for string orchestra.   The variety and nuance of his imaginative scoring are impressive. The fugue is especially remarkable, even to the point of scoring for up to fifteen distinct parts for the five sections at times.  While the composer may have been rather ambiguous and coy in delineating Bridge’s melody way back at the beginning in the section labeled “theme,” in the “fugue” you can hear it clearly alluded to in the four solo instruments playing it slowly over the frenetic fugue.  The dazzling fugue ends softly in stark unison.  In the ensuing “Finale” one finally hears the theme clearly and simply articulated.  It’s rather like Elgar’s famous “Enigma Variations,” where the fundamental theme is never revealed.  But, in this case, Britten lets us in on the secret at the end

Britten is almost universally acknowledged as the greatest composer of English opera since the seventeenth-century works of Henry Purcell.   The Variations of a Theme of Frank Bridge is a relatively early work, and Britten went on to write other acclaimed instrumental pieces.  Yet, it makes us wish only that he had gone on to write more of them.

Escape to Reflection Sponsors:

The Fort Collins Symphony Association is deeply grateful to our Friends of the Symphony whose support totaling $12,625 helped make it possible for us to present the “Escape to Reflection”signature concert on March 4, 2023. 

With appreciation, we acknowledge the following Friends of the Symphony donors:

Richard Alper & Kate Herrod, Karel Applebee, Kathleen Batterton, Margaret & Donald Beaver, Gary Betow & Kathy McKeown, Cornelia Bevill, Nancy Clegern, David & Alison Dennis Fund of the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, Paul & Katherine Dudzinski Fund of the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, Kay & Larry Edwards, Sandra Godfrey, Dawn & David Grapes, Susan Greer, Paul & Carol Gresky, Dianne and Jim Harper, Phyllis & Howard Hay, Faye & Wayne Irelan, Robert Heer & Mary Kolesnyk, Anne Aubrey Johnson, David, Charlene & Eleanor Jones, Emily & Doug Kemme, Mary & Paul Kopco, Barbara & Albert Leung, Robert C. Michael, Daniel & Alice Owen, Ruth Potter, John Roberts, Sharyn & Larry Salmen, Claire Schamberger & Gordon McClintock, Stephen & Carolyn Stack, Betty Stewart, Lee & Ken Thielen, Dr. Merry Wade, Margaret Webber, Elly & Paul Wiebe, and A-Young & Robert Woody.

Season Sponsors:

Arts Without End Foundation

Dr. David and Alison Dennis

Dr. Ed Siegel

Dr. Peter Springberg

Supporting Businesses:

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