As we approach the end of our 30th Anniversary year, I would like to send special thanks to those who have supported WCM through the years. The Conservatory has thrived through help from music-lovers who believe in our musical mission. With appreciation, this letter contains a brief overview of our milestone year, an invitation to attend our 2015 Honors Recital this weekend, and a request.
The measure of success of any music school is best found in its students -- in the new-found confidence of young performers, adults with a rekindled or new relationship with music, squeals of delight in Early Childhood Music classes, or high school seniors well-prepared to begin their next chapter. Through countless personal stories, WCM achieves life-changing successes.
I would like to invite you to hear a great illustration of how WCM is helping to nurture the next generation. Please join me for the 2015 WCM Student Honors Recital this Saturday, May 30 at 7 pm in Westmoreland Church sanctuary, 1 Westmoreland Circle, Bethesda, MD. The concert features eight students, ages eight to eighteen, chosen through audition. I promise a very inspiring experience!
Two highlights of this year were special events made possible by support from a WCM Board member, in loving memory of a family member: an elegant evening at the residence of the Ambassador of Colombia, featuring the classical tango ensemble, QuinTango and a packed-house concert by renowned Irish pianist, John O'Conor, which garnered a rave Washington Post review with the headline, "Irish pianist John O'Conor continues to show he's a master of Beethoven."
Montgomery County, the MOCO Arts and Humanities Council, and two private companies chose WCM for special project support in 2014-15. Power2Give selected WCM as recipient of an online 50% matching grant, allowing us to purchase one of three new Baldwin grand pianos acquired this year for our Westmoreland Circle site. Through a County matching grant, and generous in-kind donations from Wnuk Spurlock Architecture and Monarch Construction, three new acoustic movable partitions were installed to create multiple classroom options in the existing recital room at our Glen Echo Park site.
WCM is known for our exceptional faculty roster. New faculty members in 2014-15 are Ko Sugiyama, Assistant Concertmaster of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and Washington National Opera Orchestra, and award-winning Lithuanian pianist Edvinas Minkstimas. Both faculty members will be featured, along with WCM cello faculty member Danielle Cho, in a trio concert as part of next season's WCM Piano Plus! Concert series.
Other highlights of the year included a master class with Astral Artist violist Born Lau, outreach performances by an adult student ensemble, a holiday sing-along with folk guitar students and teacher, Mike Kligerman, and a tango workshop
and two open rehearsals with WCM artists-in-residence, QuinTango, plus new Washington Conservatory at PianoCraft concerts. Ongoing adult amateur orchestra rehearsals were held weekly, regular monthly student recitals and our PianoPlus! concert series were presented, while daily teaching of individual lessons - the cornerstone of the Conservatory - continued seven days a week. Now, as the academic year winds down, we are gearing up for a summer of week-long music camps at Glen Echo Park.
