The San Francisco Early Music Society held its annual membership meeting at Berkeley’s Musical Offering café and record store this past Wednesday evening, November 4. Following some pleasant socializing, lubricated with excellent wines and other refreshments donated by Board members, the meeting got underway with president Robert Cole’s State of the Society report.
(Wendy Edelstein photo)
Robert began by marking the recent passage of our 40th anniversary and discussing its meaning for the history of early music, not only in the Bay Area but around the country and beyond. Noting the many contributions SFEMS has made to the development of nationally prominent institutions, such as Philharmonia, Chanticleer, Magnificat, and others which started as SFEMS Affiliates, as well as through the support and educational value our concert series and workshops provide, he stressed that the emergence of this community of modest size as a major world center for historical performance has been no accident. Robert attributed it squarely to the involvement and support of a vigorous grass-roots community, whose development and recruitment has been both the source of SFEMS’s strength and our most enduring contribution. SFEMS was founded and continues to be run by a mixture of professional musicians and community enthusiasts. Most of the other great centers of early music, he noted, are dominated by presenter organizations that operate in a top-down way that limits community involvement. Even a great center like Utrecht, he said, presents its performances in a huge hall. If you want to experience early music with the intimacy it deserves and needs to be fully appreciated, there is no better place in the world to do so than right here.
Reviewing the past year, SFEMS presented 24 concert performances—18 on our main series, plus six more on our monthly Affiliates series at the California Jazz Conservatory. We had five very successful summer workshops, and we currently have 32 Affiliate groups, including everything from distinguished chamber ensembles such as Musica Pacifica and the New Esterházy Quartet to educational and recreational organizations like the Junior Recorder Society. We did all of this with three part-time staff and the help of many supportive volunteers. Our annual budget, last year under $450,000, was 60% funded by earned revenues. While this is an improvement over previous years, we still need to increase our percentage of donated revenues. But what we most need to do, said Robert, is to make people aware of what a unique and valuable thing we have to share with the world.
Planning for next June’s Berkeley Festival and Exhibition is well underway, and Robert announced that musical commemoration of the 400th-anniversary year of Shakespeare’s death, which begins this month with our performances by the Baltimore Consort, will continue into the Festival, where two of Main Stage acts will do programs related to the Bard. Stay tuned for details.
Robert also announced two new staff appointments. Georgeanne Banker will take over as the Society’s Administrator, replacing Katie Hagen, who resigned in September. Georgeanne has an impressive background in the nonprofit world, having worked administering and developing programs for Opera da Camera in Montreal, the San Francisco Conservatory, San Francisco Symphony Adventures in Music Program, and most recently as Development and Events Manager and Race for the Cure Director for the Susan G. Komen San Francisco Bay Area Affiliate. She has a Bachelor of Music in Bassoon Performance from McGill University and a Masters from the San Francisco Conservatory.
We also welcome (back) Heather Irons, who will be our new Patron Services and Box Office Manager. She replaces Nicola Gruen, who recently resigned to devote more time to her professional career as a violinist. Heather is a former resident of the Bay Area, who is returning after living in Colorado for some years. And she is a longtime friend of SFEMS, who attended our summer workshops when they were over at Dominican College (now University) in San Rafael.
Executive Director Harvey Malloy followed up Robert Cole’s theme about the importance of our Affiliate organizations and reported that SFEMS has just received a grant from the California Arts Council to underwrite two special programs, and these grants will be awarded to two of our Affiliate groups. Details of the application process will be posted soon.
The members present elected the new Board for 2015–16: Adam Bier, Sally Blaker, Elizabeth Bonney, Lisa Capaldini, Robert Cole, Marie Collins, Juliette Faraco, Violet Grgich, Gloria Eive, Joyce Johnson Hamilton, Katherine Heater, John Phillips, Steven Rood, Bill Stewart, Tobi Szuts, and Kent Young. Officers, reelected at the first Board meeting, immediately following the Annual meeting, are President Robert Cole, Vice-President Joyce Johnson Hamilton, Secretary Sally Blaker, and Treasurer Katherine Heater.
If you would like to become more involved with SFEMS, there are many ways, and we value your participation. If you have ideas or concerns about improving the organization or our programs, please contact any of these board members or officers via [email protected] or at 510-528-1725.
