A Big Thank You from Westben!
Thanks for all the wonderful comments on the new Westben blog. Every comment is appreciated and welcome! Brian and I just spent two weeks at a family cottage and had time to mull over the season. We have many fun memories of the varied performances. What a thrill it is for Westben to welcome so many talented and varied artists to the Barn and introduce them to our beautiful Trent Hills community! The artists seem to love performing in The Barn and the experience of making music in the midst of nature. Mike Siracusa during his performance of Portuguese Fado event stopped to comment on the beautiful fields and birds. Artists often comment on the intimacy they feel with the audience. They can see the smiles (or puzzlement!)on faces and feel the response immediately. Often in larger halls all one sees are white lights!
As usual there was never a dull moment behind the scenes, a few last minute programming changes, traffic holding up the performers, patient caterers waiting to serve Abendbrot, costumes ripping with 30 seconds to go, just the usual things! Luckily Westben's great staff including Teresa, Cathy, April, Andrew, and James as well as Marilyn and her many volunteers, were there to help make things smooth sailing.
As we all know, Augustin Dumay had to unfortunately had to cancel all of his North American performances this summer. Louis Lortie then offered to bring his world premiere Death in Venice visual concert with film maker Mathieu Roy. We received several emails about the concert most positive and a couple who found it challenging. Louis' next stop was Orford, Quebec and then to Ottawa where he received rave reviews. I hope Westben will always offer a variety of concerts some traditional and some not. However, it is my job as Marketing Director to make sure that the audience is aware of what they are buying a ticket for and I apologize if this has not always been clear. Part of the Westben experience is that Pocket of Joy, a little surprise of something extra. However, we hope the surprises are fun! Westben is a dream for sure and it takes many hands to make it happen. Members, sponsors, granting bodies, ticket buyers and volunteers all help to make this music and memory making possible. Big thanks ofcourse to our Artistic Director, Brian Finley for doing such a great job and continually being cheery.
Thanks again for blogging and sharing the fun - keep it coming!
(Just a note that all the orange t-shirts sold and Brian couldn't be happier).
nice design! and great news
Posted on June 9, 2010 at 4:19am – Author: fetebooxoxy