Recap: Empire Wild Teaches Blues, Thrills Audience

On Sunday, April 14, Concerts by the Pond welcomed to St. John's Church the award winning Empire Wild trio for two special events during the 10th Anniversary Season. The first event was a special, hour-long improvisation workshop with about 10 local middle school, high school, and college-aged string students. This workshop is part of the, new to this season and very successful Behind the Music series.

During this workshop, Empire Wild members cellists Ken Kubota and Mitch Lyons along with pianist Ji-Yong Kim led the students through learning to play a blues scale, a simple 12-bar blues chord progression, and how to improvise within that chord progression. By the end of this fun workshop, every student had several opportunities to take "solos" with the group. The workshop ended with a lively question and answer session with the artists.

After a quick break and sound-check, the Concert Artists Guild winning and Juilliard-trained musicians gave a dazzling concert to an enthusiastic audience of concert goers. The wide-ranging program was packed full of classical pieces, jazz standards, contemporary works, and a few other surprises. A short reception complete with meet-and-greet with the artists. A special thanks goes out to our concert committee as well as all of the students and audience members who made both the workshop and concert a rousing success.

Save the Date:

If you haven't been to any of the exciting 10th Anniversary concerts - you have one more chance! Noted soprano, Mary Wilson will present an afternoon of special vocal chamber music with piano, flute and violin on Sunday, May 19 at 3 pm. The program, rescheduled from October, is packed full of beautiful and thrilling music from familiar composers Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart. There will be a small reception to follow the concert to meet the artists.

Not only will the May 19th mark the season finale of our 10th Anniversary Season, but we will also be announcing the 2024-25 concert series. Be the first to be in the know about the exciting artists and world-class music coming to our beautiful church next year!

Reserve your tickets today for this special final celebration of this banner season! Tickets