Designing the season’s programs

How does a concert season come together? A “season” for performing arts organizations is a lot like a school year — it starts September-ish and ends June-ish. Our season planning typically starts in the spring, when our music director proposes a...

Bowing string parts

My usual “hat” in the orchestra is the job of concertmaster. The concertmaster is the symbolic leader of the orchestra’s musicians, and the practical musician-leader of the orchestra’s string sections (first violins, second violins, violas,...

A season in the life of a community orchestra

This is the Montgomery Philharmonic’s sixteenth season — its sixteenth year of existence as an adult all-volunteer community orchestra. It’s a somewhat unusual season, as we’re in the second year of a global pandemic, and musical activities are...

Preparing our sixteenth season

Like most performing arts organizations, the Montgomery Philharmonic had to cut short its 2019-2020 season, which ended with our February 2020 concert. While we did run our educational outreach program — the Youth Leadership and Chamber Music Festival — in...

Welcome

Welcome to the Montgomery Philharmonic’s blog. In this blog, we’ll be bringing the journey of a community orchestra to life with behind-the-scenes tales of how we organize, prepare for, and perform concerts, as well as other outreach activities in our...