Greetings everyone and welcome to our 6th season together! It is a year that will include performances of a famous cello concerto, a famous holiday narrative, a famous Russian symphony and famous songs by a celebrated Connecticut composer. I guess you could call this our "famous season." There are other new things as well, such as a new venue for this year's Classical Concert at Kingswood-Oxford School's Roberts' Theatre, along with a new collaboration with another West Hartford performing organization.

Our Autumn Concert in October will bring back to town Mary Alice McCann, a wonderful cellist and locally known as a former West Hartford music teacher and director of the the town's award-winning "I Giovani Solisti" string group. She will be joining the orchestra to perform the lovely Saint-Saens Cello Concerto #1 in A minor. That concert will also include Schubert's famous Symphony #8, the "Unfinished," as well as the popular Slavonic Dances of Dvorak and the heroic "Crown Imperial" march of Sir William Walton.

Our annual Holiday Concert will feature soprano Carrie Kirby, music director of the ever-growing West Hartford Women's Chorale. In addidition, the orchestra will be performing a modern setting of "The Night Before Christmas" by composer Randol Bass, a piece which will also call forth our popular local narrator from last season's opera concert, Michael Dunne.

In March we have have something entirely different. It is so different, it will even be held at the different venue of Kingswood-Oxford School. The concert will feature the West Hartford Women's Chorale performing Ralph Vaughan Williams' Magnificat as well as opera chouses by Verdi and Tchaikovsky. On the first half of the program will be the beautiful Symphony #1 by Russian composer Vassili Kalinnikov.

Our May Pops concert will have everything you might expect in it - an overture, a march, music from Broadway, and will pay tribute to our home-grown Connecticut composer Leroy Anderson. The centennial of his birth is being celebrated nationally and the orchestra will perform some of his famous works as well as some wonderful lesser-known gems - including music from the only musical he ever wrote, "Goldilocks."

I am very proud of our young orchestra and the growth we have experienced in our short time together. It has been a joy for me to see this come to life and take shape. I would like to thank all our audience members for your support and contributions, the wonderful members of our Board of Directors, our volunteers, and the Department of Fine and Performing Arts of West Hartford. The support from our local businesses and the Town of West Hartford itself has been outstanding and, as a direct result of all your efforts, I look forward to our next five years together!

With much appreciation,

Richard ChiarappaWelcome to our "Birthday Celebration" as we begin our 5th season together. This banner year will combine some things old and some things new. We are beginning with something entirely new - a different performance venue than our normal Town Hall. To begin the party, the orchestra is combining forces with a 150 voice chorus made up of students from our local high schools - Conard, Hall, Kingswood-Oxford and Northwest Catholic. In addition, the featured performer on the program will be first-time guest and pianist, Gregg Kallor, a graduate of Hall High, who will perform George Gershwin's beautiful "Rhapsody in Blue."

Our annual holiday concert, back at Town Hall, will be somewhat retrospective in that it will be a "voice from the past," but in a featured role. Some of you may remember a tuxedoed young man who strode to the stage as a guest singer to join then featured performer Sara Chase in a duet at our 2004 Pops concert - a duet which elicited an immediate standing ovation. That young man is David Baker. 

I have been hinting at a unique concert for several years now and the time has finally arrived. Our March concert will be "An Afternoon at the Opera." Our featured performers are two of our most popular soloists from previous years, soprano, Louise Fauteux and tenor, Kenneth Shelley. Their arias and duets will be surrounded by opera overtures, intermezzos and preludes.

The May Pops concert will have everything you might expect in it - an overture, a march, some music from the movies, some from Broadway, and some from Tin Pan Alley. It will also include the Boston Pops closing number, John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."

I am very aware that the WHSO has reached this milestone through all of the support and contributions given by our Board of Directors, our volunteers, our audience members, the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, local businesses and the Town of West Hartford. I thank you for all that you have done to help get us through our "formative years" and I look forward to our next five years together!

With much appreciation,

Richard Chiarappa