What do people say about our chamber music Workshops?
We went from four separate musicians to a more cohesive group, and along the way to relax and become friends and have fun with the music. The technical stuff is important but it's all for a purpose - to impart the joy in music.
— An adult amateur violinist after a three-week workshop

 
 
 

Upcoming Events:

 

MusicAlchemy & Aspinwall Hill Chamber Music Foundation proudly presents:

Chamber Music Relief for Haiti
A concert featuring advanced chamber music students from the studio of Gillian Rogell, a Brookline violist who has sponsored Haitian music students to come to Boston and study at New England Conservatory.

The program will feature selections from works of Beethoven, Brahms and Poulenc. Reception to follow concert.

Sunday, February 28th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
St. Paul's Church
15 St. Paul Street
Brookline, MA 02446
T: Green ‘C’ Line to St. Paul or Green ‘D’ Line to Brookline Village
Street parking available.
Suggested donation: $10.
100% of the profit to benefit Partners In Health

MusicAlchemy and the Aspinwall Hill Chamber Music Foundation (formerly The Heart of Chamber Music Institute) presents A Chamber Music Relief Concert for Haiti, featuring advanced adult chamber music students from the studio of Gillian Rogell.

Rogell first became interested in Haiti in June of 2000, when she read a Boston Globe article highlighting the Tatgrin sisters, a trio of young girls with a fierce interest in chamber music, growing up impoverished in Haiti. Ms. Rogell was especially inspired by Debora Tatgrin’s desire to travel to many countries to study music and to someday open her own music school. Through her not-for-profit organization Aspinwall Hill Foundation for Chamber Music (then called The Heart of Chamber Music Institute), Ms. Rogell raised over $6,000 to bring two of the sisters to Boston, where they attended the New England Conservatory’s Festival Youth Orchestra summer program in 2001.

The experiment was hugely successful. Ms. Rogell welcomed the girls into her Brookline home and exposed them to Boston history, food and culture. The local Haitian community embraced the girls, taking them on trips to New York and Tanglewood. Debora and Francoise Tatgrin returned to Haiti, where their school started a chamber music program.

Now a grown woman, Debora Tatgrin did not open a music school, but is studying international diplomacy. Francoise is studying law, and hopes to get her masters of International Law. She still plays violin.

When she first learned of the devastating earthquake, Ms. Rogell went on Facebook where she had been keeping in contact with the Tatgrins. Thankfully Debora and Francoise are safe, but their youngest sister Rebecca was severely injured in the earthquake. Rebecca was in class when the earthquake hit, and was one of seven children who made it out of the building alive. Like so many other families, the Tatgrin’s house in Port-Au-Prince has been destroyed in the quake.

After seeing photographs of the Tatgrin family on the sidewalks of Port-Au-Prince, and the school where Rebecca was found, Ms. Rogell knew she had to do something to help support the relief

This concert is presented in association with the Longwood Symphony’s “Symphonic Relief for Haiti” which will a hold benefit concert in Jordan Hall on January 31.

The student ensembles will perform works of Beethoven, Brahms, and Poulenc on Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 7:00pm at St. Paul’s Church in Brookline, MA. The performance will be followed by a wine and cheese reception.

Rogell’s students who will be performing in the concert include: Clara Chan, piano; Toshi Motomaya, violin; Duke Roth, viola; Cheryl Browne, violin; Calvin Yuen,violin; Scott Smith, viola; Guillermo del Angel, cello; Walter Newman, viola; Michael Cho, violin; Kitty Griffiths, cello; John Staropoli, violin; Ian Jessen, oboe; Rosalind Buda, bassoon; Linda Reinfeld, cello; Sarah Babbitt, viola; Karen Seligson, violin; Mark Engler, piano.

Tickets are available at the door for a suggested donation of $10. Proceeds will benefit the Stand With Haiti initiative of Partners In Health, the non-profit, Boston-based health care organization created in 1987 by Dr. Paul Farmer, Thomas J. White, and Todd McCormack. On the ground in Haiti for 20 years, Partners In Health (PIH) was the focus of Pulitzer Prizewinner Tracy Kidder’s bestselling book, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World.

For more information on the concert, please contact Gillian Rogell at 617-232-1135 or Gillian@MusicAlchemy.net, or visit www.MusicAlchemy.net

For more information on Partners In Health, please visit www.pih.org.