LIFEST Y LES AN ADVERTISING SECTION OF EVERGREEN NEWSPAPERS | VOL. 14 ISSUE 2 • FEBRUARY 2022
Rise from the Ashes
The Evergreen Chamber Orchestra 2021-2022 Season By Kristin Witt Special to Lifestyles
When COVID effectively shut the world down in 2020 one of the industries most affected was that of live music performance, and none more than the Evergreen Chamber Orchestra. Now in their 40th Season, the Evergreen Chamber Orchestra (ECO) has filled concert venues and open air arenas with the compelling masterworks of centuries, without interruption until their 2020 season, when everything came to a halt. Forced to confine performances to remote events they spent a year in solitude, which proved to be difficult and productive at the same time. Missing regular rehearsals and performances with their musical cohorts was a hardship for the orchestra members, but they were determined to make the best of the situation. They did what they could to make the music available to their many devoted followers through online concerts and musical discussions led by Orchestra Director, Bill Hill. Bill Hill, who found his work with the Colorado
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OF THE MONTH Symphony Orchestra also curtailed said it felt a little like being in prison, cut off from his extended family, however, there was a glimmer of a silver lining. Bill says that he wrote more music and produced more musical recordings with his own family than he ever has before, making the time in confinement, though not ideal, also not without merit. Determined to find a way to gather again, the ECO Board of Directors, put into practice the most stringent of safety restrictions, requiring proof of vaccination and masks at every rehearsal and performance, and limiting the number of attendees at concerts by about half. In July of 2021 the orchestra met for two impromptu sessions, finding their way together through unrehearsed music, relishing the joy of rediscovered melodies and that indefinable nuance that rises from the efforts of talented musicians, shoulder to shoulder in one beauti-
fully defined space. “Those rehearsals were a lot of fun,” Bill Hill explains, “and there was something healing about making the music, just being together and doing what we love best.” In the fall of 2021, the orchestra opened their doors to live performance again to sold-out limited audiences and it has been somewhat of a homecoming for all of them. “Music of this caliber is meant to be enjoyed live,” Bill says, “where the audience becomes a part of the presentation. It is a great feeling to do what we are meant to do.” The early spring concert, scheduled for April 2nd and 3rd in Denver and Evergreen respectively, will feature a composition by professional composer Cindi Hsu, entitled Prayer for the Living, an Expression of Hope after COVID. Also performing in this concert will be Jocelynn King, winner of the Student Solo Competition for 2020. She will play the enthralling Camille SaintSaëns Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 22 in G Minor. The Orchestra is thrilled to highlight this gifted, young
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