Week of December 16, 2019
Dear Friend,
Last Saturday we enjoyed our last concert of 2019, and we have a bit of time before our next set of concerts, when the Gryphon Trio from Toronto performs all of the Beethoven Trios over the weekend of January 24-26, kicking off our celebration of the composer's 250th birthday anniversary year.
That provides an opportunity to give you a "peek behind the scenes" for the next few weekly updates, with information about the people and processes that make our concerts happen. There is no better place to start than to introduce you to our wonderful Vice President, Willa Walker.
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Of course many of you already know Willa as a fixture in our office and at our concerts for nearly 16 years, and a few of you may know her from her work with the Detroit Symphony and other Michigan organizations in the years before she joined the CMSD.
But perhaps you didn't know that, in her interactions with artists and their managers, Willa Walker is the professional face of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit to the national music field. Simply put, before any artist or ensemble crosses the threshold onto the CMSD stage, they cross Willa's desk first!
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Willa (Rouder) Walker is a native New Yorker and lifelong musician (flute and piano). She studied at New York's prestigious Music & Arts High School, followed by a Bachelor's degree in music (Magna Cum Lauda, Phi Beta Kappa) from New York University. Subsequent doctoral work at Brandeis University led to a Research Fellowship in the Smithsonian Institution's Division of Performing Arts. Her work there on the early jazz piano great James P. Johnson led to an invitation to join the team writing liner notes for the Time-Life
Giants of Jazz
Series.
And
that
led to a nomination in 1981 for a Grammy Award!
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About the same time the Time-Life jazz series was going to press, Willa was tapped by Carnegie Hall, first as a Publicity Assistant, then as Director of Carnegie's International American Music Competition, and finally as Assistant to the Artistic Director, responsible both for a large portfolio of programs in Weill Recital Hall (60+ per year)
and
Carnegie Hall's extensive outreach programs all across New York City.
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After Carnegie Hall, Willa moved west, serving as Orchestra Manager at the Buffalo (NY) Philharonic, where she was responsible both for orchestra operations (concert scheduling, production and touring) and the administration of artistic planning (soloists, repertoire, etc.). Her success in that position brought Willa to the attention of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, which actively recruited her to come to Michigan as the DSO's Artistic Administrator.
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What does an "Artistic Administrator" do? Well, at the Detroit Symphony, Willa was the hub around which the orchestra’s year-round concert planning revolved; she booked artists, negotiated and administered artist and staff conductor contracts; she worked with orchestra’s music director and managing director to select soloists and guest conductors for DSO concerts; she served as onstage host for Pre-Concert Conversations with artists, and helped manage media projects, including recordings, radio broadcasts and TV projects. For nearly ten years at the DSO, if you heard it, Willa Walker probably planned and implemented it.
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And
that
is what makes it all the more remarkable that we have Willa Walker now at the Chamber Music Society of Detroit!
You see, while Willa was at the DSO, she met, married and started a family with Andy Walker, a successful attorney practicing patent, copyright and trademark law anchored in Metro Detroit, which made it impractical to think about moving to yet another state after Willa's time at the DSO was finished. Instead, after the DSO, a whole host of organizations became the happy recipients of Willa's expertise in things like strategic planning, event and project management and grant writing: ArtServe Michigan, the Detroit Zoo, the Warren Symphony, even the City of Detroit's Department of Cultural Affairs.
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Then, in 2004, the CMSD got
really
lucky when its third president Lois Beznos tapped Willa to manage the organization's international piano trio award, created to honor the 25th anniversary of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.
While the trio award ultimately was unable to continue, the opportunity initiated Willa Walker's long and distinguished association with the CMSD, where she has exercised in this organization the same high level of artistic professionalism that one normally would associate with far larger organizations like symphony orchestras or major concert halls.
That should come as no surprise, of course, because she did it there first!
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Behind the scenes, Willa Walker has had an
immeasurable
impact upon the CMSD's stellar reputation among our superb visitng artists, their managers, and our peer arts organizations worldwide. Across our field, Willa is trusted and respected as one of the true experts in live concert music production, and that makes our organization look
great
- day after day and year after year.
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These days, Willa is focusing her time on the CMSD's Signature Series (planning and support), while helping her younger CMSD colleagues learn the "artistic administrator" ropes on our other projects across Metro Detroit. She works about half time now, often from her home office, and is also enjoying her new role as grandmother.
But the next time you see her at a concert, or happen to catch her on the phone, please join all of us in thanking Willa for the
gift
of making the Chamber Music Society of Detroit such an important part of her distinguished professional career.
We are deeply,
deeply
fortunate to have her with us!
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All of us at the Chamber Music Society hope you will be able to join us often at concerts in the coming year, and invite you to bring friends and family with you. With that in mind, we have created a special opportunity now through December 31 to purchase single tickets to any of our upcoming concerts at a special "giving season" discount of 40%. Just use the code: "
giftofmusic
" !
Here's a list of all the concerts:
We’ll see you there!
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Steve Wogaman, President
Chamber Music Society of Detroit
Tickets: 313-335-3300 or
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