The 207 Wind Orchestra had its inaugural concert in January of 2015. A few months before, music director Timothy Burns was sitting at home, and decided to send out some emails asking for volunteers to play a concert. The response was an overwhelming “yes” and thus 207 Wind Orchestra was born.
Twice a year – until Tim moved to Western Mass – Tim reached out to area musicians and asked if they’d like to volunteer their time. Since the instrumentation for pieces differed widely, each concert required different numbers of players, the makeup changed from concert to concert. Some pieces required as few as 9 players, while others utilized over 50!
The 207 Wind Orchestra playd music of all levels, but especially sought to play those pieces that are often not played by community bands for various reasons. Many terrific works are not performed regularly because rare instruments, like contrabassoon, English horn, and bass saxophone are required, while other works might be too modern or demand more of the musician than a typical community band work might. One goal the ensemble has is to play every part written by a composer – even if that means finding 20 contralto kazoos.
Staff photo by Jill Brady