Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Finegold.
Michael, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Essex Chamber Music Players was officially established in 2000 at Northern Essex Community College, 100 Elliott St, Haverhill, MA 01830 which is still our main venue. I had been giving flute recitals at the NECC where I was a full time music professor since 1972. Pianist David Pihl was one of our ECMP’s founding members. When I retired in 2006 the college awarded me, a “golden parachute”- free use of the venue at the college for concerts along with college publicity, graphic designing and printing of our concert programs, on our concerts we played beloved classics as well as new music compositions. Our motto became Music for the Twenty-first Century: Treasures of the Past, New Music Premieres.
In 2002, Joanne Sullivan, Executive Director of the Buttonwood Museum in downtown Haverhill, MA called the college asking if anyone from the Fine Arts Department was interested in collaborating on a multimedia program. I answer the call and that began our collaboration which led to our ECMP’s unique project of “Local Cultural History Through Music.” We began commissioning composers to write music about Haverhill’s history working with the Buttonwood Museum. Furthermore, the composers set the poems of Haverhill and Amesbury resident poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Setting poetry of local poets gradually expanded to include the famous (Merrimack) “Valley Poets” – Anne Dudley Bradstreet, and Robert Frost.
Our motto expanded to Music for the Twenty-first Century: Treasures of the Past, New Music Premieres, Preserving Local Cultural History Through Music. The Preserving Local Cultural History Through Music project led to educational visits to public schools.
We have received grants and recognition of our work. We released our first CD titled: Classical Contemporary Chamber Music for the 21st Century, Volume 1 and are about to release Volume 2 on our own label ECMP Recordings. We will be releasing a CD of music for Preserving Local Cultural History Through Music in 2018.
As for me personally, I started music lessons on the saxophone at age 9, continued with the clarinet and then flute by 13. By 14 I was playing flute with the All New York City High School Orchestra, 1st clarinet-concert master in the Symphonic Band and saxophone in the Dance Band at Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn, NY. I was a member of AFof M local 802 at 13 yrs. of age playing for weddings, dances, and shows in the Catskill Mountains. I was a Music Major at Brooklyn College, flute major and composition minor at the Yale School of Music and moved to Boston to study with Doriot Dwyer principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the New England Conservatory. I have had well-known flute teaches- Samuel Baron, James Politis, Tom Nyfenger and was a Tanglewood Fellow in Contemporary Music. I have BA, MM and MMA degrees.
I have recorded with Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovakia Radio Orchestra and Warsaw Philharmonic for MMC Recordings. I am also a composer and have written music for ECMP, the Thuringer Salon Quintette, as well as the Essex Jazz Ensemble which I play flute in.
I have been blessed with knowing a wonderful composer William Thomas McKinley since our days at the Yale School of Music. He has composed works for me to play and record as well as works for Essex Chamber Music Players. He was a best friend for 50 years, passed away in 2015. We also played jazz concerts together for years.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Our struggle over the years has been to successfully draw community interest to classical music, both old and new, and to bring in a large enough audience to support the expenses of concerts. The Haverhill community has many working class people, though, arts and cultural activities are developing rapidly in the downtown area along with building luxury apartments and condos by the beautiful Merrimack River along the boardwalk.
It is difficult to interest younger generations in listening and exploring classical music in a rock and rock shows environment. Most of our audience are seniors who can listen quietly and be totally absorbed in the music. NECC students do not attend concerts without being given an assignment. They’re used to arousing popular music being sung and danced to. Little all-instrumental music is heard in the mass media except for “electronica” and it is itself an alternative music. As a result, ECMP has had to constantly fundraise. Thankfully we have been successfully fundraising and have a regular participating audience.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Essex Chamber Music Players perform concerts in the Greater Merrimack Valley region of Massachusetts. We specialize in performing new music premieres and our project Local Cultural History Through Music. We bring the LCHTM program into the public schools. Our recordings are the new music of our commissioned composers including the music written for local cultural history. We have received grants and recognition of our work.
We released our first recording in Classical Contemporary Chamber Music for the 21st Century, Volume 1 and are about to release Volume 2. We will be releasing a CD of Preserving Local Cultural History Through Music in 2018.
We are proud to have been the first music ensemble to create the project Local Cultural History Through Music in 2002. Other music ensembles have since followed.
What were you like growing up?
Most of my early life was spent with music. My father bought me a wind-up phonograph when I was four and a recording of Dukas’ Sorcerors Apprentice. I met Neil Sedaka in the Lincoln High Dance band. We became friends. We performed Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Merlitons” for a high school assembly. He accompanied on the piano while I played the flute. I also played the saxophone on Neil’s songs for the assemblies and at school dances. We were on the TV show Teen Bandstand.
Pricing:
- Our tickets are very affordable at $15 general admission.
Contact Info:
- Address: 11 Lavender Hill Ln.
Andover MA, 01810 - Website: www.ecmp.org
- Phone: 978-273-4021
- Email: ecmp314@comcast.net
Image Credit:
Photo by David Derow
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