“Holiday Spectacular” 2020 Edition
Dear Friends and Members of the LA Winds Family,
The final edition of the LA Winds “Summer Sounds of Your LA Winds” series — which has obviously been extended through the fall and winter — brings to you an exciting mix of holiday favorites. But before we share with you our holiday cheer, let me thank all of those who were responsible for making this series such a success. Alicia Pizzi, Sue Winsberg, Kelly Smith, Geoff Nudell, Claudia Peterson, Ruth Beaver, Mark Markus, Paul Piazza, Jason Beaumont, Andrea Vancura, Mike Hicks, Chuck Fernandez and Brian O’Connor generously demonstrated their instruments with you and shared valuable performance and composition techniques to students and teachers in the LA Unified School District. Our videos received over 3,000 views on a variety of platforms and were shared with hundreds of LAUSD students. I would also like to thank my longtime colleague and friend Steve Woloshin for his invaluable help in co-producing this series.
Today’s edition begins with a few words of thanks to all of you for your continued support and announces two exciting new LA Winds projects.
Click here for Maestro Piazza’s holiday wishes
The first of these projects is the inauguration on January 6 of our 4WoW (4 Winds on Wednesday) live stream series. This bi-weekly event will feature performances and interviews with some of the fascinating members of the LA Winds family. Every other Wednesday at 4:00 pm you’ll be invited to attend this live stream event where you can ask questions or simply make comments to our guests and performers. You’ll be getting info on the simple link to participate in this free and exciting new LA Winds series near the end of December.
The second project involves some wonderful financial news for our LA Winds. One of our Board members has set up a matching donation program of up to $5,000 dollars—as long as you make your contribution by January 31, 2021.* For every tax-deductible* dollar you donate to the LA Winds, our Board member will donate an equal amount. Your $20 donation becomes a $40 donation, your $200 donation becomes a $400 donation, etc, etc. Simply go to our website www.lawinds.com and click on the yellow “PayPal Donation Now” button. You do not need a PayPal account.) We can take care of the rest. By the way, we already have $1,000 pledged to keep your LA Winds moving forward in these challenging times.
Our “Holiday Spectacular” continues with highlights from the LA Winds festive recording of “Nutcracker Fantasy”.
Click here for “Nutcracker Fantasy”
Next up is a special gift to all our loyal subscribers, patrons, sponsors and friends. Forty-five of our current members (and 3 LA Winds alumni) joined forces in a brilliant zoom performance of three holiday favorites — Sleigh Ride, Ma’Oz Tzur and We Need a Little Christmas. Special thanks to our very own Mike Armstrong for his outstanding work assembling, editing and producing this first-rate holiday video. And kudos to our percussion section leader, Brian O’Connor!
Click here for Zoom Holiday Gift pieces
This Zoom performance is followed by our composer in residence, co-principal bassoonist and assistant conductor, Charles Fernadez, who has put together a beautiful visual accompaniment to LA Winds alum Michael Kibbe’s “Hanukkah Joy.”
Click here for Michael’s Hanukkah piece
Finally, we close with our traditional “Merry Sing Along” as arranged by another Winds alum, Bob Joles. I’ve included some nice visuals as well as the texts, so you have no excuse to avoid a more intimate rendition of what has been – and again will be – a large-scale, spectacular holiday sing along!
Click here for A Merry Sing-Along
Happy Holidays stay safe and thanks, as always, for your continued support. We’ll see all of you again on January 6!
All the best,
Stephen P. Piazza
Artistic Director
Los Angeles Symphonic Winds
