This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 10, 2012 - Recorders may not have the reputation they deserve. “Recorders are an instrument that people tend to think of as a third grade, school instrument because many people were handed a $1 plastic recorder, and they learned to play five notes on it,” says Suzanne Schoomer, one of the founding members of the now-dissolved St. Louis Recorder Society, SLURS.
The truth, though, is that the recorder is actually a family of instruments with history, an open, pleasing sound, she says, and one that’s especially fun to play with other musicians.
For the past 16 years, people in and around St. Louis have been able to do that thanks to SLURS, but with dwindling interest and no one willing to step into leadership roles, the group almost unanimously voted to dissolve this fall.
“We brought together a lot of people who have a common interest in recorders who were sort of scattered through the city,” says Dr. Bill Long, the group’s webmaster.
Other accomplishments -- they’ve sponsored workshops with internationally known musicians and formed relationships with those musicians, provided music for many events throughout the community, held concerts and sponsored scholarships.
Now, he says, there are ensembles of recorder players in St. Louis, including the Kingsbury Ensemble, Early Music St. Louis, and the Arch City Consort. That last one includes player Kathy Sherrick, administrative director of the American Recorder Society.
In her role with ARS, Sherrick says they’ve seen many other chapters around the country also dissolve, or, like one in New York, go on hiatus.
People get busy and don’t have the time to step up and lead, she says. What’s lost now that SLURS is gone is a community of passionate, musical people, she says, who had a way to reach other recorder players not already in the loop.
“Here, we’re throwing in the towel,” she says. “But we’re still playing.”
“People are still playing,” Long agrees and said the organization "actually accomplished what it was supposed to do and we all moved on.”
Where that moving on could take recorder players in St. Louis is still being decided, but could include a recorder orchestra. Sherrick plays now with a group of more than 20 musicians from around the Midwest in the Recorder Orchestra of the Midwest.
“They’ve become very popular in the larger cities around the United States,” she says.
Sherrick, who hopes to start the orchestra in St. Louis next year, would like to have between eight and 10 musicians to begin with.
“What’s different about that is I would be asking people to make a commitment,” she says, “and pay for it.”
Sherrick thinks there could be enough people in and around St. Louis to accomplish that. But what an orchestra really needs is someone who’s good with details, says Clea Galhano.
Galhano, music director of the Recorder Orchestra of the Midwest, is also the executive director of the St. Paul Conservatory of Music in St. Paul, Minn., as well as an acclaimed musician who has performed around the world. A good music director who can inspire the group is important, but the details matter, too, she says.
“I think it’s a great idea if there are people willing to deal with the structure and the details, because there are always details,” she says.
Some upcoming details, at least as far as the community at large is concerned, include a visit by Galhano with a workshop and concert Jan. 26 and 27. The workshop takes place Jan. 26, between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. at St. Matthew’s Church and the concert, with the Kingsbury Ensemble, is Jan. 27, at 2 p.m. at the Holy Family Chapel, Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet.
Schoomer thinks the recorder orchestra in St. Louis could work, and it would be fun to be part of, she says.
“It would be mostly for the benefit of the people playing it because it’s such a hoot to play in an ensemble,” she says.
With or without the orchestra, there are still opportunities to hear and play recorders in St. Louis.
“We will still continue playing,” Long says, “in classrooms, we make presentations in elementary schools, we will probably still facilitate one concert a year.”
The level of profile a chapter has is gone, he says. But the music isn’t.