Charles River
Wind Ensemble
Latest News in Summer 2022:
Free admission and plenty of free parking - sure!
But also: air conditioned auditorium!
Sunday, June 12 at 3 pm:
Live performance at 330 Hammond Pond Parkway.
Five brilliant selections of music for the modern wind ensemble.
Details on the 2022 Season page.
Program Preview
Full program notes are on the 2022 Season Page.
Out of the Depths - Adolphus Hailstork (published 1977) - A great arc, from silence to silence.
Haywire - Katahj Copley (2018) - clever, fast-paced, and fun-filled.
Nebula - Wataru Hokoyama (2006) - the mystery of space, the grandeur of the cosmos; perhaps within each of us?
(Intermission)
Stillwater - Kelijah Dunton (2019) - beauty, serenity, transparency.
Memorias de un hombre de ciudad - Luis Serrano Alarcón (2005) - cinematic view of men and machines. Dreams of better times, but the day in the city seems to repeat.
Sunday, March 13 at 3 pm:
Our first public performance since December 2019.
See what you missed on the 2022 Season page.
See composer Kevin Krumenauer’s live recording of the World Premiere of “The Mountain, the River, and the Sea.”
Solo clarinet: Matthew Marsit, CRWE Artistic Director.
Ensemble conducted by Sebastian Boniauto, CRWE Assistant Director.
CRWE and the Pandemic
(for details please visit our “CRWE and the Pandemic” page)
By March 2020 we had prepared the third concert of the 2019-2020 season. Our final regular rehearsal was to have been Tuesday evening, March 10, with the dress rehearsal the following Saturday and the concert on Sunday, March 15. Sadly, these all had to be cancelled.
We kept in touch over the Spring and Summer through a few video conferences. In the Fall, we began our first digital collaboration - the process in which each player records his or her own part (audio and video) and then the parts are merged together to create a virtual performance. The first such performance was in November 2020.
In early 2021 we began more ambitious project: to record Vicente Ortiz Gimeno’s major composition “Poirot” for wind ensemble. We invited area musicians to join in the project, creating a virtual ensemble of 85 players. The resulting video must be one of the best of the genre, both in musical quality and sophisticated video presentation.
Finally, in November 2021 we came together in two groups, the brass and the woodwinds, rehearsing on different evenings and in a large space allowing good distancing. On December 14, 2021, we recorded a concert performance - three pieces by the woodwinds and four by the brass - but with no audience present in the concert hall. That video is also now published.
Now it’s 2022 and we are ready to continue presenting the finest wind ensemble literature, free of charge as always, to our audience.
Our programs are supported in part by a grant from the Lexington Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Review our earlier programs:
The (partial) 2019 - 2020 Season
The 2018 - 2019 Season
The 2017 - 2018 Season
Earlier Programs
CRWE
Boston’s Premier Community Wind Ensemble
The Charles River Wind Ensemble (CRWE) is the premiere community wind ensemble of the Greater Boston metropolitan area dedicated to the performance of classical and contemporary repertoire originally conceived for winds and percussion. Our members are chosen through selective audition and represent a wide-variety of professions, backgrounds and ages.