An Arcadian Winds Photo Scrapbook

The current Arcadian Winds are beginning their fourteenth season, and we thought it might be interesting to look back at how it started.

"Originally a woodwind trio..." begins the group's bio. Well, in 1987 Arcadian Winds was a flute-clarinet-bassoon trio with Matthew Doherty, Bart Yates, and Janet Underhill.

Here they are in an even more embarassing photo:

After a year, clarinetist Bart Yates departed for Fall River, Massachusetts (home of Lizzie Borden...) where he still resides as a very successful clarinet teacher. Mark Miller joined the group, with little to no idea what he was getting into...

Arcadian Winds "went quintet" in 1989, because we had run out of trio repertoire we felt excited about, and we had heard there was this little wind quintet by John Harbison...

Our first oboist was George Riordan, who was then running the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. George shortly returned to his Alma Mater, Florida State University, where he serves as Assistant Dean.

Oboist Jane Harrison replaced George, and with hornist Chris Cooper, the quintet actually played enough concerts to afford cheap photos, though apparently not music stands...

In the late 80's and early 90's, we gave quite a few concerts with piano, including (of course) the Poulenc Sextet, but also the Sextet by Ludwig Thuille, the quintets of Beethoven and Mozart, and other works including piano. Pianist Gregory Slowik was practically a regular member of Arcadian Winds

Other pianists who have performed with us are Thomas Stumpf, Rebecca Plummer, Jennifer Elowsky, and Sandra Hebert.

Chris Cooper moved to San Francisco, where he was an active free-lancer for several years before becoming the horn player for the Canadian Brass. Nancy Sullivan played with us for several years, and has since joined the faculty of Northern Arizona University, where she also serves as principal horn of the Flagstaff Symphony.

At this point, we had played enough concerts to afford real pictures. Nancy was with us in the "Kronos Quartet look" days, as in this photo by Susan Wilson

Beth Allifranchini was the horn player of Arcadian Winds from 1993 to 1995. She is currently a member of the Boston Philharmonic, and still occasionally performs with Arcadian Winds. We didn't take a new group picture in that time. Beth has promised a hundred times to supply a photo, and until she does she's going to remain an anonymous blue box...

In 1995 John Aubrey joined us, though his duties as principal horn with the national touring company of the New York City Opera take him away for several months a year. This is Arcadian Winds in the modern age, another photo by (our favorite photographer) Susan Wilson: