Thank Goodness for Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival volunteers, community businesses and restaurants, and patrons! Thank goodness for all who:

Come at dawn or stay until very late. Prepare and serve snacks and lunches and dinners, pour and plate. Launder four million linen napkins and two million clothes and then press them all. Concoct lemonade and sparkling punch balancing that huge ungainly punch bowl on a rolling cart. Purchase tickets and exclaim bravos for the incredible performances. Tally and re-tally, stock merchandise and restock all with equanimity.

House and TLC our guests and special visiting seasonal staff. Love and share flowers from your gardens and arrange them to perfection. Film and photograph and record the moments of exceptional music and people.

Make our Festival Office garden a haven for all of us year-round. Open your homes for grand parties and celebrations and hosting artists. Memorize phrases from wine notes and speak as though you know what woody wine tastes like. Pass trays of hors d’oeuvres and even know what the ingredients are and for the chefs who create the delicacies.

Arrange tables and chairs many times over. Move and stack and sort boxes from there to wherever and back never asking why. Stand ready with trucks and hand trucks. Remember which is the odd and which is the even side of the concert hall. Dust and polish pianos and music stands and chairs. Wear black over and over and over. And then wear concert black again.

Attend meetings and meetings and meetings and share your calendars. Add and subtract and compare and contrast and predict. Turn worries into plans of action. Recruit and introduce and care for our music education teachers and lecturers. Make cookies and bring fresh fruit days in a row. Are ready with many daily kind words and gestures of encouragement. Decide that chamber music and music education on Orcas Island a priority in your life.

Thank goodness for each one of you. The Chamber Music Festival thrives with your caring attention, gifts of time and resources.

Victoria Parker

Joyce Stone

Laura Gibbons

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival