"Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other." P. Palmer
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
A few years ago I was doing the pre-concert lecture before the Enigma Variations program (where Elgar wrote one of the most beautiful movements in all of western music for a dear friend who had recently passed) and the more I prepared my materials and thoughts, the more I was struck by the deep relationships and sense of community we share and how special it is. People who summer in the area came up to me afterwards to talk about it, because they also have been impacted by this deep and abiding sense of community. Maybe our perspective helps us to see it freshly when we come into your world each summer, but make no mistake, this is something extraordinary and beautiful that we the musicians cherish….the relationships. From Eddy’s coffee shop to commissioning a new chamber work for friends, to house concerts, to helping musicians find babysitters for their children summer after summer, to adopting a musician/friend and bringing them into your home or the lake. The resulting friendships from our brief time together in Plymouth speak for themselves, I know of no other community or music festival anywhere who envelopes their artists the way you have so naturally for so many years. (not Aspen, Tanglewood, the Tetons, Marlboro, Sante Fe, the Proms, Lucerne, etc.)
The concert audience in Plymouth is extremely knowledgeable and among the warmest and most generous anywhere in the world. I speak on my own behalf and that of my colleagues and soloists who are struck concert after concert, year after year at the huge outpouring of love and appreciation.
You are extraordinary!
Thank you one and all for sacrificing your summer to help save this orchestra, we have been tremendously impressed and humbled by your passion and energies to this end.
" Community- a group of people with a shared commitment to making an external impact of some sort, from changing one another to changing the world." Parker Palmer
With My Greatest Appreciation and Admiration,
Mary Kay Ferguson, Piccolo since 1996 |
Musician Comments 
