“We’ve been working on this a long time,” villager Kathryn Hitchcock said of the upcoming 23rd annual Classical Mandolin Society of America Convention in Dayton starting tomorrow (Oct. 28) and running through the weekend.
She and four other Yellow Springers, husband Michael Hitchcock, Yvonne Wingard, Mike Ruddell and David Nibert, are members of the 18 piece Dayton Mandolin Orchestra (DMO), which is hosting the event. Wingard was one of the founders of the group that started in 2004. Michael Hitchcock, who has been playing mandolin for over 40 years, joined shortly thereafter. Kathryn was also involved early on, but not as a playing member. She helped out administratively.
Kathryn didn’t play the mandolin, or any other instrument, for that matter. Even though she had enjoyed listening to her husband play with such groups as the Hot Mud Family, and sang to his accompaniment at church events and such, she had no urge to take up the instrument, herself. Until she heard the mandolin in an orchestra setting, that is. After about a year of listening to the mandolin performed in the richness of a full mandolin orchestra, she got the bug. As a singer, she had learned to read music. I can do that, she thought. So she started taking lessons from another orchestra member, Dottie Palsgrove, who villagers might know from the group Heartstrings.
“Dottie is a very good teacher,” Hitchcock said in a recent interview. “It was only about a year before I was playing in the orchestra.”
Hitchcock played in the DMO’s first concert at the First Presbyterian Church in Yellow Springs two years ago. This weekend she will get the chance to play in an “en masse orchestra of very accomplished players,” she said speaking of the group of over 130 mandolin and guitar players that will come together for a joint concert.
A schedule of 17 workshops running from Wednesday through Saturday for mandolin and guitar players of all levels includes such classes as: Sight Reading; Technique program for classical mandolin, with historical background; Articulation on Classical Guitar; Mandolin set-up and easy repairs you can do; and many more. For the complete schedule, email Hitchcock at kathryn@woh.rr.com.
“90 people attended our concert in Yellow Springs,” Hitchcock said. “If they like what they heard, I hope they come to the concerts and workshops. This won’t happen again for a long time.
For more information, go to DaytonMandolin.net.
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