“Long Island has a new professional symphony orchestra,” writes Steve Parks in Tuesday’s (9/27) Newsday (New York). “Chamber Players International announced that it is forming the Long Island Concert Orchestra in collaboration with David Stewart Wiley, the former music director and conductor of the [Long Island] Philharmonic [which disbanded in February]. ‘We believe that Long Island deserves its own classical music orchestra,’ says David Winkler, director of the chamber ensemble, which itself is a descendant of another defunct Long Island classical music institution—the Sea Cliff Chamber Players. Wiley [who also] serves as music director of the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, [says] that he expects it will be ‘spring or summer before we have our first full-scale concerts.’ … The mission includes educational outreach to Long Island school districts…. In addition, Islip Arts Council director Lynda Moran, who had already secured grants to pay for the council’s annual free Heckscher State Park concert in July, asked Wiley to reassemble his former Philharmonic musicians for the event.… The Huntington Arts Council did the same for the annual Summer Arts Festival concert in August.”
Posted September 27, 2016
