Philadelphia Chamber Winds
Virginia Allen, conductor
Sunday, April 20 at 3 p.m.
Church of the Holy Trinity Rittenhouse Square
1904 Walnut Street, Philadelphia
www.philadelphiachamberwinds.org

PCM: The debut performance of the Philadelphia Chamber Winds is coming up on April 20th. How long has it taken you to get to this point?

Virginia Allen:  I started to think about it last summer. I moved to Philadelphia almost five years ago and I noticed that there is nothing like this, not even a community band that was right here in the city. There are many large metropolitan areas that have this and I know there are some in the suburbs. It would be my dream to have a large wind ensemble that would include more people from the community as well. I thought it would be better to start with something smaller and pick a repertoire that would be interesting for that. The Curtis Chamber Orchestra and many students play at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square, I knew that it was a good venue so I went over and talked to them and they were interested in the idea and i went forward and starting working on it.

PCM: You have assembled an amazing group of musicians for the wind ensemble. How did you find them?

Virginia:  I have Geoff Deemer who is the principle oboe in the group. He is a graduate of Curtis and I asked him to to pull the players together. I am very lucky to have this group of musicians.

PCM: Being the founder, business manager, publicity agent, conductor and arranger you seem to be wearing a lot of hats. 

Virginia: The experience I had as the conductor with the band in Atlanta, the band at West Point and the field band gave me the administrative and business management experience you mentioned. I also had the experience of being the co-conductor of the Juilliard Trombone Choir and then also the Youth Orchestra in Sun Valley. The primary experience came from my work in the United States Army.

PCM: You have a very impressive family history in the military.

Virginia: They were my dads brothers. This was the time when WWII happened. At that time everybody was going in to the military. Because of the musical training they had they chose to do military bands. My father went in right at the end of the war and actually ended up going into the Coast Guard. At the end of that enlistment he went into the Army. One of the uncles was in an army band and while he was doing that applied for West Point and ended up going to West Point from the band. They had a program at that time because of the war going on that they would get people through West Point in three years and he was one of those people.

PCM:  You were in the Army for twenty years and you were a lieutenant?

Virginia: I left after twenty years as a lieutenant colonel.  I come from a large family,  I have a sister who graduated from West Point and her husband graduated from West Point my oldest sister is married to a West Point Graduate  and my next oldest sister is married to a Naval Academy graduate. There are a lot of ties to the military in my family. 

PCM: Is it common for conductors to come out of the military?

Virginia: It depends on what they want to do. The typical track out of the military is they might go to the university or a community band. Many people don't do a professional orchestra.

PCM: Do many people go into the military for the musical education?

Virginia: What I have noticed is that we have people coming into the army as players with college degree's. Many even have their masters. The reason might be not being able to find the right perfect job. This offers a lot of benefits.

PCM: Do the musicians have to go through basic training?

Virginia: For every military ensemble , except for the marine band in Washington DC, everybody goes through basic training. For the army program Army Marines and Navy go to an armed forces school of music. They do receive some additional music training and they also receive training in military things, especially for people who come straight out of high school it gives them a chance to sharpen their music skills before their first assignment.

PCM: When you were in charge of the army bands did you feel that you had to combat peoples association of Sousa and military bands? What was your repertoire?

Virginia:  When I was with the steel band we mostly played for civilian audiences. Many times we were the only contact that some of the people had with the military. The way we put forth the positive image of the military was through our music. We might start with an overture, then bring out a vocal soloist and then do some other classical type things and then go into some entertaining pieces. I would conduct a portion of that program. When I was at West Point we did a lot of concerts for the community. Both right on the instillation we had a concert site indoors and outdoors. It was the same kind of thing were we would do classical works and popular music. 

PCM: Your father was also the band leader for the Army band in Washington DC, did you ever share a program with him?

Virginia: We did! We did one at the Jefferson Memorial then I was with him at the Washington Monument another time I guest conducted for his band when they were in Florida. The last program he conducted I was on the program with him and that was in Cleveland.