Since 2007, the Philadelphia-based period instrument ensemble Piffaro has hosted recorder festivals, featuring a competition for some the nation’s most accomplished middle and high school players, and showcasing budding young recorder enthusiasts at the elementary school level. This year, due to COVID, Piffaro has transported the Recorder Fest online. The free community event will take place on Sunday, April 18 at 7:00PM EST on Zoom. For more information and to register visit http://bit.ly/PiffaFest or call 215-235-8469.
Festival participants have selected musical numbers as varied as their personalities. Alexa Raine-Wright, the winner of Piffaro’s very first Recorder Competition, will perform Telemann’s Fantasia, while the most recent winner of the competition, Teresa Deskur, will give a nod to Piffaro’s hometown with Pete Rose’s I’d Rather be in Philadelphia. 2020’s finalists – Alexis Van Tassel, Marc Albrechtskirchinger, and Sridhar Shenoy – will perform selections by Vivaldi, Corelli, and Peter Carpa.
Attendees, particularly young recorder students, are encouraged to ask questions of past competition winners. Ms. Raine-Wright, a founding member of Infusion Baroque, winner of the Grand Prize and Audience Prize at the 2014 Early Music America Baroque Performance Competition in Chicago, enjoys a busy career as a Baroque musician. Ms. Deskur, now a student at Peabody Conservatory, co-hosts the Fanfare Youth Recorder Club.
