The Barbary Coast Recorder Orchestra (BCRO) is a newly-formed recorder orchestra in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is an educational outreach program of Voices of Music.
BCRO met for the first time to measure community interest in the new project with director Frances Feldon. For its second rehearsal, there were four conductors: Frances Feldon, program director; Greta Haug-Hryciw, co-director; and guest conductors Glen Shannon and Hanneke van Proosdij. The feeling in the room was one of energy and excitement and the sounds were glorious! After BCRO’s next rehearsal, with the same conductors, the orchestra members will refine four pieces from the year’s repertoire for a June performance. BCRO is a “democratic” recorder orchestra in which all its invited members participate equally from soprano to bass.
BCRO’s name references historic 19th-century San Francisco, evokes a flavor of diversity, and imparts one of its objectives: to perform unconventional works for recorder orchestra, including contemporary repertoire, pop and jazz arrangements, and newly-commissioned works. The recorder orchestra also plays earlier repertoire from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque in arrangements giving voice to the unique sounds of the recorder orchestra.