It all started nine years ago, Silas Huff explained. The professionally trained musician and Texas native had just moved to Astoria after a year and a half in Berlin, in part because, he said, “it reminded me of Europe.”
“I got off the N Train, and there were all these sidewalk cafes and everyone was speaking a different language,” he explained. For Huff, there was just one downside to the neighborhood: “There wasn’t much of a classical music scene.”
Huff, who earned a master’s degree in music composition from the University of California in Los Angeles but found his true calling as a conductor, was then teaching music at a private school in Manhattan. He began forming a network of musicians in Astoria, which led to the founding of the Astoria Music Society.
What started as a group of volunteer musicians staging small, informal concerts has since grown into a full-blown, paid symphony orchestra with regular programming. A choir and the Lost Dog New Music Ensemble are also part of AMS.
Midway through its ninth season, the group is ringing in the new year this February and March with three new shows: “The English Baroque,” a smaller affair featuring two Astoria Symphony regulars; “New York Pastoral,” which Huff described as “a crazy good program” put on by the symphony orchestra; and “Shakespeare and Song,” an afternoon featuring choral music inspired by the Bard.
Claire Smith, the Astoria Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster, said “The English Baroque” is further evidence of AMS’s expansion.
“They have a major orchestra, they’ve got the choir, they have the contemporary music ensemble,” she said of the organization, “[and] now they’re going to have an early music program.”
Smith and fellow orchestra member Marina Fragoulis, principal second violin, put the show together based on a mutual love of historical music.
They will perform the program, featuring 17th- and 18th-century works by composers with ties to England, on Feb. 9 at the Waltz-Astoria Cafe in Queens and on Feb. 11 at the Tenri Cultural Institute in Manhattan. Cellist Anneke Schaul-Yoder and harpsichordist Aya Hamada will join them.
Smith said she and Fragoulis want to “recreate these historical sounds that came from centuries ago.” To that end, the will play historical violins with with real gut strings and differently shaped bows.
Both musicians have performed in the Astoria Symphony Orchestra for several years.
For Fragoulis, being a part of the orchestra has helped “develop relationships with people,” she said. “You become like a big family.
The Astoria Music Society represents the fruition of a goal Huff set for himself while studying conducting in Germany.
“They’re so musical there, they really value music in society,” Huff said, recalling that he told himself:
“‘When I get back to America and start my career as a conductor, I’m going to make music this important.”
‘The English Baroque’
When: Feb. 9 at 8 p.m.
Where: Waltz-Astoria Cafe, 23-14 Ditmars Blvd., Astoria
Tickets: Free
(917) 300-8695
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