This season has been quite a year for new coaches, and our four new coaches are packed into the first half of 2017. Laura Jones, a cellist and viola da gambist with such groups as the Windermere String Quartet, Hamilton Philharmonic, Nota Bene Baroque Players, and the Talisker Players, led our January workshop. Peter Christensen, a sackbut player with La Rose des Vents, drove in from Montreal in March to present pieces from the Lerma DK1 manuscript arranged by Douglas Kirk, who we also had as a TEMPO coach in 1991. Our frequent coach, Matthias Maute, could not do a workshop for us that he had planned for April, so he offered a substitute in the form of his former student at McGill University, Alexa Raine-Wright. Alexa plays baroque flute and recorder with such groups as Infusion Baroque and Flûte Alors! She has had more than ten years’ experience teaching private students, masterclasses, and workshops. Caroline Tremblay is also coming from Quebec to lead our May workshop. Caroline becomes the final member of the Flûte Alors! quartet to have coached a TEMPO workshop, the others being MarieLaurence Primeau, Vincent Lauzer, and, of course, Alexa.

This season has also been quite a slap in the face for the crises that I have had to deal with. It was bad enough that we had to start the season with a temporary replacement venue, but now we have had to end the season with a temporary replacement location for the TEMPO Fundraising Tea. For a while, it looked like we might have had to scrap the Tea this year, which would have been a shame since the Tea also acts as a significant community outreach event. On February 28th, an opening suddenly came up at Northern District Library, just north of Yonge and Eglinton, and we have booked this venue for Sunday, June 4th . In 2008, TEMPO held a Tea at this location and it worked very well for us. The Northern District Library has since renovated its facility. My thanks go to everyone who suggested alternate venues for the Tea. I have updated my list of potential venues with these suggestions for future crises.

A project I have been working on is a bequest of books from the estate of Geoffrey Gaherty. Geoff had joined TEMPO in its very first 1984/1985 season and was active in it throughout the 1990’s. The collection of some 400 books was stored in his large Mediterranean-style house in Coldwater, which was so large that it had contained an astronomical observatory at one time (Geoff was an accomplished amateur astronomer and member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada). Many of these books are university-quality texts and they were bequeathed to the University of Toronto, which is currently evaluating the books for their collections. Any books remaining will appear for sale at the TEMPO Tea. So please start planning now to do a performance at the Tea, and think about items to donate for sale at the Tea!

Frank Nevelo, President.