BBF25 Wrap-up; BB Hallam Season 2025 - 2026 Announcement

Rising Star Tinashe McGowan on July 27, 2025 - Tinashe is the first Rising Star to come from our own Music Residency program in more than a decade, and the first to perform for us on the Moody Performance Hall stage. He will attend San Francisco Conservatory of Music this September.

BBF25 by the Numbers

• 1745 RSVPs

• 18 musicians

• $2,940 raised in donations and raffles

Capital One is the presenting sponsor of the 2025 Basically Beethoven Festival. This is its 4th year as presenting sponsor. Additional dedicated funders for the BBF include Moody Fund for the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts. Vital supporters for the Hallam Concerts series and operational costs include Fanchon & Howard Hallam, The City of Dallas Office of Arts & Culture, TACA - The Arts Community Alliance, Texas Commission on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, DART, Individual Donors, and Basically Beethoven Board of Directors, as well as Sammons Center for the Arts, Moody Performance Hall, and Central Commons, who rent to us at reduced nonprofit rates.

Dear Basically Beethoven Patrons,

Thank you for being a part of Basically Beethoven’s concerts and music education! Thanks to you, we were able to produce three free-to-everyone chamber music concerts at Moody Performance Hall and shine a light on our Music Residency Teaching Artists and - for the first time on the Moody stage - one of our students.

• Sunday, July 13, 2025 - PRELUDES - Rising Stars: SMU Meadows Schools of the Arts Music Division MFA students Bradley Ritschel (bass-baritone) and Grace Monsanto (mezzo-soprano) with collaborative pianist Kara Solis. Their program featured selections from Mozart, Rossini, Cole Porter, Stephen Schwartz, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Special thanks to SMU Professor of Voice Virginia Dupuy. Featured Performer: Liudmila Georgievskaya, piano, performed selections from Claude Debussy’s Préludes, Book 1 and Joaquín Rodrigo’s Cuatro Estampas Andaluzas (Four Andalusian Pictures)

  
  

• Sunday, July 20, 2025 - CAFÉ MUSIC - Teacher Feature: Crystal Haynes (soprano, MM Vocal Performance, Boston University), Kenoly Kadia (piano, MM Piano Performance, UT), and John Tatum (piano) all Basically Beethoven Teaching Artists performed Liszt and Adams (Kadia) and Puccini, Webber, and Doane (Tatum and Haynes.)  Featured Performers: Lakeway Chamber Players & Friends featuring Filip Fenrych (violin), Anastasia Markina (piano), and Andrew Pearce (cello) performing Schoenfeld's Café Music and Brahms' Piano Trio No. 1 in B major

  
  

• Sunday, July 27, 2025 - SEPTET - Rising Star: Tinashe McGowan, piano – a newly graduated FACP/BB piano student who was featured on NPR's From the Top and is attending the prestigious San Francisco Conservatory of Music this fall, performed Beethoven’s Sonata No. 26 Les Adieux, Ravel’s Jeux d’eau, and Perkinson’s Toccata. Featured Performers: All-local Dallas ensemble performed Nielsen's Serenata in vano and Beethoven's Septet, Op. 20 - Danny Goldman (clarinet), Luke Varland (bassoon), Heather Test (horn), Jen Betz (violin), Paul Tullis (viola), Esther Seitz (cello), and Troy Tippawang (bass)

  
  

All concerts were professionally recorded for video and sound. Links to the recordings will be available on Basically Beethoven’s website and YouTube channel in October.

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:

At every concert, someone comes up to me and thanks me for producing these concerts. Obviously, Production Manager Jeff Tullis, the board, and I have a lot to do with is, but truly, everyone could turn and thank the stranger sitting next to them in the audience and say the same thing. Basically Beethoven could not do what we do without the support of every one of you. If all you can do is attend concerts and tell your friends, great! If you can share on social media, fantastic! If you can write a review online, stupendous! If you can support the business and foundations that support us, marvelous! If you or your business can sponsor a whole program, wonderful!

Basically Beethoven’s mission is “to enrich and enhance the quality of life for North Texas-area residents, especially families and children, through free concerts of classical music and educational activities.” Other than donations and grants, it is baked into our DNA that we don’t have “earned revenue” like ticket sales or lesson fees to help support us. Therefore, anything you can do to help support our brand, concerts, and our ability to get grants is invaluable.

We have one more way to help us this year. Our Music Residency program (free group and private lesson in violin, voice, and piano at DISD schools) costs about $33,000 to operate. 75% of that goes directly to paying our local, professional Teaching Artists, the rest goes to supplies, instruments, insurance, administration, and coordination. We are launching a campaign to directly support those costs. See below for a simplified version of how to support - or go to our website under the “Donor” menu for specific information on the perks of sponsorship, pictures, and more history HERE. If we can get to this base number, we can add students, schools, and classes, which are heavily in-demand.

We are grateful to all who attended, to our wonderful musicians, and to our donors. The Basically Beethoven Hallam 2025-2026 is announced, and we will start accepting RSVPs in September.

Warmly,

Morgan Vaughan, Executive Director

Basically Beethoven

BBF25 Art by LaShonda Cooks

This year’s Basically Beethoven poster art was based on painted violins by Dallas artist LaShonda Cooks who interned with Basically Beethoven when it was Fine Arts Chamber Players as a marketer in 2015. We are so grateful for the care she took with this commission. Her work was the backbone of our graphics for the festival, and we couldn’t be more pleased with how it turned out.

Shonda painted three violins. The painted violins were raffled at the festival to help support the music education residencies. You can see more of her work on her website, www.shondasart.com

Sunday, July 13, 2025

Bradley Ritschel, bass-baritone and Grace Monsanto, mezzo-soprano

Grace Monsanto, mezzo-soprano, and Kara Solis, collaborative pianist

Rising Stars, singers Grace Monsanto (center) and Bradley Ritschel with Kara Solis, collaborative pianist

The wonderful pianist Liudmila Georgievskaya, Featured Performer

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Teacher Feature - pianists John Tatum & Kenoly Kadia, and singer Crystal Haynes

Featured Performers Lakeway Chamber Players & Friends - Anastasia Markina, piano, Filip Fenrych, violin, and Andrew Pearce, cello

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Tinashe McGowan, Rising Star

Pre-concert photo of Beethoven Septet players: Jen Betz, violin, Paul Tullis, viola, Esther Seitz, cello, Troy Tippawang, bass, Heather Test, horn, Luke Varland, bassoon, and Danny Goldman, clarinet

Thank you to presenting sponsor Capital One!

Capital One has been presenting sponsor for the Basically Beethoven Festival for last 4 years. THANK YOU!

… and thank you to these two little girls who spontaneously volunteered to welcome people to the concert on July 27. The best impromptu volunteers in our 44-year history!

Announcing: Basically Beethoven Hallam Concerts 2025 - 2026

THANK YOU for supporting Basically Beethoven, the "doing business as" name of Fine Arts Chamber Players! To give via credit card, visit https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/basically-beethoven-facp-2025-donation

or send a check to

Basically Beethoven / FACP

3630 Harry Hines Blvd, Suite 302

Dallas, TX 75219

EIN: 75-1831061 (Fine Arts Chamber Players)

email: music@fineartschamberplayers.org or morgan@fineartschamberplayers.org

Look for us on North Texas Giving Day, Sept 18, 2025: https://www.northtexasgivingday.org/organization/Fine-Arts-Chamber-Players