Sousa, Ellington, Gershwin, and Bernstein in Amenia

Saturday, May 30, 3pm | Amenia, NY | Free

The Smithfield Chamber Orchestra holds its 6th Annual Spring Pops Concert on May 30 at the Smithfield Church in Amenia, a small white church on Smithfield Valley Road between Millerton and Amenia that sits, as cellist Jean Vilkelis once put it, "in the horse country, overlooking some cow pastures." The program is a survey of American composers: John Philip Sousa, Morton Gould, Duke Ellington, Scott Joplin, Stephen Sondheim, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, Kenny Dorham, and Leonard Bernstein.

The orchestra is a roster of about fifteen professional musicians from across the region — many of them veterans of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Greater Newburgh Symphony, and other area ensembles — who have been playing together in this church several times a year since 2021. The group is now directed by flutist Michelle Demko, who took over music director duties this year from founding director Matt Finley, a retired Dutchess Community College dean who plays trumpet, flugelhorn, and soprano sax and continues as the ensemble's primary arranger.

Vilkelis's comparison to St. Martin-in-the-Fields is not entirely hyperbole. It's a good room in a beautiful setting, and the concert is free.

The Smithfield Church, 656 Smithfield Valley Rd., Amenia, NY. More info at thesmithfieldchurch.org.