Brooklyn Orchestra Provides Musical Community for Amateurs and Professionals Alike

The String Orchestra of Brooklyn gives musicians of all levels a place to practice and explore their passion for classical and contemporary music.

When violinist and conductor Eli Spindel founded the String Orchestra of Brooklyn in the summer of 2007, his main goal was to provide a musical community for the many talented non-professional classical musicians living in and around Brooklyn, New York.

“[When] I moved to New York in 2006, I wasn’t really feeling like part of a musical community… so I decided to create my own.”

He used Craigslist and word of mouth to let people know about this musical opportunity. Initial members of the group included students, professors, architects, lawyers, executives, editors, designers, and artists.

“We were scrappy at the beginning, we’re still scrappy I hope!”

While specializing in the diverse string orchestra repertoire, the String Orchestra of Brooklyn is also able, through collaboration, to tackle works from many genres and periods, including contemporary and experimental pieces by emerging composers.

In the spring of 2011 the orchestra will team up with Brooklyn’s well-known experimental music venue Issue Project Room to perform four newly commissioned works, continuing its commitment to a generation of composers who are expanding the possibilities of the string ensemble in new and exciting directions.

“Being amateur musicians gives us a kind of freedom to experiment and really just do things that we’re interested in."

“Many people think of classical music as being something that’s very genteel and upper crust, but this more accurately describes the culture that has grown up around the music. We’d like to change some of those negative perceptions. The music itself, freed from these associations, can be alive, it can be important, it can be surprising.”