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Winchendon Music Festival
Andrew Arceci's Massachusetts-based concert series celebrates its tenth anniversary with five concerts between May and October 2025
The small and humble town of Winchendon in Worcester County, north-central Massachusetts, USA, was originally the country of the Pennacook Indians, and then the Nipnet/Nipmuck tribe.
Described by Richard Duckett of Telegram & Gazette as 'a world-class event in the small north Worcester County town', the Winchendon Music Festival (WMF) is a concert series held annually since 2016. Over the years, WMF has delighted audiences with performances by international artists from a variety of genres including classical, folk, jazz, historical performance, and world music.
The festival was created in 2016 by its current musical director, Andrew Arceci, in memory of his father, Robert J Arceci (1950-2015), a pediatric oncologist from Winchendon who had a passion for the arts.
Andrew Arceci is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and scholar who studied double bass, viola da gamba and art history at Peabody, then early music at Juilliard and at Magdalen College, Oxford, and has performed throughout North America, Europe and Asia. His recording credits include APM Music/Juice Music, Cedille Records, Centaur Records, Music & Arts, NPR, PRI, Silent Witness - a television series by BBC1 (UK), BBC Radio 3 (UK), Novum (UK), Bôłt Records/Monotype Records (Poland), Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (Germany) and Deutschlandradio (Germany). We at Classical Music Daily met Arceci when he made an important contribution to our 2023 video newsletter The Creative Spark led by John Dante Prevedini.
Andrew Arceci
WMF programmes are free to the community, with support from numerous individuals, businesses and foundations. This year's festival consists of the following events:
Arpeggione Ensemble
Saturday 31 May 2025, 7pm at Murdock-Whitney House (151 Front St, Winchendon, MA 01475)
Beethoven: Septet in E flat, Op 20
Thomas Carroll, clarinet; Elisabeth Axtell, horn; Sally Merriman, bassoon; Rebecca Nelson, violin; Anna Griffis, viola; Cullen O'Neil, cello; Andrew Arceci, bass
John Arcaro & Band
Monday 2 June 2025, 7pm at Murdock-Whitney House (151 Front St, Winchendon, MA 01475)
Berklee College of Music professor, John Arcaro, leads a program of works from the 'Great American Songbook', complemented by contemporary jazz compositions.
Duo Sorolla: Ismar Gomes, cello; Wan-Chi Su, piano
Tuesday 3 June 2025, 7pm at Murdock-Whitney House (151 Front St, Winchendon, MA 01475)
Works by Reynaldo Hahn de Echenagucia (1874-1947), Constantino Vicente Gaito (1878-1945), Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959), Gaspar Cassadó i Moreu (1897-1966) and Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (1921-1992).
Double bill: Chris Moyse, singer-songwriter and Floyds Row
Friday 3 October 2025, 7pm at The Flower Shop (172 Central St, Winchendon, MA 01475)
Folk collective Floyds Row explores the connections among early, classical, folk, newgrass, and world genres - works arranged and/or composed by Hailey Fuqua (soprano), Asako Takeuchi (violin), Jacques Lee Wood (cello and banjo), Andrew Arceci (bass and mandolin), George Lykogiannis (accordion and piano) and Mike Williams (percussion).
Andrew Arceci
Worcester Jazz Orchestra
Saturday 4 October 2025, 2pm at Winchendon Amphitheater (86 Ingleside Dr, Winchendon, MA 01475)
Ever popular, the big band plays works by Glenn Miller (1904-c1944), Buddy Rich (1917-1987) and others.
Posted 10 May 2025 by Keith Bramich
