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VIRTUOSITY, VERSATILITY, MOLTO CON BRIO: Sue Parisi

‘She has taken our group and shaped us into a recorder ensemble, which speaks to her abilities and her love of the instrument and music,’ a student says.

By Pat Summers Special Writer
    A capacious church basement, a small, elementary school classroom, or a posh music room in a private home — in such settings, and many others, people circle their chairs, set up their music and start playing their recorders.
    If you were to study early music practitioners hereabouts, one person’s name would keep coming up as player, teacher, conductor, organizer: Sue Parisi. She may live in Hillsborough, on nine wooded acres of the Sourland Mountains, but Ms. Parisi spends gobs of quality music time in the Princeton area, invariably toting music and a few recorders with her.
    She’s a modern-day “wandering minstrel,” for sure — but unlike Gilbert and Sullivan’s son of the Mikado, she drives instead of walking around the countryside. Yet “ballads, songs and snatches” are what they’re both all about.
    Ms. Parisi knew from third grade she wanted to teach music. Obviously, she meant it. At that point, she was learning piano, and organ followed. By fourth grade, she was playing clarinet, and by seventh, bassoon (an instrument she still plays with the Plainfield Symphony).
    Now retired after 25 years of music teaching, Ms. Parisi fills much of her “free” time … teaching and playing music.
    Over just a few representative weeks earlier this fall, Ms. Parisi took part in an early music festival one Sunday afternoon at Grounds For Sculpture, taught her Thursday evening recorder class at Princeton Adult School, and devoted Friday mornings to practice with the Engelchor Consort, an early music ensemble that will be performing Sunday at the Princeton University Art Museum. She also attended the monthly Tuesday night meeting of the Princeton Recorder Society.
    As PRS music director, Ms. Parisi conducts the organization’s performing ensemble, lines up guest conductors for the monthly meeting and helps run a day-long spring workshop.
    PRS president Nancy Kennard marvels at Ms. Parisi’s willingness to work with people at all levels of recorder proficiency, saying she has “double the patience of the average saint.”
    She’s organist and choir director of the Neshanic Reformed Church and a performing member of the Belle Mead and Princeton music societies, as well.
    Besides practicing music at home as needed, Ms. Parisi studies recorder with Gwyn Roberts of Philadelphia. With another student-friend, she drives down once a month for what she calls “continuing (her) own music education on a non-credit basis.”
    To see a movie or just veg out for a while, Ms. Parisi would need to do serious advance scheduling.
    Given her inventory of musical involvements, try to imagine her coping with tendonitis over a year-long period when she couldn’t play music. As calm as she seems in person — pleasantly self-contained, quietly intent — she must have been grinding her teeth. At least.
    Her frustration during that trying period, some eight years ago, had to worsen when she looked around the home she shares with her husband, Tony, a self-described “semi- professional singer.” Their glass-walled 30 x 20-foot music room houses 12 recorders, one krumhorn, a flute, an organ, a piano, and an electronic harpsichord.
    Born in East Stroudsburg, Pa., and now in her early 60s, Ms. Parisi earned her B.A. in music education from West Chester University, with a double major in instrumental and piano. She participated in band, orchestra and sinfonietta, gaining early recognition for her musicianship.
    Through a graduate assistantship at The College of New Jersey, she earned her master’s in music education before starting to teach in Franklin Township. Then came 23 years in South Brunswick and wide K-12 experience teaching both vocal and instrumental music.
    Along the way, Ms. Parisi learned the recorder so she could teach her students, and has since played in a number of ensembles. She recommends the instrument to someone thinking about music lessons because of its social dimension — people simply enjoy playing recorders together.
    That’s a definite plus to Ms. Parisi, one repeatedly illustrated in her class and her own ensembles. Time and again, otherwise diverse individuals quickly become engaged in deciding who will play which line and who will ornament the line, whether a piece should go faster, which veteran might be of help to a newcomer. Unified in playing music, members move forward, together.
    Citing her professionalism and high standards, one of Ms. Parisi’s students observes, “She has taken our group and shaped us into a recorder ensemble, which speaks to her abilities and her love of the instrument and music.” Still another praises her patience.
    Favoring alto recorder herself, Ms. Parisi plays, owns and teaches them all, enjoying the instrument’s sound as well as its repertoire. She’s sorry that so often in schools, third graders learn this flute-like wind instrument as an introduction to music, but then in fourth grade move on to a “real instrument.”
    She prefers letting students know that while Bach, Handel, Telemann and Vivaldi featured recorders in their music — the instrument emerged during the 14th century and became a mainstay in medieval, renaissance and baroque period music — contemporary composers also write for the recorder. It’s no longer locked in the “Early Music” category.
    In the nicest way imaginable, Ms. Parisi makes the recorder seem eminently learnable to even the least musical person; she’s an undeclared missionary. Her low-keyness helps. “I could give you a recorder and a book to get you started. Then , while the others practice in the main hall, I could show you what’s what in another room.”
    Despite her wide and deep music focus, Ms. Parisi is far from a “Susie-One-Note.” This is one musician who’s also a traveler— Italy last summer and Costa Rica and the Galapagos before that — a gardener, growing both flowers and veggies; a devotee of mysteries. And she speaks glowingly of the three cats in her family: “Telly,” who came in from the woods nearby; “Dante,” from a shelter, and “Walden,” a long-sought lap cat.
    “Musical mileage” might refer simply to distance covered in teaching and making music. It could also suggest results: numbers of new musicians and instruments in play; quantity of quality music in the world and ever more music listeners. However defined, it points to Sue Parisi, a ubiquitous and key player in the area’s music scene.
The Engelchor Consort will present two concerts titled “The Wanderers” at the Princeton University Art Museum on Sunday. At 1:30 and 3 p.m., visitors can hear medieval and renaissance music produced on recorders, strings and percussion instruments, as well as krumhorns. Other instruments that may make an audible appearance include a hurdy-gurdy, a hand bell, a tambourine, scallop shells and a gothic harp.
The Web site for the Princeton Recorder Society is www.princetonrecorder.org.