The Douglaston Music Group will no longer trek to concerts across the five boroughs, but will still host its annual holiday show in 2013, the group’s long-time coordinator said.
The group held what was believed to be their final holiday show on Dec. 7 at The Douglaston Club.
But Charlotte Hermann, the group’s president, said local residents had volunteered to plan the annual program for next December.
“We will continue the holiday music at The Douglaston Club,” she said. “We’ve already had volunteers step forward.”
But the group will not continue to attend concerts throughout the year, said Herrmann, who is retiring.
“We’ll no longer go to concerts,” she said. “It’s just too expensive with renting a bus and we just don’t get enough people anymore. That’s the reason we’ve discontinued.”
The Douglaston Music Group formed in the late 1960s and its members would meet at a local home for food before boarding a bus to attend classical music concerts or lectures in Manhattan.
The group began hosting its own events, including its holiday performance, in the mid-1970s.
Last weekend, the group’s holiday concert included performances by the Aaron Copeland School of Music’s Susan Rotholz, a flutist, and William Anderson, a classical guitarist.
Herrmann said the group had been very popular in the community, but had begun to decline in recent years.
“It went very well until about three years ago,” she said. “Many people on our members’ list had died or were elderly and couldn’t get on and off the bus easily.”
She said the group had difficulty attracting the community’s younger members.
“The interest is not there with young people, who are not that into classical music,” she said.
