On Oct. 5, Arts Wayland held a jazz concert at First Parish in Wayland. Arts Wayland hosted the Fifth Season Quartet, a local jazz group from the Berklee School of Music, located in Boston.
Arts Wayland is a non-profit organization that has been in operation since 1981, located in the Wayland Town Center. They host art exhibits, classes and events, along with a series of jazz concerts.
“[Arts Wayland] has incorporated all sorts of different venues of the arts from theater, comedy, roots music, blues, open mics, just anything and everything you can think of,” Vice President of Arts Wayland Stephanie Elkort said.
This is the 29th concert Arts Wayland has organized since 2019. For the sequence of jazz concerts, the organization has paired up with First Parish, who has donated their space for the event.
“I have been a member of First Parish and was able to partner the two groups together, so now we have the concerts [at First Parish],” creator of the jazz concert series Donna Olmstead said.
The concert was performed by the Fifth Season Quartet, a group composed of pianist and accordionist Plamen Karadonev, singer Elena Koleva, bassist Greg Loughman and drummer Austin McMahon, with Karadonev composing the band. Each of the members are staff at Berklee.
“[Jazz Artistic Director and Berklee professor Neil Olmstead] has been inviting a lot of musicians from Berklee, [being both] students and faculty,” Koleva said. “All four of us are faculty there, and we are a band that [has] been functioning for 15 years.”
The band has one album, “Beyond Hope,” on Spotify. They are a jazz band influenced by Balkan rhythms and Eastern European music.
During the concert, they played a total of eight songs. Afterwards, there was a reception with drinks and snacks, and during that time, Koleva came out to conversate with the audience.
“We always have a reception at the end where oftentimes the artists will come, and they’ll talk to the audience members, which the audience members find really enjoyable and exciting,” Elkort said. “They can ask them questions, and it’s really a special connection.”
The band played a mix of their own songs and covers from other jazz artists, such as Cole Porter and Jule Styne. During the performance, Koleva varied between vocalizing the lyrics and improvisational scatting.
“I did a lot of scatted improvisations that we did not plan with the band, which is an act of creating something on the spot,” Koleva said.
Koleva was not the only member to change up the music, as Karadonev also switched from the piano to the accordion at one point during the show. Each musician also took turns soloing in their specialization.
Koleva is in the Voice Department at Berklee, and she has been a voice instructor for over 20 years. Along with publishing albums in the Fifth Season Quartet, Koleva has also released two solo albums titled “Round Midnight” and “Invisible Touch.”
“I’ve been a musician since I was six years old,” Koleva said. “Music is like an escape for me.”
According to Koleva, music is not only a way to escape, but a way to get her feelings out into the world. She describes it as her form of communication with not only herself, but her audience members.
“I think I transform my soul into a different creature,” Koleva said. “I transform my feelings into something else that is also provocative to people that listen to it and inspiring at the same time.”
At the beginning of the event, Arts Wayland was purely focused on visual arts. Due to the art only being virtual, they didn’t receive as many visitors.
“It accommodates the visual artists, so we had lovely paintings in there,” D. Olmstead said. “What happened is we were not getting the foot traffic, [as] people were not coming in to view the art.”
In 2019, D. Olmstead recommended to Arts Wayland President Nancy Boyle to have music alongside the art exhibits. N. Olmstead played during the first gallery and concert combination, with 70 people attending.
“Arts Wayland has grown leaps and bounds now,” D. Olmstead said. “They have all kinds of other venues going on.”
Since then, the music events within Arts Wayland have blossomed, with D. Olmstead starting the Arts Wayland jazz series.
“[I chose jazz] because it was really organic,” D. Olmstead said. “I lived with a jazz musician.”
For the past 44 years, there has been more intrigue in what Arts Wayland has to offer, since its founding in 1981. This interest has helped Arts Wayland grow in members and visitors.
“People are really hungry for art education and just taking in everything we offer,” Elkort said. “It [has] been an amazing growth period for us.”
Ever since the founding of the jazz series, it has grown into a variety of styles, with each band being different in their instrumentation and influences. This concert series has drawn many visitors and supporters of the organization.
“Honestly, I was a little surprised when we started this series, [and] how many people would come out on a Sunday afternoon and listen to it,” N. Olmstead said. “I didn’t anticipate it, and it’s been nothing but a success ever since.”
It takes many steps to run these concerts, with N. Olmstead needing to find the musicians. They are often found at Berklee.
“I contact the players, I line up the schedule with them, [with] when they can play, they send me promotional material and then we put that out online,” N. Olmstead said.
According to both Elkort and D. Olmstead, picking the dates of the concerts has been harder than past years.
“We used to have more than six or seven of these concerts [a year],” D. Olmstead said. “We are down to four a year and just finding the dates [is hard], because there’s so much else going on.”
Finally D. Olmstead coordinates with the church for a venue, and Arts Wayland works to advertise and spread the word to the community, often through word of mouth.
“We have many repeat visitors, and the audience just keeps growing every time,” Elkort said.
Some musicians that have played for Arts Wayland hailed from Cuba, Venezuela, Italy, South America, Japan, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria and more.
Because N. Olmstead works at Berklee, he has no trouble finding musicians who can play. He himself also plays sometimes as well.
“What I do is reach literally across the hall and ask [for musicians],” N. Olmstead said. “That’s really how it started.”
25% of Berklee students are international. N. Olmstead says that within the 29 concerts they’ve had, there’s been musicians from over 20 countries.
“[There’s] that multicultural aspect we are bringing to the community here in Wayland,” N. Olmstead said.
Having musicians perform at Arts Wayland both supports the organization and the musicians themselves. Arts Wayland provides these opportunities for the community, and the musicians put their name out.
“It’s not a big highfalutin venue to play at, but it’s another job where they are able to play true to their art,” N. Olmstead said. “They’re not having to adjust for any kind of commercial reasons, and they’re able to show specifically what they’re most creatively involved in at the moment.”
D. Olmstead believes that music is important and uplifting, especially for the community. For D. Olmstead, music and arts can be a great way to get away from the current state of the world.
“I think the arts is what brings a lot of kindness, peace and joy to the world,” D. Olmstead said.
Elkort also agrees that arts can help bring people together and create stronger communities.
“What [the community] sees is this incredible high level jazz music,” Elkort said. “ It’s stimulating, it’s enriching, it makes you forget the woes of your daily life, and, for a brief moment, you can let go. It’s just very freeing and brings people together.”
Currently, Arts Wayland has several different classes and workshops for the community to attend.
“We are sharing that creativity with the community, and the community is quite receptive,” N. Olmstead said. “I remember a quote from an Indian improvisational artist, [and] it said ‘music washes the dust of everyday life.’”
People can support Arts Wayland through donations, showing up to the different events offered, along with spreading the word of their events. According to D. Olmstead, Arts Wayland is waiting for a permanent space, as their current home base is temporary.
“I’m hoping that the entire Arts Wayland organization continues to grow at the same exponential rate it has been in the past few years,” D. Olmstead said.