Metropolitan Winds Seeks Wider Recognition and Local Support After Relocating to Norwood-October 14, 1989

For nearly three years, the Metropolitan Winds has called Norwood home, practicing on Wednesday evenings at Junior High South and drawing enthusiastic crowds of approximately 125 music lovers to its concerts. There is just one catch: despite offering a rich repertoire spanning from Tchaikovsky to Broadway show tunes, much of the town barely knows the symphony band exists.

Founded in Newton in 1981 and formerly based out of the Boston Latin School, the 72-member ensemble—whose musicians range in age from 18 to 60 and travel from all over Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire—moved to Norwood seeking a community that would embrace them.

“In Boston, we were competing against the Boston Symphony, the Boston Ballet,” recalled trombone player Robert Stoll, who also works as a music teacher in the Norwood schools. “We were kind of beating our heads against a wall in terms of recognition. We wanted to find a community to adopt us, to support us.”

Struggling for Local Visibility

While the group occasionally performs in Walpole, at Boston University, and at Boston’s Hatch Shell, its three annual concerts at Junior High South fill only about a quarter of the auditorium.

Band members attribute the lack of widespread community engagement to several factors:

• Advertising Constraints: With an operating budget of roughly $18,000—funded entirely through ticket sales and modest state and federal grants—the non-profit organization has virtually no advertising budget for a major publicity blitz.
• Shifting Social Habits: Selectmen Chairman John Kinnaly noted that while Norwood is fundamentally a “music town,” modern entertainment habits keep residents closer to home. “In the last few years, people are more interested in staying home,” Kinnaly said. “There’s no intermingling like there used to be. TV is to blame for a lot of that.” Stoll agreed, suggesting local residents figure, “We’re home, let’s crash and watch TV.”

Town Leadership Reacts

When questioned about the community symphony, three of the town’s five selectmen admitted they had never heard of the group, while the other two only vaguely recalled reading brief mentions. None had ever attended a concert.

Selectman Thomas Riolo candidly remarked, “I would say their PR is horrible,” adding that he loves music and would gladly attend performances if he knew about them. Selectman William Butters suggested the band should formally invite the board to their concerts.

However, concert chairman Susan Hansen noted that the group tried that approach early on with little tangible result. “Our first year, I wrote letters to the selectmen, sent complimentary tickets to all the concerts,” Hansen said. “And every time we got a letter from their secretary saying, ‘Thank you and welcome to Norwood.’ But they never showed.”

Despite the frustrating hurdles of building local recognition, the band plays on under the baton of conductor Malcolm W. Rowell Jr.—director of bands and associate professor of music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the ensemble’s sole paid member.

The Metropolitan Winds’ next scheduled performance takes place on November 5 at 2:00 p.m. at Junior High South.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger