On Sunday afternoon a well-dressed group gathered at the Presbyterian Church of Bella Vista, but they weren’t there to worship. Instead, they were treated to a free concert featuring orchestra-caliber pianist Anna Han, who has performed at venues such as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Alice Tully Hall and so many more.

The crowd of listeners, which included retirees, local music lovers and a few piano students from the University of Arkansas and John Brown University, heard the soft-spoken Han describe the selections that she would perform before she commanded the sounds from a grand piano at the front of the church.

Some listened stoically, others bobbed their heads to toccatas by Dmitry Kabalevsky, Unsuk Chin, Sergei Prokofiev and Johann Sebastian Bach. Since Han included Arkansas on her short tour if the states, she played a trio of songs by Arkansas composers including “Arkansas Jitter,” by Florence Price, “Marionette” by William Grant Still and a piece by a young Arkansas-based composer, Marco-Adrián Ramos. Then Han invited the audience to stomp in time for Scott Joplin’s “Stoptime Rag” before closing the afternoon with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2.

It was a special afternoon for The Andante Music Club of Bella Vista, a club of music lovers that includes retired music teachers, musicians and music lovers of all genres. From their tiny corner of Northwest Arkansas, the club contributes to music education on both a national and local level, but sharing music is also life-changing for the members.

MUSICAL OUTREACH

Former club president, Gloria Febro Grilk, said that when she joined the club more than 30 years ago, her first question was, “Why andante?”

“That means slow, walking tempo,” she said in May of this year. “We had a Founders Day in January and somebody found out that they wanted it to be kind of laid back and relaxed.”

In 1985, Bella Vista was still a retirement community. Still, there were enough music lovers around to start a local chapter under the flag of the Arkansas Federation of Music Clubs, which exists under the umbrella of the National Federation of Music Clubs.

NFMC is a philanthropic music organization founded in 1898. NFMC’s goal is to strengthen music education by supporting high standards of musical creativity and performance and to increase an understanding of music in the home, the community, the nation, and now the world, according to their website.

NFMC also offers support to state-based music clubs like the one in Bella Vista but was created so that American composers would have more opportunities to perform and compose at home.

At the time “rationale was go to Europe, make your reputation then come back and you can make a living,” Febro Grilk said, the club was created to give American composers more opportunities at home.

Arlene Biebsheimer, vice president of the Andante Music Club, said that many early American composers relied on clubs like the NFMC to have a chance for their music to be performed.

“One of those people is Amy Beach, a wonderful American female composer who was a terrific songwriter,” Biebsheimer said. “Had it not been for groups of this type, her music would never have been known and played.”

In addition to giving composers a chance, the NFMC now offers outreach to young musicians, like Han who performed on Sunday. She received $20,000 as one of four winners of the Young Artist

Award, and was able to do a tour of music clubs like the one in Bella Vista.

It’s just one of the ways that clubs offer support to young musicians by offering them a chance to be paid for their efforts and gain the necessary experience they need to build their careers.

“There are numerous competitions for collegeaged students and youngsters, and they are nationwide,” Biebsheimer said. Winners take home cash prizes and scholarships as a result. “The National Federation goals are also the goals of Andante, but also just to foster music within the community.”

The national organization also offers scholarships for veterans who had their schooling or their career interrupted by their service to the military, Febro Grilk said.

Locally, the members of Andante Music Club perform at care facilities to not only provide a little entertainment for the residents but to promote the therapeutic benefits of music, too.

“I grew up knowing that music was a mental discipline,” said Febro Grilk, who plays piano and organ. “When I was teaching college, that was one of the things that I harped on a lot.”

For those in care facilities, music sometimes has surprising benefits. Febro Grilk remembers a nonverbal patient who began singing at one of the group’s performances at a nursing home.

“Music can reach people at a level that nothing else can,” Biebsheimer said. “Often people who no longer speak, who have completely drawn into themselves, music will bring them out. Maybe it’s only for a minute. Maybe it’s only for that one song, but you never know what that means to them.”

LIFELONG LOVE OF MUSIC

Cynthia Augspurger, publicity chair for Andante Music Club, stresses that the programs hosted by the club are always free and open to the public. She jokes that when you start paying dues, they give you a job.

For some members of the club, though, the club gives them the chance to perform.

“I’ve reached a point in my life, and this happened 20 years ago or so, where I didn’t have a space to perform, necessarily,” said Biebsheimer, who performed for one of the club’s recent programs.

The soprano, sang “It Was The Wind,” by composer Marilyn Bliss with accompaniment from 101-yearold Charles Whitford (who since turned 102!) on Native American flute. After their performance, Biebsheimer’s husband Jerry sang a Schubert song cycle from Die Winterreise, and then she joined him for a duet from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

Arlene said that the club also offers her a chance to be around like-minded people.

Febro Grilk remembered the generosity of music clubs that allowed her to receive feedback for her performances on piano as a child during the Great Depression in Fort Smith. As an adult, it was a way to make connections in a new city when she married and moved to Davenport, Iowa, with her husband.

For current president Joretta (Jo) Evans, music helped her find her voice again after a battle with tongue cancer. Now she’s using her voice to lead the club.

Before cancer, Evans said that she was praised for her “chameleon voice” singing tenor, alto and mezzo soprano.

“My mother said, instead of crying, I sang as a baby,” she said. Her first ever performance was singing at for church program at age 4. She started playing piano at 5.

Evans worked as a school secretary while raising her children. She moved around occasionally for her husband’s career and spent time as a missionary in Australia with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She and her husband retired in Bella Vista just as she turned 59 years old.

Evans earned a bachelor’s degree in music education with an emphasis a choral and vocal music at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville in 2009. Then around 2010, a dentist diagnosed her with tongue cancer. She had 17 tumors removed in 18 months, yet still had to get surgery that opened up her tongue and left her unable to sing or speak.

“Music is integral part of my life,” she said. Her daughter-in-law, who is a speech pathologist and musician, helped her to start humming again.

“I didn’t have to panic,” she said. “She started helping me just hum, and that little bit of connection just gave me hope.”

After three years of working on her voice, Evans finally started singing again. Now she sings harmony at the club’s regular meetings, which always begin with the members singing together.

Several programs are planned for The Andante Music Club of Bella Vista this year, plus a series of concerts for Music Appreciation Week in May 2025.

“Everyone is welcome,” Evans said. Club membership isn’t limited to people who want to play music, they want “music appreciators” too, they said. “We need people to listen to us!”