Three years after his passing away, Jindrich Henry Degen was honoured with a special concert at the Redlands Performing Arts Centre in Cleveland. Here is the story in the form of a letter written to the orchestra and all those who contributed to this special occasion. The letter was read at the end of the performance.

Dear everyone at Redland Sinfonia, including Graeme Denniss (previous conductor), who started all this!

Now that the Tribute concert to my late father is behind us, I would like to express a few thoughts and many thanks.

Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of my father’s passing – which makes the timing of this concert rather remarkable, especially considering that it was postponed by six months.

When I went through my father’s possessions back in 2022-23, I re-discovered two large, pictorial books of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, that quite a few years prior my husband and I gave to my father. The question naturally arose in our minds, what do we with them? Then my husband suggested that Graeme Denniss may enjoy them since he once played in the MSO. So we emailed Graeme and indeed, he was happy to receive them. We arranged to give them to him at the next Redland Sinfonia concert. On that day, we even had Linda Muller from the then Bayside Bulletin on hand to take photos and later write an article for the paper.

This was about two years ago. About one year ago, I received an unexpected email from Graeme, telling me that the oboist, Eve Newsome, formerly from MSO, was now living on Maclay Island and he wanted to feature her as a soloist in one of his concerts. Since she had the same position in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra that my late father held ten years prior, Graeme thought he would make the concert theme a tribute to my late father, and invited me to participate in creating the program and make other suggestions in the planning process.

That email was quite stunning to me, but also exciting. With Graeme, Eve and myself contributing ideas, an interesting program came together, and a date was set for the end of March this year. Serious preparations were begun by the orchestra, but just before Christmas, an unexpected administrative glitch arose that caused the concert to be cancelled, much to the disappointment of all involved, especially Graeme and the orchestra.

Time went on and the day came, when Graeme informed me that the concert would now take place in September. So back in June, Hayley, the production manager, Graeme, and I met at my home to brainstorm what could go along with the concert by way of Jindrich’s artwork. I showed them what I had ready to hang up and mentioned that I also had several boxes of paper paintings I was happy to donate to be used for a fundraiser for the orchestra. It would be a win-win situation – I needed to find homes for these paintings, otherwise upon my passing away, they would most likely be thrown out. Hayley and her team were happy to make them ready for people to take home for a small donation.

I am truly impressed at the amount of work they did to make these numerous, mostly paper paintings available for people. The orchestra deserves every dollar that their effort would have brought. I can’t thank them enough for helping me (and themselves) with distributing these paintings.

And of course, the concert was lovely – as always. My husband, father and I attended many Redland Sinfonia concerts in years past. My father always commented that the players sounded professional and he enjoyed all the concerts we took him to. So thanks must go to the new conductor, Nicky, and the soloist, Eve, both of whom are very gifted and accomplished in their field. And last but not least, thanks must go to Graeme Denniss, who laid the foundation for this special concert, but unfortunately, through circumstances, couldn’t conduct it. But no doubt, his hard preliminary work has paid off and he was able to enjoy the concert as a spectator.

Again, I am very impressed by what has been done with my father’s paintings by Hayley and her team, who all have their own jobs and other responsibilities beside Redland Sinfonia. Hayley also did an exceptional job with the program brochure. You all have my deepest respect and gratitude.

Wishing the orchestra players and all those working behind the scenes that in this new era with Nicky Griffith as the artistic director and conductor, you all soar to new heights in your performances.

With gratitude, Eva Peck

See also:
https://www.facebook.com/RedlandPerformingArtsCentre/posts/-redland-sinfonia-tribute-join-redland-sinfonia-for-a-heartfelt-concert-honourin/1303236895146828/
https://www.facebook.com/RedlandSinfonia
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1311828804287637&id=100063815893024