The two best friends of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival

by Mary Taylor

Special to the Sounder

Chamber music is often called “the music of friends,” and nowhere is this more true than here on Orcas Island. Just look to the two women leading Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival: Aloysia Friedmann, Founder and Artistic Director, and her lifelong friend, Board President Lisa Bergman.

The two met as teens in Seattle at the Cornish School, Lisa on piano, Aloysia on violin. Lisa recalls Aloysia as “self-possessed, focused, though not without her father’s impish spirit.” Admittedly, Lisa was quite taken with Aloysia’s father, Martin Friedmann, then the Music Director of Cornish and a highly esteemed violinist. He was, she said, her childhood crush. But there was also Aloysia, waiting in the wings, “his second act.”

Their friendship deepened in the early 1980s, when Lisa and Aloysia’s paths merged again, studying music at The Juilliard School in New York City. Amazingly, they were also neighbors on Central Park West. “Lisa moved into the building right next to mine,” Aloysia said. “Many nights I’d stand on the roof of my building flashing a light into her window!”

Quickly they became inseparable, taking the same courses and performing together. “Turning over a new leaf” was a motivational catchphrase they used to get up earlier, study harder, practice more. Though self-confessed “goody two-shoes,” they were in their early twenties with a shared bent for mischief. Practicing at times gave way to concocting their own exercise routines, gossiping about their love lives, raiding a landlady’s liquor cabinet, or sneaking into Juilliard late at night!

After graduation, their paths parted as they began thriving professional music careers. Lisa learned of Aloysia’s desire to start a chamber music festival on Orcas Island, where Aloysia had spent childhood summers at Indralaya, performing with her parents and other distinguished musicians.

“I thought it was a fabulous idea,” Lisa said. “Not easy, and not the kind of thing that happens overnight. But Aloysia’s very detail oriented. She has an astounding ability for making human connections. There was never any question it would grow and succeed.”

Lisa was right. Debuting in 1998, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival was warmly welcomed by the community. With a talent for networking, Aloysia—and her soon-to-be husband, acclaimed pianist Jon Kimura Parker—amassed an extraordinary coterie of supporters, many of whom became founding board members. “It had its own momentum,” Lisa recalled. “There were so many people in complete support.”

Chief among them was Lisa. Though based in Seattle and managing a robust professional music career, Lisa shuttled back and forth to Orcas to support the Festival as it grew in popularity and acclaim. She frequently showed up to perform, teach seminars, give pre-concert talks, and cheer her friend on along the way.

OICMF continued to flourish, both as a Festival and nonprofit. When Aloysia’s mother, famed oboist Laila Storch, stepped down from the board in 2018, Aloysia was unsure how the void could be filled.

“My mom was so with it, so direct, and so knowledgeable about the musical side of things,” Aloysia said. “I trusted her.” She knew the board needed someone with musical knowledge and leadership experience, someone she could trust. So, she called Lisa.

It wasn’t an immediate yes. Both agreed that they didn’t want anything getting in the way of their friendship. And Lisa was wearing many hats at the time as an accomplished pianist, an award-winning radio announcer for Classical KING, and a leading influence in other organizations.

Yet Lisa knew OICMF was unique, “the gold standard.” Joining the board would be a real feather in her cap. Persuading her even more, perhaps, was “the twinkle in Aloysia’s eye, the same twinkle in her father’s eye” that made Lisa swoon as a young teen. “Aloysia has an allure,” Lisa said, “and an amazing track record.” The offer was too good to pass up.

Not long after Lisa joined the board in 2019, she was voted vice president. The quick promotion didn’t surprise Aloysia; she knew Lisa’s charisma and extensive executive experience. “She has been executive director of festivals, artistic director of festivals. She’s done it all,” Aloysia said.

But last October brought devastating news: Longtime OICMF Board President and Aloysia’s dear friend Sam Coleman was in hospice. Aloysia was with Lisa performing in Mexico when she got the call. “Being with Lisa at that moment was so comforting,” Aloysia said. “We could both share the tragedy of this.”

Just a month after Sam passed, Aloysia’s mother also passed, deepening her grief. The loss was immense, Aloysia said, to her and to OICMF’s future, now without these two “guiding lights.”

As Sam’s successor, Lisa said that she relies on her ‘Sam Compass’ daily, asking herself, “What would Sam do?” She also relies on Aloysia, who trusted they could chart the way forward.

“She was poised to be president,” Aloysia said.

This past season, Aloysia and Lisa agreed, was one for the record books. Aloysia remembers standing backstage on opening night, listening to the dynamic Polish accordion-violin duo Iwo Jedynecki and Karolina Mikołajczyk dazzle a packed house at Orcas Center. “I had tears in my eyes,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe we did this.”