Did you know that Sebastopol has its very own mandolin orchestra? Moreover, did you know that a mandolin orchestra was even a thing?
I didn’t.
But Rhonda Berney, the manager of the Gravenstein Mandoline Ensemble, was happy to fill me in. The group is celebrating its 20th anniversary tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 3, with a concert at Occidental Center for the Arts.
Berney said that mandolin orchestras were once common across the country. In fact, at the turn of the last century, from the 1890s to 1920, “There was a great big mandolin craze,” Berney said, set off by the American tour of a Spanish group called Estudiantes Espanola Figaro. For some reason—perhaps because of the prevalence of new immigrants from European countries that had mandolin traditions—it just took off.
“There was this big thing of mandolin orchestras, and they were usually community-based, just like a community band or something,” she said. “Every city, every town, pretty much had a mandolin orchestra.”
Turn-of-the-century capitalism also gave the mandolin a leg up. “The Gibson Company, like Gibson Guitars, also made mandolins,” Berney said, “and they sent people—like in The Music Man—except instead of band instruments, they were selling mandolins and starting mandolin orchestras all over the country.” San Francisco had several mandolin orchestras, including an Italian one, a German one, and a Socialist Workers mandolin orchestra.
“Then in the early 1920s, the ukulele craze replaced the mandolin craze,” Berney said. When amplification came along, other louder instruments, more prevalent in jazz and dance bands, replaced the mandolin.
Then, for decades, the mandolin, which is descended from the lute, fell out of fashion.
“Then around the year 2000, there started to be a resurgence of mandolin orchestras in the country,” Berney said. “The Classical Mandolin Society got formed, and David Grisman, a very famous mandolinist, promoted this, as well as promoting every type of mandolin music there was, and he helped make a mandolin revival.”
In 2006, Berney, Gus Garelick and Jan Kahdeman formed the Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble in Sebastopol after coming back from a Classical Mandolin Society Convention.
“I just said, ‘Okay, once a month, my house. If no one comes, I’ll just practice. If one person comes, we’ll do duets. We’ll just do what we can.’ We twisted the arms of everybody that we knew who could even begin to read music at all.”
Berney and friends weren’t the only folks climbing aboard the mandolin bandwagon. Over the last 20 years, the mandolin has made a resurgence in bluegrass, Americana, country, rock, Celtic and other genres.
“As we started playing, we started attracting more people,” Berney said. There are currently 16 people in the group, but only 12 will be playing at the concert on Saturday.
Members play different types of mandolin instruments, including traditional mandolins, the mandola (which is equivalent to the viola but a little bigger) and mandocello—the mandolin version of the cello. Sometimes they’re accompanied by the guitar and bass, played by Dorian Bartley of Foxes in the Henhouse. Several of their members are also singers.
Berney said the Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble plays all sorts of music. Some classical pieces, meant for the lute, as well as folk and modern popular songs, arranged for the group by their music director, John Metras. One of the pieces they’ll be playing in Occidental is a Tijuana Brass medley arranged by Metras.
“We have a special affinity for music of the Americas, both North and South America,” she said, noting that they’ll also be playing some Brazilian Choro music as well as a Mexican piece.
“We have the reputation amongst the mandolin community in the Bay Area of being the most fun mandolin orchestra,” Berney said. “We've often played at the San Francisco Festival of the Mandolins that happens each year, and we've had the reputation of being like, ‘Oh, they're the fun ones — they do weird things.”
The Gravenstein Mandolin Ensemble’s 20th anniversary concert is Saturday, Oct. 3, 7 pm, at Occidental Center for the Arts, 3850 Doris Murphy Court, Occidental. $25. Get tickets.