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A tribute to the legacy oF Janet Wolfe (1914-2015)
Janet helped inspire The Harlem Chamber Players and also was a founding Board member.
“When you have two-thirds of your life behind you and one-fourth ahead of you, you want to do something that’s useful or something that’s fun.”
These words, spoken by the inimitable Janet Wolfe, were printed in a 1989 issue of The New Yorker where she regularly appeared in the “Talk of the Town” section. Over the course of nearly twenty-five years, Janet was a fixture in this column. Regular readers were often greeted with tales of a woman that would be a close personal friend to both the celebrity and the cab driver alike, an emblem of what it is to be a true New York icon.
In those columns, she was often referred to by author Susan Lardner as “our friend Janet.” To us at The Harlem Chamber Players, she was in fact, quite literally, our friend Janet. In 1971, as a single mother of two daughters, at the behest of Simeon Golar, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Chairman at the time, Janet founded the New York City Housing Symphony Orchestra a.k.a. the New York City Housing Authority Symphony Orchestra. Its initial aim was to expose NYCHA residents to classical music. These performances enveloped courtyards of the city's public housing developments, community centers, and even Sing Sing Correctional Facility, bringing classical music to spaces filled with New Yorkers that otherwise might never experience the power of live orchestral music. Additionally, the orchestra became a resource that provided performance opportunities for minority musicians in the New York City area. Janet, the consummate ally, also made a point to highlight the works of minority composers alongside the standard classical repertoire.
It is the work of this illustrious woman’s life that inspired the creation of the Harlem Chamber Players—an organization that was graced with Janet’s presence as a founding board member and loyal supporter.
You can read about Janet in the archived pages of The New Yorker and The New York Times. Some locals may be able to share a story of one of her concerts. Perhaps you can unearth some evidence of her tryst with a Venezuelan president, or the time she was sawed in half by Orson Welles. Janet Wolfe was a lot of things to a lot of people, but to us she will always be “our friend Janet.” And we hold in our hearts the hope that with a sliver of her gumption, a dash of her confidence, and the power of the love and support she bestowed upon us and our organization, we will continue Janet's legacy of providing opportunities for musicians of color and increasing access to the power of live music to people in the Harlem community and beyond.
“When you have two-thirds of your life behind you and one-fourth ahead of you, you want to do something that’s useful or something that’s fun.”
It is our sincere hope that we can accomplish both.
Click here for more information about Janet.