Who is RIWE?

Founded in 1969, the Rhode Island Wind Ensemble (RIWE) is a modern wind band of fifty skilled professional and avocational musicians of all ages and from all walks of life, who believe that live music helps build community. RIWE provides a performance forum for this diverse volunteer membership to share their love of music with people of the Providence metropolitan area. The ensemble performs a wide variety of music at a high level: transcriptions from light orchestral and operatic repertoire; traditional, ethnic, and contemporary band repertoire; and jazz, Broadway musicals, and movie scores. 

The ensemble has considerable experience playing in concert halls and at outdoor venues, with monthly concerts scheduled throughout Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts. We have collaborated with choral, instrumental, community and school groups, including Mount Pleasant High School (Providence), East Providence High School, Blackstone-Millville High School, Scituate High School, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Wind Ensemble. Our concerts often feature instrumental and vocal soloists drawn from our group and from the professional community. 

To improve access for all audiences, RIWE typically does not charge admission to its concerts or sell tickets, relying instead on pay-as-you-are-able donations at the door, concert sponsorships, and grants. In the 2023-2024 season, RIWE has ten concerts scheduled in the following communities: Cranston, Scituate, Providence, Newport, Bristol, Woonsocket, East Providence, and North Kingstown. Attendance for the current season is estimated at 2,500. Our performances are often given to benefit nonprofit organizations, such as Rhode Island Latino Arts, the Armenian Missionary Association of America, and St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center in Woonsocket. The annual budget for RIWE is approximately $20,000.

In response to changing needs, RIWE has recently expanded its scope beyond concert presentation to include public-school-based community service initiatives, including 1) a long-term partnership with the Music Pathways Program at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence, and 2) the Band Instrument Renewal Drive, which pays for the cleaning and repair of donated used band instruments which are then redistributed to public school music programs in the greater Providence area where families cannot afford to purchase or rent an instrument.