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03/30/2016 08:30 AMAppropriate, isn’t it? The president of the Board of Trustees of the Community Music School’s last name is Keyworth—but the name is as far as Tim Keyworth says his musical talents go.
“I just don’t have the aptitude,” he says.
Still, there is music in the Keyworth family beyond the name. Tim says his 11-year-old daughter Addison, a student at Deep River Elementary School, plays the guitar and the clarinet—and she studies at the Community Music School.
The music school is hosting its annual gala, including a buffet dinner, on Saturday, April 16 at the Lace Factory in Deep River. This year’s theme, When Swing Was King, features such American classics, as “Take the A Train,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” and “St. Louis Blues,” performed by an eight-piece band directed by the school’s music director Tom Briggs.
“It’s going to be the masters of the swing era,” Briggs says.
Music school students Emma Hunt, Mia Lawrence, and Barbara Malinsky and voice teachers Joni Gage and Karli Gilbertson will provide vocals for standards like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “I’m beginning to See the Light,” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”
The music school serves more than 300 students, from toddlers in Kindermusik to senior citizens in the New Horizons Band, which boasts one musician who is a nonagenarian. The music school also provides outreach music programs for special needs students in Regional District 4.
Tim got involved in the Community Music School four years ago, through an activity that has been central to his life: sailing. He has sailed on long seagoing races with Bruce Lawrence, who had served as head of the music school’s board of trustees immediately before Tim took over. Last summer, the two were part of a crew of 15 that competed in Transatlantic Race 2015 from Newport, Rhode Island to The Lizard, a peninsula on the southwestern tip of England. Their boat, Prospector, a Farr 60, placed third in its division, finishing the distance of more than 3,000 miles in some 11 days 18 hours.
Tim particularly recalls a period of 22 hours on that crossing when the wind blew steadily at 40 to 50 knots, approximately 47 to 57 miles per hour. One of the ongoing challenges was steering down the face of a 40-foot wave in complete darkness.
“You had to be very alert. It took immense concentration,” he says.
After the transoceanic competition, the Prospector competed in two other classic European offshore races, the challenging Rolex Fastnet that starts off the famed English seaport of Cowes and finishes in Plymouth, and the Rolex Middle Sea, that starts and finishes in Malta and sails counter-clockwise around Sicily.
Tim started sailing in his native Annapolis, Maryland, as a child of six.
“It comes from my family,” he says.
His father worked as sail maker for North Sails; an uncle worked at a marina. Tim arrived in Connecticut 30 years ago to finish his degree in economics at Southern Connecticut Stater University.
“I never left,” he says.
After college, Tim got a job at the Saybrook Fish House, now gone, but once a local restaurant favorite. The job was related to his own personal economic history. He had worked his way through school waiting on tables and bartending.
“It was a fun place to join management,” he recalls.
And what’s more, he met his wife Maureen there. She and Addison are not as enthusiastic sailors as Tim, but both are avid equestrians.
“Horses, they make sailing look inexpensive,” Tim says.
Today Tim is a sales executive at World Trading Corporation headquartered in Old Saybrook. The company matches leather and fabric manufacturers with companies that make ladies’ shoes and handbags. Sailing was Tim’s entrée into the business. The owner first approached him about putting together a winning sail racing team.
Since much of World Trading’s business is done in Europe and Asia, Tim says his workday often stretches late into the night contacting clients halfway around the world.
“I’m never really off the clock; I go back into work at night to take care of clients in Asia—Korea and Thailand. Lots of communication goes on late at night or early in the morning,” he says.
Whatever the country, language is not a problem.
“Everyone speaks English,” Tim says.
At the moment, one of Tim’s tasks as president of the board at the Community Music School is the hiring of a new executive director. Robin Andreoli, who held the position for six years, has just left. Board members Monique Heller and Renee Angelini are heading the search committee. Tim says there have seen several applicants and interviews have already started.
“The sooner, the better. We’d like to make an announcement in a few weeks,” he says.
When he looks ahead to the sailing he would like to do, Tim says that highest on the list, now that he has done a transatlantic race, is to do the same thing on the other side of the world, a transpacific race. And there will be more contests on his agenda after that.
“There’s always another sailing race,” he says.
When Swing Was King
Community Music School Gala at 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 16 at the Lace factory in Deep River. For more information and tickets, visit www.community-music-school.org or call 860-767-0026. Tickets may also be purchased at the office, 90 Main Street (Spencer’s Corner), Centerbrook.