Who is RIWE?
Founded in 1969, the Rhode Island Wind Ensemble (RIWE) is a concert wind band of more than sixty skilled professional and avocational adult musicians who believe that live music brings people together, and that it is a gift all people deserve. We aspire to faithfully present the best in traditional wind band repertoire alongside music of underrepresented and historically disenfranchised communities. Our mission is to provide audiences of diverse ages and cultural backgrounds access to live music of the highest quality and to exemplify the benefits of life-long music making.
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 ensure access for all audiences, RIWE does not typically charge admission or sell tickets. Instead, we rely on pay-as-you-are-able donations at the door, concert sponsorships, and grants.
For the 2025–2026 season, RIWE has seven concerts scheduled in Cranston, Scituate, Providence, Newport, and Fall River, with total attendance expected to reach about 2,500. Many of our performances also support partner nonprofits, including Rhode Island Latino Arts, the Armenian Missionary Association of America, and Historic Music of Newport.
RIWE operates on an annual budget of 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.
