A Night At The Symphony With Some New Friends

My wife Jenny and I have always had a love for the arts. When the kids were young we took them to many of the Broadway series performances at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center now called The Straz Center. Some of our favorites were Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Chicago and Cats. We also got to see Riverdance and already have our tickets to see it again in January 2018. Today Kristen still has a passionate love of the arts but Evan, being a new daddy and in the United States Air Force stays pretty busy. Hopefully one day he will think back to those days and might consider introducing his daughter and family to the arts as well. 

This past Saturday I was excited to attend the Dade City Symphony final performance of this year’s concert series, “What’s Up At The Symphony? It was held in the Pasco Middle School Auditorium. This has proven to be a great venue for the orchestra and looking around at a packed house I would think that most would agree. Over the last year Jenny and I have become sponsors of this awesome volunteer organization made up of adult amateur, professional and retired professional musicians from the Dade City, Zephyrhills area and beyond. Jenny wasn’t able to make the concert but I met some new friends.

I was really happy to be seated by some really awesome folks from American House. It’s a Senior Living Community located in Zephyrhills. The lady sitting next to me was very interesting and I can’t even remember her name. I know for a fact that it started with an M. She used to live in Hollywood, Florida and her husband worked for Eastern Air Lines. He had to drive from Hollywood to Miami every day to get to work. It was enjoyable spending time with her and listening to her comments and watching her as the Dade City Symphony played songs that she knew very well. I think her favorite was Gershwin by George arranged by Jerry Brubaker. The DCS played a medley of songs written by George Gershwin both popular and classical including I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, An American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue, Summertime from Porgy and Bess and the seldom heard Piano Prelude No. 2. The music surely had a way to transport us back to happy, simpler times.

The 2017/18 series will begin in October 2017. If you have musical talent and are interested in joining this awesome group they would love to give you a listen. You can contact them online at www.dadecitysymphony.com . Growing up I played the saxophone in school but after trying out for the United States Air Force band I realized that I had a long way to go. After my audition they politely told me to keep practicing.

For me I will continue to support the Dade City Symphony in other ways and look forward to the beginning of the next season. Oh, and I’m pretty sure that Miss M and a whole lot more will be counting down the days until we can do it all over again.