Music, music, music!

Long-time friends sometimes ask me, rather doubtfully, what musical opportunities I’ve found in the South Florida golf community where we live. Here are examples from the last two weeks, a good balance of listening, teaching, and accompanying. Piano practice is a daily pleasure.

I accompanied a flutist from Park Vista high School in a regional solo competition last Friday. Soon he’ll be going on to State. I listened to a trio of principals from the Orchestra Symphonique de Montreal play Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat major, K. 563 in an afternoon chamber recital at our nearby clubhouse. It was exquisite. The wonderful choir at our First Presbyterian Church in Delray Beach delights and inspires me every Sunday.

 

My friend Rosemary and I attended the Live-in-HD Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. I fell in love with this opera when Steve and I saw the Houston Grand Opera’s production at the Kennedy Center in 1976, as part of our nation’s Bicentennial Celebration. This Met production was terrific–so popular that its run was extended (a rare occurrence). The lush music keeps running through my head.

 

For the first time in eight years, I am teaching a piano student every week. Luke is the eager eight-year-old grandson of a teacher I knew in Northern Virginia. I am also directing a group of 5th grade Safety Patrols at Crosspointe Elementary School. On March 19 these patrols will sing A Million Dreams from the movie, The Greatest Showman, at a fundraiser I’m holding at our club to raise money for their annual trip to Washington DC.

When Lilli, Violet, and Elizabeth visit next week, we have tickets to see the Miami City Ballet perform The Firebird by Stravinsky. My piano student’s father will be playing trumpet in the Ballet’s orchestra. Tomorrow I get to see Hamilton at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach with friends.

For Quail Ridge’s Members Got Talent Show on March 12, I will be playing piano for three different acts:  Cole Porter’s It’s De-Lovely! and two other songs by a former New York cabaret singer, Ol’ Man River by three basses from our Chorus, and these four friends singing Lollipop, with Steve providing the cheek pop! Rehearsals fill my calendar.