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TFO Blog
Welcome to The Florida Orchestra Blog
Our goal: a steady beat of TFO stories you won’t get anywhere else, including news, peeks backstage, concert previews, musician profiles, photo albums, videos and much more. Make your TFO concert experience exceptional, and join the conversation with The Florida Orchestra’s blog.
Remember when fire alarms went off in Beethoven’s 9th?
You know you’re getting old when you find in a desk drawer a ticket stub to the opening of The Florida Orchestra’s 1981-82 season.
Major new work naturally inspired by Florida
Eighteen years ago, I spent an afternoon at the Brandon home of Michael Ippolito, where he sat at the piano talking about his newly composed Rhapsodie Pathetique. He played a passage and looked at me, confidently. “I’m the piano,’’ he said, “and the orchestra is the world.’’
5 reasons to fall in love with the new season
Expecting a bit of a letdown after our grand 50th anniversary celebration? Don’t. Music Director Michael Francis has put an enormous amount of thought into programming every concert in our most wide-ranging season yet, which starts in the fall. “It’s our first chance to show where we’re going as an orchestra in our new era,” he said.
From backyard orchids, new music blooms
Dorothy Hindman isn’t your typical classical composer. Her music is fearless, post-modern, tightly wound, sometimes digital, punctuated with punk, and always ear-opening. Music critics describe her compositions as visceral, profound, spectral. Some works cascade into a state of entropy, like a swirling black hole in deep space.
Musicians start a Classical Revolution in St. Petersburg bar
Classical music is thriving underground in St. Petersburg. On the second Monday of the month, local musicians get together to perform in Classical Revolution St. Pete, a night of straight-up, high-caliber chamber music in the Iberian Rooster’s basement lounge for whoever wants to listen. For free.
It’s a blast of brass for rare performances of Janacek’s ‘Sinfonietta’
A little more than a week before rare performances of Janacek’s Sinfonietta, TFO Personnel Manager Perry Landmeyer was in a bit of a panic. The piece calls for 12 trumpet players, instead of the typical three or four. Suddenly, he was one short.
A Florida Fanfare that makes a real splash
It’s not every day that a classical composer sits down and writes a piece of music about your home town. But that’s what Daniel Crozier did with his newly minted Splendor Fountain, his homage to the Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater area.
She breathes life into TFO’s tiniest instrument
Anybody who meets Sandra del Cid-Davies, who joined TFO on flute/piccolo this season, knows she has a passion for music and life that far outsizes her tiny piccolo. And it certainly comes through in this Q&A, which feels like a friendly chat over a piece of chocolate cake.
7 concerts in 7 venues in 7 days -- well, almost
In just one week, The Florida Orchestra performed for nearly 30,000 people -- almost all for free. It was an exhilarating, exhausting run as musicians and staff, led by Music Director Michael Francis, traveled to Pasco County, Tampa and St. Petersburg for hospital, youth, side-by-side and park concerts.
Florida Fanfare Project: On the ‘Horizon Gravy’
This just might be the most intriguing title of a work in the entire Florida Orchestra season: Horizon Gravy. Sounds delicious, but what does it mean? We asked Paul Reller, a University of South Florida associate professor of music who composed the piece as part of TFO’s Florida Fanfare Project to celebrate its 50th season.
‘1812 Overture’ cannon blasts: How do they do that?
Brace yourself for the boom of cannons, when The Florida Orchestra lights the fuse on Tchaikovsky’s rousing and riotous fanfare, the 1812 Overture.
TFO’s triumphant ‘Carmina Burana’ concert coming to WSMR radio
Starting this Thursday, you can hear a full Florida Orchestra concert on Tampa Bay’s classical radio station WSMR. And it’s a doozy: the phenomenal performance of Carmina Burana recorded live on opening night little more than a week ago.
From GEICO to TFO: the epic Triangle Solo
When Florida Orchestra Principal Percussionist John Shaw first saw the GEICO “Triangle Solo” commercial on TV, his wife said, “Don’t do that onstage.”
She should have known better.
What is a sensory-friendly Family Concert?
By Erin Horan TFO Community Engagement Director This Saturday, The Florida Orchestra horn section will…
New principal clarinet takes over on stage – and behind the wheel
For the first time in more than four decades, The Florida Orchestra has a new principal clarinet on stage. Meet Natalie Hoe, 23, who makes her debut this weekend when TFO opens its 50th anniversary season with Carmina Burana. This is Hoe’s first professional position, which she was awarded...
Flutists make their own Harry Potter magic with recorders
In last weekend’s concerts of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Principal Flute Clay Ellerbroek and Assistant Principal Flute Daphne Soellner performed partly on recorders. And they will again on the just announced second movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. They didn’t have to; the parts were optional. So why go to all the trouble? Ellerbroek explains.
Carmina Burana: From Bucs game to LIVE in concert
It might be the most popular piece of classical music you’ve never heard of. Such is the fate of Carmina Burana, a rousing and exotic work for chorus and orchestra by the German composer Carl Orff, who would be blown away by how his lone masterpiece has populated popular culture.
Michael Francis in Action: From Windsor Castle to Zombies
Being a music director is a lot more than leading an orchestra on stage. Nobody knows that better than Michael Francis. Just look at where he’s popped up within the last two weeks as we get ready to launch our 50th anniversary season.