Backstage at the Carnival Center-a View from the Pit
The Carnival Center for the Performing Arts opens in Miami this weekend, an event decades in the making. From October 3 through October 7, South Florida Musicians Association Secretary-Treasurer and Florida Classical Orchestra oboist Jeffrey Apana writes about what it is like to be backstage during this history-making week.October 5
As a side note to yesterday's blog, nearly half of the 80 Florida Philharmonic musicians have left town or given up music. It's a tragic loss. With the skyrocketing cost of living and no full time jobs, it will be difficult to lure musicians of that caliber to south Florida. We're fortunate to have a dozen FPO members who have joined Florida Classical Orchestra.
Tuesday night we rehearsed in the Peacock Room at the Carnival Center, yesterday in the Ziff Hall pit, and tonight at St. Andrews Church in Hollywood (to avoid the traffic problems at the Carnival Center's opening tonight). It's pretty typical for musicians to be in different places up and down the tri-county area each night. There's a week later in the season where we're at the Broward Center one night, FAU the next, then the Eissey Theater in Palm Beach Gardens, then back to the Broward Center, then back to Eissey, and then to the Carnival Center. Roving musicians in south Florida have been nicknamed the "I-95 Symphony."
Tonight we rehearsed for the Miami City Ballet portion of the Carnival Center opening. Miami City Ballet is finally using live orchestra again this season, after a long hiatus. We're glad to be back, thanks to a few generous donors who know that world-class ballet means live music. Ballet companies in other cities, including Pittsburgh and Atlanta, have also been wrestling with the issue of live music. The cost of the orchestra is generally less than 5% of the cost of presenting ballet, but it's usually the first thing to get cut when there are money problems.
Any actor or dancer will tell you that live music makes a big difference. I play for Seaside Music Theater in Daytona Beach in the summers, and many of their cast comes to perform specifically because of the opportunity to work with a live, full orchestra. There's a certain spark, extra energy you get when performers interact with each other. Kind of like dueling banjos. You can take liberties, do something a little different each night, and that causes someone else to react to what you did which in turn causes someone else to feed on that energy. I've performed Nutcracker well over 100 times, and there's a spot in the Arabian Dance ("Coffee") where the oboe has a solo, followed by the same solo on English horn. Margaret Butler (who is now with the Milwaukee Symphony) would play the oboe solo with different levels of "schmaltz" each night, and then I'd come in on English horn, trying to imitate and maybe even one-up her. Bob Weiner will be playing the oboe solos in Nutcracker this year...come and hear us try to out-do each other!
- 1. Backstage at the Carnival Center-a View from the Pit
- 2. October 4
- 3. October 5
- 4. October 6
- 5. October 7
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