In Sunday’s (12/14) Philadelphia Inquirer, Jacqueline Urgo writes about New Jersey’s Bay-Atlantic Symphony, which operates “amid some of most economically depressed and rural parts of the state” and “offers an ambitious calendar of 12 symphonic programs annually,” on a budget of about $480,000. “On any given date, the full 60-piece orchestra could be playing for a highbrow academic crowd at an area college or a packed audience of high rollers in an Atlantic City casino. Or a smaller ensemble may pop up some afternoon at an Atlantic City Expressway rest stop to play for road-worn truckers and beach-weary families…. ‘We go wherever we are hired or invited to go,’ said Paul Herron, executive director of the Bridgeton-based organization, which describes itself as serving a population between the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean…. The symphony may reach its community most directly through a program called Music Mentorship, Herron said. It takes symphony musicians and [college-age] music students to the classrooms at Atlantic City High School to teach string instruments. ‘When we looked at the musical programming in that school system, we saw a great need to bring music and the arts to these students,’ Herron said.”
Posted December 15, 2014
