2010 Overview

Last season, I asked some of our audiences what they’d like most to hear in the next year and "Instrumentally Yours" won, hands down. So, this season’s Music Mondays at SILL features, by special request, the instruments we take for granted every time we go to a performance and need to know more about. From the strings to the timpani, SILL has recruited some of today’s finest musicians to talk about their particular instruments, demonstrate with live and recorded performances, and give audiences an inside look at the sounds they produce.

As always, every speaker will include lots of music - live and recorded - in each lecture. And for me, that’s what makes Music Mondays at SILL different from other events you attend. We try to make every Music Monday as entertaining as it is informative.

There are all sorts of musical instruments - - from the ones we meet in modern symphony orchestras to the ones in our bodies called "voices", to the instruments that carry us to far off places in our local movies houses or right at home on our television screens.

Be the first on your block to know the differences among the French horn, the English horn and the Bassett horn. Tell your friends why you call the first horn player in your orchestra a "hornist" and not a "hornet". Learn how the singing voice works and why it’s one of the most intricate of all instruments. Hear the founder of "Live from Lincoln Center" discuss his instruments, the big HD and smaller TV screens.

This series is meant to educate and enlighten as it inspires and entertains you. Speakers are chosen for their personalities as well as their professions so you feel as if you’re getting a private lesson on the flute, oboe or even the tuba from the crème de la crème of today’s internationally renowned musicians. And, to make the series even more compelling, we are mixing superstars from New York and Europe with our own local superstars in the Sarasota Orchestra.

SILL is one of Sarasota’s hidden treasures. You know about us but don’t keep us to yourselves. Tell your friends and share the joy of music with them.

We look forward to seeing you Mondays from January through March and hope you’ll become part of the Music Monday family.

June LeBell