expression PERFORMING ARTS
MICHAEL’S SOUNDTRACK For the director of Opening Nights, music supplies wisdom and comfort by STEVE BORNHOFT
W
hen feeling somber or when confronted by events that may be hard to process or interpret, Michael Blachly reverts to what he calls his comfort music: songs that were meaningful to him when he was evolving into the person he would become. On Memorial Day, Blachly was grilling and exchanged messages with a best ↗ To stay in touch friend from high school. The friend with Tallahassee’s was grilling, too, and listening to arts community and contemporary R&B. But Blachly was supporters of the Opening Nights performing arts playing songs that were important to series, director Michael him when he was a young man trying Blachly records and to understand the war in Vietnam, emails video Monday Messages. racial bigotry and assassinations; they are singles in the soundtrack of his life. “Music is a gateway to sometimes political, sometimes apolitical ways of looking at the world,” said Blachly, the executive director of the Opening Nights performance series at Florida It’s Worth. “That phrase could pretty well State University. “Whether it is Stevie sum up what is happening today.” Wonder or The Beatles or Bob Dylan, Blachly likes clarity, perhaps in the their perspective and their take on things extreme. He adores redundancy and and their lyrics have value.” contingency plans. He deals with what On the last Monday in May, Blachly could go wrong before it can happen. found to be soothing songs including Because microphones fail, he has backSunday Will Never Be the Same by ups in place. But there was no getting Spanky and Our Gang; You Were On My ahead of the pandemic. Mind by We Five; Turn! Turn! Turn! by When, on March 11, FSU announced The Byrds and For What It’s Worth by policies precluding gatherings, Opening Buffalo Springfield. Nights had four performances remaining “There’s something happening here. on its 2019-20 calendar: trumpeter Chris But what it is ain’t exactly clear,” Blachly Botti, The Second City improvisational recited the opening lyrics from For What troupe, the musical group Dala, and
74
September-October 2020
TALLAHASSEEMAGA ZINE.COM
George Hinchliffe’s Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. In addition, planned activities featuring the Chain of Parks Art Festival’s presenting artist, Michael Rosato, were canceled. More than performances and gate receipts were lost. The group of five was scheduled to participate in more than a dozen community-based activities. “We use the artist’s Opening Nights performance as a sort of maypole and wrap around it different colored strands that we can take to a senior center or a facility for people with autism or a middle school classroom,” Blachly photography by ALEX WORKMAN