MARINA BROWN
»culture THE ARTS
The ‘People’s’ Orchestra The Big Bend Community Orchestra Begins Its Twenty-First Year By Marina Brown THE LIGHTS DIM MOMENTARILY before the gels along the proscenium cast cascades of blues and pinks onto the orchestra. In a black Nehru jacket,theconductorraisesbotharms,silhouettedbeforetheplayerslike a genie emerging from a magic lamp. The orchestra is poised; bows hover millimeters above strings; the reedsofwindinstrumentsarewetted;thecircularmouthpiecesofgolden horns are pressed into the embouchures of men with powerful lungs. And they wait — as attentively as soldiers primed for assault or for the surgeon who will make the first cut. What will follow is a tidal wave of the known and unknown … an orchestra unleashed with the dropping of the tiny white wood of the baton … a movement that will bring the past into the aural present and emotionally connect 200 people on the thread of a sound.
To be inside an orchestra as it rises and falls, drives powerfully forward or whisThe love of making symphonic music keeps the amateur pers secrets of the heart is a privilege few musicians of the Big Bend have. Yet for the past 20 years, the Big Community Orchestra Bend Community Orchestra has offered practicing and performing thatopportunitytovolunteermusicians year after year. whorehearsetogether,practiceathome and find the exhilaration of playing works of the great symphonic masters another of the surprising musical bonuses of living in Tallahassee. GinnyDinsmoreissomeonewhoknows.AlongwithWaldieAnderson, aretiredvoiceprofessorfromMichiganStateUniversity,theyfoundedthe Big Bend Community Orchestra in 1994. Though Dinsmore had played with the precursor of the Tallahassee Symphony, that fledging group had collapsed before it later reemerged as a professional organization in 1979. In the meantime, Dinsmore, who for 25 years taught kindergarten throughfourthgrademusicatFloridaHigh,continuedtooccupyherfree time playing clarinet with the Tallahassee Community Band. “A fine organization for sure,”she smiled.“But I really wanted to play symphonic music.” AboutthetimeDinsmoreretiredfromteachingandwas“startingtoget my clarinet skills up to par,” Anderson and his Florida State University professor wife, Carolyn Bridger, were settling intoTallahassee. Anderson too played with the Community Band but also hankered for more classical fare. Then at a band party, much like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in the movies of the 1940s, Ginny andWaldie decided on a whim to “put on an orchestra.” “We rounded up 22 string players and enough personnel for a complete wind and percussion section,” Dinsmore said. “For several years
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