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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT NOVEMBER 3, 2022
SHARP INSTRUMENTS They’ve spent much of their lives mastering their instruments. But Gianluca Farina, Marcelina Suchocka and Hannah Cope have arrived as principal players with the Sarasota Orchestra.
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SPENCER FORDIN A+E EDITOR
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ometimes, the final hurdle to success in life is convincing yourself that you’re ready. Gianluca Farina has climbed all the traditional ladders of the musical world, achieving not just a master’s degree but also an artist diploma in trumpet performance. Farina, 29 years old, has sat in with the Boston Pops and spent three years as a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami. But he still found himself getting nervous for auditions. And then something clicked. “It’s a breath of fresh air,” says Farina, recently hired as Sarasota Orchestra’s principal trumpet player. “I’ve taken plenty of auditions before this one, and I didn’t have a lot of success. I had a few that I advanced, but I’d always get very nervous. And then our last concert at New World, I played principal trumpet on Mahler’s ‘Fifth Symphony.’ “That gave me a huge confidence boost. That finally taught me to just let go and play.” Farina is one of six new fullfledged members of the Sarasota Orchestra. Three of them recently sat down with the Observer ahead of the Masterworks “Symphonie Fantastique” program. The other two new principals — harpist Hannah Cope and p e rc u s s i o n i s t M a rc e l i n a Suchocka — told a similar story of building experience and belief in themselves along the way.
Suchocka, in fact, was a colleague of Farina’s at the New World Symphony, and she was right there when he had his big moment playing Mahler. “He was amazing,” she says. The 29-year-old percussionist is originally from Poland and immigrated to Chicago, and she earned both an undergraduate and a master’s degree at Manhattan School of Music. Suchocka, much like Farina, says she endured her share of heartbreak in the audition process. The truth, she says, is all the applicants for principal positions are pretty equal in their skill and commitment, and it all comes down to who’s having the best day. “Especially when you get to the finals; it’s like what color do they like, purple or blue?” she says. “You can’t take things hard. “The best way I would say to persevere in this field is to not take things personally. To be grateful for every opportunity you have.” Suchocka has performed with the Chicago Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony and Kansas City Symphony, among others, and she said the pre-professional journey is an exciting time of your life precisely because you’re getting to sit in with a lot of different musicians. “One of the things I really liked about kind of being in this kind of freelance state before I got my SEE INSTRUMENTS, PAGE 2
Harry Sayer
Gianluca Farina, Hannah Cope and Marcelina Suchocka