It is now official! Our new and budding orchestra has adopted the name “The Venice Community Orchestra” of the Good Shepherd Church. We started our project in early May 2011 with a couple of announcements in the local newspapers a webpage on the Good Shepherd’s website and emails to local music teachers and other parties with a possible interest in supporting our recruiting efforts. I am thrilled to report that as of today we are 15 musicians including former musicians longing to get back into playing their favorite instrument, current members of the Venice Symphony Orchestra and past members wanting to keep playing as well as music students wanting to hone their skills while having fun doing it.

Good Shepherd Church on Center Rd in Venice, Fl have graciously accepted to host us for weekly practice. Most recently, the choir Director volunteered to coach and conduct our young orchestra.

Creating a community orchestra in Venice was just a wish I had while traveling back and forth to Sarasota to play and perform with other amateur musicians; it is real now! We play short pieces of classical and contemporary music. Our current repertoire includes short pieces by Handel, Corelli, Beethoven and Vivaldi.

Our plan is to practice and play throughout the year while trying to keep our seasonal members in the loop as to the various pieces of music we will be introducing during summer time.

Word of mouth has also proven to be critical in attracting local talent and as we grow, I am asking my fellow musicians, friends and friendly contacts to spread the news to help attract talent to the Venice Community Orchestra. Our objective is a complement of 25 musicians. You can rest assured that you’ll be invited to our first official performance before the end of this year.

Thank you for visiting.

I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of a long and positive journey for each member of the orchestra, for our first sponsor Church of the Good Shepherd on Center Rd and for the Venice community.

A lot has happened since I decided, right after my first music camp in Atlanta in April ’11, to go ahead and work on building an orchestra in Venice Fl, yet it seems as if it was yesterday that I started thinking about it. In a year or two I would like to reflect on what the orchestra has accomplished and share it with our musicians and friends who might be interested to know more about us. I know it will be a great story to share!

In the shorter term, this blog will help answer a few simple but important questions that I’m being asked by fellow musicians. Based on my last few weeks’ experience, most of these questions are raised either before a musician decides to join us or within the first couple of weeks of joining us.

As a way of starting the dialogue this blog reflects my personal perspective. I welcome any constructive feedback, reaction or opinion from members of the VCO and other members of the community willing to post them or contact me directly. This will help orient our work with a more balanced perspective.