hello i'm commissioner suzanne at well and welcome to another edition of commissioner corner my guest today is dr joseph holt who is artistic director of glory of music i a sarasota based performance vocal ensemble that celebrates choral music through performance and outreach education activities throughout the community and i have to add it is one of our most glorious amenities in this community dr holt was official pianist of the united states army chorus and associate director of the choral our society hailing from washington d c he arrived here for the two thousand and nine two thousand and ten glory of music season joe if i may call you joe is absolutely is the well let me call you susie absolutely welcome to commissioner corner let me start with you of course in your role at glory of music and the background of your performers your singers and what this performance vehicle does for the entire community thank you suzanne for having me today and it's a pleasure to talk about this on sabah which as you said is one of the you know these wonderful artistic organizations that exist here in sarasota my role as artistic director is basically you know you choose the music you design the building together you've got to have all the moving parts and everything's squared away before you get it up and running and the background of your singers your babbling of the performers are professionally trained singers from this area i mean in the area we reach out as far as winter haven and within florida it's within florida so we were not importing as some of the professional courses in the country for singers from york city or los angeles we have the local talent base here and it's wonderful i mean so you know they are all dedicated know these are some of the singers that actually participate in church services in synagogue services you know i mean that they occur throughout the area you know and we bring them together and you know they make this music we also have in the midst of our  young singers from the state college of florida and this is are you know one of our educational outreach initiatives we provide them with you know that opportunity to sing with a professional sambal learn a little bit more about their craft and gain that you know inside  experience from more seasoned performers you know in hopes that they will continue on with the arts you know once they finish at the state college of florida go on to another institution sort of like a apprenticeship what we call an apprentice is actually exactly what it is and so we them and make sure that you know that they have you're on the right track and we don't give them singing lessons because they do have singing teachers you know that's the difference here was that were they come within the you know here and talent they do yeah and everybody's audition every single year i riyad this in the group so that you know in the competition is pretty fierce to get into this ensemble this year we had over sixty people audition and i had to choose twenty four slots wonderful so i remember attending the walt whitman with the military that was a few years ago we did such was the war the premiere of that here in florida such was the war it was at the methodist church i believe right on pineapple avenue and yeah it was really how a moving and extraordinary powerful experience you know especially considering what we're going through right now you know in afghanistan a and hopefully pulling out of there so it's topical we try to be as topical as possible because one i mean we're a chorus you know we have you know i call them the super musicians because these are the musicians who not only have to know all the notes and all the rhythms and all those expressive marks and stuff like that they have to be able to produce the text in an intelligent fashion and then combine together and do that so that's why i call them super musicians or anything and we try to find things  topics that really relate to us in the community or in society i mean for example this past year we did a program is called voices of the holocaust and we did that on international holocaust remembrance day and i attended that and powerful in that regard and this year you know upcoming we have a we're going to start out with a performance in november that is we titled it in thanksgiving because it happens to fall in thanksgiving week on the sunday right before thanksgiving but it's actually more about philanthropy and giving and that's something that here in sarasota people are so generous with are taken for lathrop a what a concept well you know think about it you know we've had this you know since day one musicians have been called upon issues and so we try to do our part we try to be a part of the community and bring awareness to the issues that we currently face in society and one of the ones that you mean when you and i have been talking about quite a bit is the homeless issue and  certainly it's it's very concerning for everyone here in sarasota it's a multi multi tiered issue it's not just as simple as ok this is scoop up people and move them somewhere else or give them shelter somewhere you know i mean we have it's  partnering with the community foundation of sarasota and you know folks may be aware of something called the season of sharing oh yes yes now it's part of the community foundations effort as well as the herald tribune media group and i believe the paterson foundation also participates in this and it's this is going to be their fifteenth anniversary this year last year was one of the most successful there was doing i think they raised over two million dollars if i'm not mistaken and this is this is money that helps those who are financially strapped who are on the verge of becoming homeless and we keep them from becoming homeless thereby contributing to an issue so there we have it in sarasota here again i know that it's multi tiered i mean it's not just you know an economic i probably only about ten or fifteen percent absolutely in the long run but i mean anything positive we can do you know to help you know it is our philosophy it's my philosophy and i think as a community that's how the way we operate too i going to tell me a little bit before we talk about how we when this event is coming up your how you got involved in this i mean i read a little mention a little bit about your your background and then how did you come to this in two thousand and nine well i think like everyone everyone who's here in sarasota who was a transplant you know we were invited down you know by friends just to you know have a nice weekend  actually fell in love with it within twenty four hours and started looking at it seriously as a community to consider to or to move to after i finished with the united states army and i finished the army in two thousand and ten and we bought our house in two thousand and nine and start transition and now as far as music is concerned what i did you know in the five years before we moved here i just got in touch with a variety of community leaders in the arts you know talk to the orchestra talk to the opera people i talk to the you know the ballet and the theaters and just and it truly nice generous people i mean we've made some lifelong friends here just in the last five years so one of the folks that i met at that time was june the bell and june was the artistic director of the glen ridge performing he and i got in touch had lunch with her and she was also i mean a couple of years later she was now singing with cory music i am the executive director gauri music guy she remembered that i was thinking about potentially coming to sarasota and she said joe if you're going to be here if you're moving here i've got a great job for you and as with music i and they were getting ready to you know their could their current conductor at the time in two thousand and nine was getting ready to step down and it was it was perfect i mean granted  of going back and forth but that's sometimes how it has to be done but it was very serendipitous in a way and they hired me to you know to basically take that ensemble to the next level and that's what we succeeded in the so what does that mean taking it to the next level artistically speaking you know i mean this you know it's it's a fascinating process because you know we're dealing with personalities and people you know and feelings you know so i mean what i had to do was basically you know do take the core group that i had of the time and over these five years you know we've auditioned and new people have come in and so the face of the organization has changed to all the people who have sung with me since two thousand and nine are wonderful friends they may not be singing in the group at this point but they're still wonderful friends and i respect them as artists but they didn't fit the mold particularly you know sometimes you know where we're going to go artistically you know and what you want to do always you know if as an artist and you're always developing you're always growing you never sit on your do you feel and in this community we do have a plethora of performing arts visual arts everything and there is competition and there is always vying for dollars and your place here it seems to me that you are establishing a great great place in this community in a community that has a great deal yes arts i mean when you think about it i mean this group has been here thirty five years you know so it's been here you know that's quite a it's quite a bit since one thousand seventy nine so it's been a long time but you know and it's been a wonderful part of the fabric of what the arts offer here i mean granted the choral music is more of a niche than the other larger orchestre opera ballet audiences but we also you know we provide a voice for the community in the community that's what we do that's exactly what it is a different note that what you what what your performers saying and you direct is messages but what a beautiful way to send a message well music is therapeutic and i'm going to go but we're starting to run out of time what i'd like to talk a little bit more about the dates of the upcoming event and how we get in touch with  our first concert this year is on sunday november twenty third at the sarasota opera house and we chose the opera house because it's such a grand location centrally yes you know in downtown sarasota and this is the concert that you know we are are highlighting the community foundation and the and the season of sharing the whole program is devoted to philanthropy however you know so it's more than just you know this one little thing i mean it's a it's a beautiful concert  highlights you know this giving nature which isn't a part of who we are absolute as a sarasota community and i mean that's one of things about that impressed me most of it i picked the observer week after week you know coming here it is like amazing how many things are going on all right  and then we have a phone number who can call to that's not a search for tickets that's four for information ok and that's the three eight seven six zero four six and that's our executive director susan burke want to show you can answer any questions about it and you know it's really is this  be such a beautiful of events you know not only you know for us as a community but also you know just celebrate this season of sharing and you know their kickoff into their sixty and their fifteenth so it's i just can't thank you enough it's been glorious having  african american spiritual choir they're going to join us for the last piece and we also have the voices wonderful beauchamp's well we are all looking forward to this this is absolutely exciting we're out of time again and thank you so much and again this is commissioner suzanne outwell signing off on another edition of commissioner corner