Florida Orchestra to play for patients at Hillsborough hospitals

Andrew Meacham, Tampa Bay Times, 5th October 2015

The Florida Orchestra will give free concerts this week for patients and staff at Hillsborough County hospitals, part of an ongoing effort to reach the sick and the elderly.

The orchestra will perform at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the atrium of St. Joseph’s Hospital-North in Lutz. The program is Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, featuring concertmaster Jeffrey Multer on the violin; and pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederick Delius, Benjamin Britten and Felix Mendelssohn, the orchestra said in a press statement.

Michael Francis, the orchestra’s new music director, lives in Lutz with his wife, Cindy and daughter, Annabella, who was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North in December.

The orchestra will repeat the program at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in the cafeteria of Tampa General Hospital. Both concerts will be simulcast throughout each hospital, orchestra said. In addition, several musicians have volunteered to play while wandering through the hallways before concerts, and into patients’ rooms.