Florida Orchestra’s Songs of the Sea

Andrew Meacham,Tampa Bay Times, 9th November 2016

Some of the Florida Orchestra’s most interesting concerts have come about through inspiration, grouping a few pieces together to form an image. A good example is the performance this weekend, Songs of the Sea: Britten, Elgar and Debussy.

“The orchestra can unite the bay in a very powerful way,” said Michael Francis, the orchestra’s music director, who lives in Hillsborough County. The concert runs the same weekend as the Blue Ocean Film Festival, which showcases environmental documentaries, Francis noted.

“But also just the fact that we are by the sea, to celebrate the fact that Tampa Bay is so surrounded by water,” he said.

Pieces include Four Sea Interludes by Benjamin Britten, Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar and La Mer by Claude Debussy. Francis conducted the debut last year of a fourth composition, The Work at Hand by Jake Heggie.

Based on a poem about cancer by the late Laura Morefield, the Heggie piece is not literally about the ocean.

“It’s about a sort of a defiance, about the bravery of the human spirit,” Francis said. “And it’s written for the principal cello of the Pittsburgh Symphony, Anne Martindale Williams, and Jamie Barton, who is a wonderful mezzo-soprano.”

Both Williams and Barton, right, will perform in this weekend’s concert. Francis, who conducted the premiere in Pittsburgh, will take the baton for this one. Concerts start at 8 p.m. Friday at the David A. Straz Jr. Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N MacInnes Place, Tampa; 8 p.m. Saturday at the Mahaffey Theater, 400 First Street S, St. Petersburg; and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 N McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. $15-$45. (727) 892-3337. floridaorchestra.org.

Besides the concert, the orchestra is hosting one of two “Inside the Music” workshops around Debussy’s La Mer. If you have ever attended one of Francis’ pre-concert talks, you’ll love the workshop. Francis spends 45 minutes talking about the piece, with selected musical examples. After a break, the orchestra returns and plays the whole piece. The workshop starts at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the University of South Florida School of Music. Pay what you can at the door.