Tales from San Francisco

I now understand what Tony Bennett meant when he crooned, “I left my heart in San Francisco.”  I did the same as I left my daughter yesterday in San Francisco.  We just returned from a nice 10-day vacation with her and her husband in the Bay Area, where we put nearly as many miles on our feet as we did our rental car. Perhaps this is why San Francisco is constantly rated one of the most physically fit cities in America. Everyone seems to walk or ride bikes.

If any of you have seen my Facebook page, you already know that as we were walking across the Golden Gate Bridge on Friday afternoon, we ran into Van Wert residents George and Altha Brooks. Two million people in the area and we just happened to walk across the same area of the same bridge at the same time. I know many of you have similar stories, but it never ceases to amaze me!  The Brookses were out there to see (of course!) the Buckeyes play Cal in football, but they also met up with their daughter, Lyndsay, and her husband, who now reside in Seattle. We haven’t seen Lyndsay in years, but always have fond memories of her working for us at Hoverman Music Center.  What a surprising and fun reunion that was on the Golden Gate Bridge!

Okay, I know this column is about music, so I will now get to the topic at hand.  While in California, we joined the over 30,000 Buckeye fans who took the trip out west to see the Bucks paste the Cal Golden Bears on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in Berkeley. The football team looks good early in this season, but the OSU Marching Band is also in mid-season form. They made the trip, via Los Angeles, to San Francisco and joined with the Cal Band to perform a powerful “Star-Spangled Banner” to start the game.  As the OSU band performed its pregame and halftime shows, it made me think of the power and excitement we are in store for at the sold-out concert at the Niswonger PAC on November 7.

Also, while in San Francisco we took in the San Francisco Symphony concert in the beautiful Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall.  Famed conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas was conducting the orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 3.  They were giving three performances of this concert and tickets were hard to come by for the opening night on a Wednesday.

Listening to this world-renowned orchestra in a beautiful symphony hall made me think of the concert we have coming to the Niswonger in March with the Toledo Symphony performing the music of Rodgers & Hammerstein and featuring local vocalists Mary Ann Falk and Jake Wilder. With this concert still months away, there are a few hundred tickets remaining, although each day it seems we sell more and more.  I couldn’t help but think how fortunate we in Van Wert are to have the same opportunities as those in much larger cities.

After 10 days off, it is now time to get back into the swing of things in Van Wert.  I just returned early this morning and have already had a meeting with my Niswonger staff to get caught up.  Facility Coordinator Mark Hartman reminded me of the big Volunteer training session we have coming up on Tuesday, September 24, at 7 p.m.  For any volunteers reading this, we encourage you to attend this meeting in the Lecture Hall.  There will be review of current policies as well as some new information to share.  We appreciate all our volunteers and want you to be filled with as much information as we can give to help make concert experiences at the Niswonger first class.

Lastly, this Thursday evening at 6:30, the Niswonger will host a concert with the Isaacs as part of a fundraising event for Lifesong for Orphans.  This is an organization that has touched the lives of some local residents and we are pleased to be able to assist them. The Isaacs are a bluegrass/gospel music group out of Nashville who has been turning the gospel world on its head with their music and live concerts.

And as an interesting side note, they appear on the soon-to-be-released Christmas album of Trace Adkins entitled The King’s Gift.  Of course, Trace’s Christmas show will be coming to the Niswonger this November 16.  You can get tickets for The Isaacs’ concert at the Niswonger in advance and the night of the show.

We are closing in on our season opener. Let the music begin!

FINÉ.