Tony Seepersad talks about his labor of lover for the musical arts and the group of musicians he has worked within and around Homestead Florida.
Even though we are all accomplished musicians it’s rare that we get ownership of the concerts we perform. So when we got an opportunity to write our own program…a concert of musicians by musicians… we decided we would accept the financial offer and make this a labor of love. We had a preliminary rehearsal a few weeks ago and then rehearsed Monday – Wed before the concert. Scott and I work at a summer camp from 8am – 4pm and then would come down to City Church for a 6-9pm rehearsal and Claudio, who lives in West Palm Beach, would work a camp until 12pm and then drive 2 1/2 hours down to City Church to rehearse for 3 hours and then drive another 2 /12 hours home each rehearsal day. I think the amount of money he made mostly went to gas lol. We were so exhausted each day, including the concert day, but we were so happy to play great music with each other and to present this as a gift to Homestead. I told them how starved Homestead was for the Arts and that I believe this was going to be the first legitimate Chamber Concert of top-ranking professional musicians in Homestead. I grew up here my whole life and I never heard of a chamber concert in Homestead. The closest thing was when we had the “Frost Comes to Homestead” series that lasted for two seasons, but that was primarily college students starting to stretch their wings and get some performance opportunities. Great students but not the level of Scordatura musicians. Scott also remembered how wonderful the audience was during the Baroque concert and was excited to be back. Homestead, believe it or not, has better, more appreciative audiences than Miami. You all are great! It reminds us why we decided to become musicians in the first place.
There were many ideas I thought about when you approached me about doing a concert. I thought about going in the fun, entertaining, crowd-pleasing good time direction, but then I thought, “What do we need in this community to really give people a well-rounded art scene?” It was then that I thought great Chamber music was a gap we had yet to fill. We touched on it at the Baroque concert, but with the very small budget we had for that show, we didn’t have money for the harpsichord rental and extra players needed for the real instrumentations for those pieces, so we got by with what we could. This time we got to play the original instrumentations written by master composers. I’m sure you heard the difference. All this to say that thanks to you and your board, Homestead has been well served by your concert series. I am grateful for the trust you have in me to pretty much write a show and deliver without really knowing what it’s gonna sound like. I have all sorts of ideas for more concerts and I hope we can work together again. A big congratulations to everyone who’s contributed to this project and making our city a better place!
Regards,
Tony Seepersad
786 525 5238