The Sound of Gold with guest Kay Purin and Kathy Combs

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0:51 Hi, welcome to the Sound of Gold. It is so great to be back for you today. And I'd say i'd be back. With you and be able to. See me and hear me, and I know that you're there, and I'm so thankful for you. Because of you, I'm able to keep this show going and I will continue to do this. My show is called The Sound of Gold. If you've been here before, you know my focus is on music, musicians, music venues, music teachers, music collegey music schools, and composers and anything music related. It is such a privilege and a joy for me to do this. I am also a piano player. I also teach piano and here right now while we are recording live. It is Monday.

1:40 It is Monday afternoon on this evening time. At the end of a Monday, and even if you're watching this a recording of this, I would like to play for you just a couple of minutes before we get into our show. For today, and I invite you to sit back and reave.

3:11 I hope you are. All doing well, and I hope that whatever kind of day you've had, that you may find love and peace in it and happiness. And I'm so excited today I have some special guests with me, and I'm so excited that you're here with me to tune in and to share with you. You know, I'm going to jump around a little bit because this past July, the fourth of July here in the United States, it was celebrated. It is celebrated for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our country. And that's huge. You know, a lot of us have grown up and we I would think all of us have grown up with the education of our history and.

4:01 Our independence. And not to get into politics, because I don't. It's just a privilege to be alive. In today's day and age and to being a part of celebrating two hundred and fifty years. That's a long time. And even if we're not that age I'm not, at least not yet. It's still a privilege to be a part of the celebration. And although July has passed and we're in August, the idea of the acknowledgment of two hundred and fifty years is still present and it. Is so exciting to me that we continue to celebrate that through music. And two of my guests today.

4:42 That I'm going to be bringing on they are a big part of the master Works Chorus of the Palm Beaches here in Florida, and I can't wait for them to be here with me to tell you about their way of sharing and performing in honor of two hundred and fifty years celebration. Okay and Kathy, please join me. I know you're sitting backstage waiting for. Me and Lisa. Hi, k Hi, Katy Hi. Nice to be with you and with your listeners. Yes, thank you, thank you, and thank you so much for making the time for this. And We've planned this a few months out and I'm so excited because there is so much that goes into this performance and even before we get into that, I'm a people person.

5:35 We made a connection through through Ronda, through MT and. A, and I'm all about building relationships and getting to know you, because this isn't just a job as a musician. We don't just do a job. We live our passion. And I don't know who wants to go first, but Kay, Kathy, choose you girls pick. I would love to hear and I would love to share with our audience a little bit about your your journey, your musical journey through your lifetime that has brought you to where you are now. Okay, you, why don't you? CA's been with Masterworks course for many years and one of the has been had a long professional career, So Kay, why don't you start. I'm the current president and I'll take over when Kay is finished. Okay, yeah, thank you. Yeah.

6:22 I started my musical career at the age of twenty one. I wasn't five like you, Lisa. I started twenty one. And I started as an opera singer at twenty one, which was kind of strange for most people to think of that, I guess. But I went on to sing with the opera as a soloist, started in the chorus, saying as a soloist for almost thirty years, and I also was the musical administrator for the Pompi ch Opera under Maestro Anton Guadago. I was his personal assistant. So I really enjoyed all that time, and then went on to do musical theater Phantom of the op From Phantom of the Opera to Menopause the musical, all kinds of fun stuff. Yeah. But now I decided to join Masterworks, and I've been singing with Masterworks for probably eight years now.

7:22 But I also knew the original conductor, doctor Jack Jones, who started Masterworks many many years ago, and he was a dear friend of mine. So since nineteen seventy eight, fifty years, almost fifty years. Yeah, yeah, not that that was how long you knew him, but that's how long the Chorus was founded by him in nineteen seventy eight. Now, what an inspiration. Wow, who would have thought it would have gone so long? I mean, he what a legacy he's left. Yeah, and he has unfortunately passed away. And we have a wonderful conductor. Now, I'll let Kathy describe Brian Eines to you. He's our new conductor. I'll let him describe him.

8:12 Well, the history of Masterworks is kind of interesting. In this nineteen seventy eight version period Jack Jones was a Juilliard trained organist of some renown and at a certain point he was at Bombich Atlantic and then he went to the Royal Poinciana Chapel and he started with singalongs, Messiah singalongs and our current I'll get to our current conductor, but our current accompanist was an early accompanist of master Works Chorus when we were at the Royal Poinciana Chapel, largely during after COVID, we experienced new leadership and changes like everybody did. And last year we hired brought doctor Brian Iams, who is a doctorate in choral conducting from University of Michigan. He grew up in this area. I don't know if he grew up here, but he began his teaching in the Southern County high schools and then became then he was selected to be trained at the University of Michigan doctoral program where he then came back and master Works was lucky enough to be able to attract him to be our current director of music.

9:36 Okay, so, and he actually lives on the west coast of Florida, but he drives all the way over here just to conduct master Works. That's amazing. He really master works, has a reputation and it's a very good one, and he felt it would be worth the drive to come over or just to. Work with us. He's a professor of music at the Golf. Coast Gulf Coast College. That Florida Gulf Coast University embowered School of Music. And I think I'm sorry. He comes over every Tuesday to do rehearsals and he has brought an incredible experience training. The easiest way for me to say it is that the training that he received enables him to make a chorus sound much better.

10:34 We train to sing more correctly, and he can make dynamics work better interpreting the music. The difference is so obvious when you have We loved Taylor. I'm not saying anything against kin Taylor, but his training was not in the choral conducting field. So it's just been a great experience for us under this new leadership. That's wonderful and everybody brings something, you know, everybody, everybody brings their own nuggets of gold with them. And it's totally different from one conductor to the next.

11:14 It's noticeably different. And the wonderful thing about Brian is because he has all this fabulous experience because master Works is a community chorus. Okay, not everybody has degrees in opera or musical theater, and so they don't know, you know, so they haven't had the musical training that they but he can. Bring that out, then he I love that. Yeah, he brings out potential that people didn't even know they had there. Or perhaps my experience is I'm finding more common among Masterworks community choruses. Growing up as a little bitty choir member in a church, spending all of my youth singing in choirs, all of my adult time singing in choirs, going to Northwestern's music school, singing a little bit of voice, and realizing that I had some talent, but I was not going to make a career in music or opera like Kay could. So I became a lawyer, worked for thirty years, making all kinds of money, singing in the choir when I could. But the love of a music and of choral singing was always there. And once you've sung your whole life, you're going to find another chorus, another choir. And I was looking for my choir when I came down to Palm Beach County and I found it master works as.

12:41 Her lawyer brain comes from here. But you know, as a musician and anybody out there listening to this note, as a musician of any type that comes from here, Yes, the soul and it does not ever go away. It's a God given gift and you've got. You feel the need to use it. I don't care vocal or instrumental, but you feel the need to have to share it and use it. And what I learned from music school is musicians are incredibly smart. One of the hardest professions and most underappreciated intellectrict by people in business school and out there in corporations managing companies. Musicians are very bright, very talented, very hard working and so true. And I can tell you that your training is very difficult to pass.

13:37 It is it is. And you know, I'm I'm in the space in this place of with my show. I'm in my second season the Sound of Goals. And I focus is on music because I truly believe that where we're going. I mean, there's the AI, there's there's the technology. Honestly, the passion that that I put into keeping this show alive is to say we're going somewhere like we're not the bottom feeders anymore, Like we're rising above. And there's so much study with the brain, and I wish I had. More time, there was another day in the calendar that I could do more research, because the brain is so powerful and as musicians, like, we're using parts of our brain that the everyday person. Not not being disrespectful, but we are using different parts of our brain that that are not used by by other people that are not musicians. Sorry, my cat moving this so and we need all of us so I'm not this is not.

14:45 Expecting anyone, but yes it is. It is needed. Yeah, so, yes, we. Are rising above. And what you're saying, let me ask you and I'm gonna jump around. I'm sorry, my brain kind of works fast sometimes. M hm. Kathy, you were a lawyer. You are now president. Of Masterworks Course, master Works Course. How did you come about that position? And a very good one, I might say, very very good. Well. I joined right after COVID. We were among twenty or thirty of us from master Works Chorus were invited along with representatives and rather choruses to seeing Beethoven's Ninth with the Palm Beach Symphony and it's hard to describe what a wonderful experience that was for all of us.

15:37 And so that evening a couple of the other sopranos said, why don't you come and replace me as secretary, Kathy, you would really enjoyed it. So, with COVID and everything else, master Works was struggling, as was everybody else. And when I saw the list of performances that Masterworks has done done in the last almost fifty years, I looked at it. I said, I can help. The skills that I developed over a thirty year career in business I think can be useful here and I want to be part of the team that makes sure that master Works doesn't fail. And that's what we have done in the past several years.

16:17 We are a board led organization. Somebody said, Kathy, have you considered hiring an executive director? I said, you're got one hundred thousand dollars I'll be glad to hire on. You're a board led organization largely because we have people like me who want to sing and have always sung, can bring their careers to bear the skills in training they have in music and outside of music to bear to manage an organization and we are really going someplace. Our revenues have doubled in the past two years. Year after year. We're doing development work that we've never considered doing. The programming that Brian is bringing, the talent that he has brought from all over the country and even from South Africa is fresh and new on the Palm Beach County scene. So it's very exciting to be a part of it. And every time when I'm presenting before a panel of funders, they say, you're all volunteers. We have a few, you know, outside contractors, and of course the musicians we pay, but management of the chorus is completely volunteer based.

17:31 I love that. But more and more people are stepping up. You know. Initially it was okay, a couple of you, yo, We'll let you go ahead and do what you're gonna do. But people are really stepping up and they have great talent that they are lending to our management. So it's really fun. It's been a lot of fun. Now we are live on air and on broadcasting, live on television. However, for those people that are not able to see us, first off, for those that are watching us, they can see Masterworks dot Org underneath our scroll right now. But for those that are sorry, I have my cat that's wanting my attention. She's right here.

18:12 For those of us that cannot for those listening that cannot see us, how do they find master Works? Where would they go to find out more information? Well, we have a website and and that's that's the website. The website will have our scheduler performances, and it's linked to ticket space and some of the fun, fun things that we have initiated to help us raise money or that. For example, we'll be doing three performances of Messiah in December, three different locations North County, Middle County, South County, and one can go on the website and sponsor. A song and that's Masterworks PB dot or or if you always want to sponsor I Redeemer.

18:59 Of this space and set when she could you can for two hundred and fifty dollars end up with two tickets medication in the brand for your mother and whatever you'd like to say about her. And it's been incredibly popular. That's how people buy their all of our performances except the first one to which for the Unity Concerts. Sure, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'm not sure. The reception is freezing on us and sometimes technology does that, so there are different opportunities for people to sponsor master works. Just because we had a little glitch in the system, could you repeat what you just said, I'm sorry.

19:41 Well, in the website, it's linked to ticket spice, Okay, so it will have all of our scheduled performances over the course of the season, and you click onto one I'd like to go to that one, and it will pop up all the opportunities for ticket purchases, but it includes these we're referring to as song sponsorships. That has proven to be extremely successful. Everybody wants to sponsor the Hallelujah Chorus on behalf of their parents for example, or something like that. So that's how one buys tickets there, and it's all LinkedIn. It's very easy. You click on and then you will get, you know, in your inbox, your ticket and you're good to go. For the first concert we're doing this year, it's called Unity, Love and Brotherhood, a choral celebration for America's two fifty, which referred to earlier.

20:37 On that is October eighteenth, at the Cravis Center. We are partnering with four other choruses. There will be two hundred and fifty singers Wow County on stage singing a selection of the first half of it is I believe, going to be Americana. Okay, so we're be singing Hallelujah, you know, all of those famous American songs, and we're inviting veterans and tail address that. Yes, I was going to ask about that. And then the second part of it is going to be songs of unity, brotherhood, in love, and each of the five conductors have selected the pieces that they want to conduct. We'll also have an organ recital by Adam Brakele, who has been acclaimed as the one of the best organists in the world. So he's going to be playing the Cravis organ for a couple of pieces as well.

21:33 So the tickets for that are available only at the box office, the Cravis box office, but they're very reasonably priced. One can buy a ticket and it's all orchestra, the best seats in the house for one hundred dollars a piece or less. So I mean that's tickets. Once you talk about the veterans. Yeah, the veterans get ten dollars tickets, right, because we are celebrating these wonderful patriots for Americas to fiftieth and what we have the Cravis actually, I have to read something.

22:13 Lisa Cravis has decided that it should be worded this way. All the veterans have to do is called the box office, and it says the choruses would like to offer the veterans majorly discounted orchestra tickets from now until Sunday, October fourth. Okay, this discount will apply to the middle Orchestra Rose d. Through n best season. The Half Bessie. The discount is only redeemable online using the code Brother twenty six. And then they ended by saying, we thank you for your service, and it's it's the codes exclusively for veterans, and we hope that they will ensure joy the show. And so I actually to find all these people. I actually I've become friends with Brian Masked, our chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Brian is helping me to get to all of the veteran affairs people, to get to as many veterans as possible. Even if it's hopefully, like Kathy and I were saying earlier today, hopefully we can find get to the veteran.

23:30 Nursing homes and they will have buses. And they can bust them there like they would take them to the mall to go shopping, but to the Cravis And we're hoping that they would enjoy coming in their uniforms and we're doing all the themes of the major Service as Marines, Air Force, Army Coast Guard so they can stand salute the American flag and sing along with us about republic everything, just sing along and enjoy the patriotism. I'm just I'm so touched by what you're sharing and how this is being put together.

24:13 And it's what I. Mentioned earlier when I started the show, like were you and I all of us we're not two hundred and fifty years old, but to be a part of this celebration. You know, we're here to make. An impact as human beings, and we are we are standing. Right in our role to make that impact and. To make a difference in other people's lives and to be that messenger and that connector. And it's just so beautiful what you are doing and what you've invested in and what you know, what you're sharing. Well, like these people, these people are true patriots that made this possible. They fought for this country so that we have the freedom we have to have a birthday of two hundred and fifty years and the least we can do is celebrate them with music. And I think that this has made to me that is making this concert the best it can be, just by having the veterans.

25:15 So if they just go on the Cravis box office website, look for October eighteenth, Sunday, Okay, look for a four pm concert. That's the only one there at drunk the big four o'clock, so's plenty of room for everybody, and then they can get their ten dollars ticket. The veterans can and other people. The tickets are twenty five thirty five, you know they're they're very reasonably priced. We would love many people enjoy the concert as can. And that's October eighteen, after Cravit Sunday, October eighteenth, and it's four o'clock, so it's early enough for older people that you know, can't don't necessarily want to be out after dark or whatever.

25:55 They can get through the concert and still be going home fairly early. So it's it's a nice time. I think no is it a two hour show or a three hours. It's about two hours, yeah. Okay, and there's usually an intermission. Would you say, I don't really know what we plan to do yet about that. But I really don't know, Lisa, I don't think we can. The box office. The box office has that detail. It'll tell yeah, it starts. I believe there will be an intermission. But between the two segments, the brother probab Love and then the America. Yeah, probably yeah. And for the audience is out there watching or listening, if you have not been to the Crabbit Center in West Palm Beach, it's a beautiful venue. And you know, if we're if we're having veterans come in and join us, there's I don't know how to say this, sorry as a cat here on my face, I don't know how to diplomatically say this other than just to say, for my friends and families out there that might have some any kind of disability, there is somebody there to help you find a comfortable See. It's a beautiful venue. It's you know you you won't be just like you don't just go in and sit down. It is truly a magical event and a magical place to go see a performance.

27:23 And it's for the price that you're offering at it's almost gosh, what a tree? What? But we wanted to make it available to as many as possible. We want them there. I mean, the ten dollars is just steady actually, but we wanted them to be able to afford it, you know, and so and it does. Of course, the theater has great wheelchair accessibility, so if there wheelchair bound, they'll always be people there to take care of them. Well, let me list the names of the courses, because this was the brain of the choral He's going to ask the leading group, Ebony Corella, Palm Beaches. Doctor Lawton has been on the Cravis Center advisory board since its inception, and they are giving us a discount to use this facility in the in Dreyfus Hall in his honor. So then you'll have Masterworks Chorus, you'll have Choral Society the Palm Beaches, whose artistic director is Mark Alliopolis, whom you may know, Robert Charon Corral who's led by Robert Sharon and Espressivo singers, and I'm trying to remember they have a wonderful conductor as well. I don't want to. But at any event, all five of those choruses will bring together a total of two hundred and fifty voices on stage with an orchestra and a narrator. So it will

28:55 be an entertaining afternoon, and we certainly hope that people will feel welcome to attend and to enjoy it. So for people that have not experienced this before, would we be spoiling it to give them a little premise of what to expect. I mean, it's not just singers, and it's not just an orchestra. I mean it, I know, And of course you know when you're there, it is just so masterfully magical and you're so drawn in. Can we what ways can we share that with the audience to give them a little taste of what to expect.

29:37 Let me just pull down the list of songs, but the ones that we have put in our marketing battle Hymn of the Republic, Lift every Voice and sing, which is the national anthem of the an Acan American community, America the Beautiful, plus this all the anthems of the services. But I can I can pull up this the uh, the songs from unity and brotherhood and love, and they're very nice as well. You know, this is lovely that you're sharing this. However, this this is I mean, it's always like taking a picture of the moon, like you can look at your phone and you just don't get the same effect.

30:20 So to go in person is just you have to go. Yeah, right, you have to go. It's one of the songs is give Me You're Tired, You're Poor by Irving Berlin and that is the inscription on the Statue of Liberty. And it's a spectacular song. I Dream a World by Andre Thomas, Amazing Grace by Jack Schrader. He Ain't Heavy, He's my brother. It was a great song. Yeah, what the world needs now is love America the beautiful. That was not one of them. Dancing Queen. That was another concert.

31:02 It's gonna be a lot of fun and we hope your audience will will join us and enjoy it. There we have a couple other wonderful concerts. If you'd like to hear about them over the course of the year. I do. But before we hold, please hold that thought. This event October eighteenth, this is just a one time four o'clock. Yes, there's not two shows or three shows Friday Saturday Sunday. It's just Sunday, or it's a Sunday YEP October eighteenth, at four pm at the Cravis Center in West Palm Beach. For my audiences out there, check out Masterworks PBPs in Palm b is in Beach dot org to get your tickets at the Crabit Center.

31:46 And it is in Dreyf Hall. It's not it's the big theater. Not not the small one, not the rinker, it's the big theater. I'm sorry. To get your tickets, you have to go to the Cravis box office. Oh the Kravits okay, So you just log into Cravis Box Office, pick the date October eighteenth, and then it'll take you. It's the only performance that day. Or call it a unity, Love and Brotherhood, a choral celebration for America two fifty if you can remember that. And if you're a veteran, please tell them brother twenty six is the code to get my ten dollars. Don't forget that. We don't want your paying full price. No, no, and yes, please, Kathy, tell us more about what's going on, what we can expect this year.

32:30 Well, it's really a wonderful season. It's bigger and better than we have had. Well, I wasn't a member of the course before COVID, but Masterworks is known for its performance of Messiah. We have performed Messiah every year of our existence, and Palm Beach County audiences come to expect it and want it and flock to hear it. We love to sing it and we had always sung it at Royal Poinciana Chapel ok uh which and then we were invited by the Benjamin School to perform it in the Benjamin School and we enjoyed doing that. We've done that.

33:12 I saw that performance. Wow, remember that campus. Yeah. And then a. Couple of years ago, two of our chorus members, who were chorus members who are members at Saint Matthew Catholic Church in hYP Aleuxo, said, we would really like for you to perform Messiah in our area of the county where people really don't have the opportunity to hear this live music of Messiah whatever. So we said, okay, we'll work it out, we'll try it out. They attracted four hundred and fifty people to Messiah there on one Sunday evening, and we're going to do it again, and this time we're going to really partner on the marketing and promotion of that that concert. So we have three performances of Messiah in December. Tickets to those are all available on the PB dot org Masterworks pb dot org. Then in March we have a concert of contemporary American composers okay not what not composers and material that everyone knows off the truck, you know, off the tip of their tongue, contemporary voices of hope and renewal. That will be at First Presbyterian Church, North Palm Beach on Saturday March sixth at four pm. Just Mestrom, David Kante of Invocation and Dance, and Elaine Hagenberg Illuminari. And because many people are unfamiliar

34:45 with this contemporary music, we're going to have an educational outreach program at some point too to let people learn more about it so before they choose to attend or not that concert, but the big blockbuster of the year. This will be Beethoven's two hundredth anniversary of his death, not his death, And on Friday April twenty fourth, seven pm at the North Palm Beach Presbyterian Church on Prosperity Farms Road, we will be joining with the Palm Beach Atlantic University Choirs and Orchestra Sonya Santiago, who is Director of Choral Activities and the Director of Bands, to sing an amazing program Beethoven's Hallelujah from Christ on the Mount Olives, Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, and Beethoven's Symphony number nine, the Ode to Joy the fourth and so many people love that Ode to Joy that when we sang it nineteen eighteen, whatever it was before COVID, nineteen eighteen, nineteen twenty, whatever it was before COVID, that's before my time for sure.

36:07 So people came up to me afterward and said, why didn't you tell me you all were going to be singing that? And we sang it at the Cravis with the full symphony orchestra. It was fantastic. But in honor of Beethoven's two hundredth Pomp, each Atlantic and Masterworks Chorus are coming together to sing a full program of Beethoven uh and culminating in the Ode to Joy the fourth movement, and so uh Lisa. Is already wringing her hands. But with full orchestra soloist I mean this Beethoven's nine has a big orchestra orchestra. I think it's going to be a sold out concert and we will be putting tickets on our website for people to enjoy.

36:52 So I have two big questions. The first question is, and maybe I don't know if this is Marvis State, but to find like to keep on the up and up for all these events coming up? Do you need to have a membership or is there an email to sign up to get a constant reminders of shows coming up? Well, there is. It will be on our website. Okay, you can buy tickets from all it'll have. It'll show all the performances on the website. If someone would like to get email reminders or social media, if they email where is our email masterworks Chorus gmail dot com anyway, or email me Katherine Kcombs at gmail dot com, we will get them on the routine mailing list, mailing.

37:41 List, mailingless wonderful. And then the second question I have. Let's say, Okay, I'm a piano player, or I have musician friends that play violin or they play the bass or trombone or whatever instrument, and let's say they want to cant and be a part of this orchestra. How would they go about? Do they do they contact you? Do they fill out an application? What? What connections do musicians make to be a part of this? We we can't really do anything with the orchestra, Lisa, because the orchestra's union, okay, and so there's a contractor that puts the orchestras together. So I I really wouldn't know how.

38:28 Except Sonya, We're going to be for that concert using the orchestra from Pombach Atlantic. So if you have connections with Sonya Santiago and would like to perform with their orchestra that evening, check with her. It might work out. So you're saying, Pombage Atlantic, there's Sonya Santiago would be the person to reach out to send an email to Palmbach Atlantic University would have if you look up that web that not email, but that website, her information I'm sure is on there. Yeah. I would. I would truly believe that would be something that you know, would be just such such a privilege, such an honor to be a part of that because you're not just a musician, you're not just playing like you're a part of a greater community making a huge impact. It's such it's such a gift to be a musician, but it's even a greater gift when you're a part of a community that's making an impact.

39:26 Absolutely, and and Lisa, you know talking about with you have musicians that want to play with us. Remember, people, this is a community chorus and you don't have to a bit had a professional music career to sing with Masterworks. You just go on the website or call one of us and say I want to audition, and I audition to sing with you, and we have audition dates and times and we would love to have you know, anybody that would like. To sing with us. You do have to audition, but again it's not the Palmbea ch opera, so you know, you're.

40:11 Really for them to reach out to you. Would that be through Masterworks TBE Would that that be the. Proper Yeah, yeah, absolutely. If you scroll down, it'll say I would like to audition for master Works Chorus. And the other thing that we have that's new and different the Choral scholars program. Okay, there will be twenty high school seniors or juniors throughout Palm Beach County who will be singing with us all year in return for a small stipender scholarship that they can use anyway they want. Wow, and the youth and strength of their voices and their their willingness. They are enjoying it as much as we are. They love and it's I've been interesting to hear some of their testimonials about whether they've enjoyed the experience or not, and from their perspective, in high school, you don't get a chance to sing Masterworks. You sing a lot of songs, short songs and a collection chose or something like that. But to sing Carmena Barana, which we sang in April of last year with dancers from the Benjamin School, a children's choir from Jupiter Middle School, the percussion ensemble from Florida Atlantic University, and Masterworks Chorus amazing. It was an experience that I think we were all overjoyed to see how well it turned out. Brian and I looked at ourselves

41:42 because we only got together once in address rehearsal at each other and said, could be a school assembly. We don't know. It turned out to be spectacular and you can see the entire performance on YouTube. Okay, it's all on YouTube. Carmena Barana Masterworks Chorus and the Benjamin School Dancers did a spectacular job. Did you Putter? Middle School Chorus did a great job, and the percussion in that piece. Our soloists, Oh, the soloists, Oh. My gosh, I just got goosies thinking about again. I did a fantastic job and the whole thing was phenomenal.

42:25 Just so I love it. So it's a great joy to be among this chorus. And every year we're getting better and bigger and more expansive in the programming and more. Uh supported my local corporations and foundations and stayed. We were one of the I shouldn't brag, but we were one of the few to get a grant from the Department of State this year. Oh that's that's huge. Yeah. So, uh we scored pretty well and I was kind of hoping, but we had been unsuccessful for a couple of years before that. So I get my fingers and toes crossed. So it's a great votical student. Scholars help them and everything.

43:07 And Brian and Brian we call the scholars. Our babies because they're they're really so young and but you know, very very studying voice, and so obviously they have something to give, and they, like Kathy said, they're so energetic and happy to be there with us, and and we're happy to have them. Now you mentioned now we have a short amount of time left, So I have a couple of questions. You mentioned middle school in high school. Do they focus on elementary school level or are they not ready for that yet? The you know the Young Singers of the Palm Beaches.

43:47 Yes, I did. I think they have been very successful in that market. So the age it's a wide range age group, is what I'm asking. Our age group is really from the high school level to the retireing level, okay, and getting the choral scholar program and has been huge in terms of diversifying our membership, age, and every other factor that you might look for. And we couldn't be more delighted to have these kids sing with us, especially if they're singing behind me and I can hear hear their notes it's still in my ear.

44:28 So maybe I'm hoping we could answer this in a short response. I don't know. I don't do short responses very well. But with a grant like this, how in what ways can are you making not you per se, but in what ways is the Foundation supported and is it more more, lighting more? I mean, I don't know what does the grant do for. The Cultural Council. We have been recipient of their general Program Support grant for some time and we're very grateful there is it's for the segment, which we belong is for emerging small organizations, and those are organizations who have a gross revenue of about one hundred thousand dollars. So we're pushing that limit and we're moving on up. The State Department of Culture Arts and Culture competitive program throughout the entire state of Florida, hundreds of applicants and we've been applying for their three times. But that also is for general program support. We generally seek funding for our artists.

45:44 We seek funding for the orchestras and for the soloists, and we never asked for as you as we talked about earlier. We don't have any staff, an administrative staff. A lot of it's volunteer, volunteer except Brian and Adam Brakle and the soloists. So our grant requests are completely limited to artists, which supports the local arts community as well. Love it, love it. I have to I'm sorry, I have to cut you off, but we're just about out of time, and I'm so sorry, Kathy. I didn't mean to be rude, but thank you.

46:26 Kay, Kathy, thank you so much for sharing with us today some insights about master Works Chorus and two hundred and fifty year celebration for what they're bringing to the West Palm Beach Areas and everything else you've shared with us that's planned for those of you out there listening. October eighteenth, there is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary master Works Course of Palm Beaches will be performing at and also check out, as you mentioned, other events that are happening in our community. Yeah, yeah, well, thankk you, Lisa, thank you, thank. You enjoyed it. As you know, we're always interested in seeing how we can reach out to new audiences, new potential members, new potential supporters, and thank you so much for helping make that happen.

47:18 Oh, it's my pleasure, my pleasure. We will be in touch. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. You thank you you too, you too, And for my audience out there, thank you for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed today's show. Tune in next week. Help me keep music alive because it's all around us. Why not tune in next week at four o'clock to find out who my guest is. Every week, I do have someone very special, so you have to change in to find out.

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