The Tampa Bay Symphony bills itself as “a volunteer orchestra with a professional sound” — over 80 musicians playing solely for love, conducted by that consummate professional Mark Sforzini (who’s also Maestro of the St. Petersburg Opera Company).
Country and countryside, earth and ocean inform the Winter Concert, “Land & Sea.” The program features Roger Zare’s Tectonics, Debussy’s La Mer, Copland’s Lincoln Portrait (narrated by the peerless Eugenie Bondurant) and arias from Gounod and Verdi. Young Artist Competition winner Jose Simerilla Romero is the tenor soloist.
The Symphony debuted the program this past Sunday at SPC’s Arts Auditorium, and is performing it two more times: tonight at 8 p.m. at The Palladium in St. Petersburg and Sunday 3/1, 2:30 p.m., in the Straz Center’s Ferguson Hall.