The more you dig into your favorite classical music’s origin stories, the more you realize how many of history’s greatest composers had something in common: They were experts at taking a holiday. Just like average Joes and Janes, now and then these brilliant musical minds needed a break from the daily grind. And as you’ll see in the following three vignettes, a dose of good, old-fashioned R-and-R can work wonders as a burnout cure and stoke one’s creative fire.

Each Sarasota Orchestra Flex Pass is as unique as the patron who holds it. Of the 134,217,349 possible Flex Passes, a certain few of our 75th Anniversary Season’s concert combinations sparkle with personality. Which one of these concertgoing types resembles your special brand of Sarasota Orchestra fandom?

One October day in 1992, Fernando Traba stepped off a plane and into his first season as Principal Bassoon with Sarasota Orchestra. To his astonishment, a bassoon trio made up of his new colleagues stood at the airport gate and, upon spotting Fernando, they burst into a fanfare of Mexican dance music.

Centuries before stories and poems were first set down in writing, the sister arts of music and storytelling were inextricably linked with one another, filling a deep human need for words to be illuminated, enriched, and enhanced by musical sounds. Our 2023 Sarasota Music Festival has celebrated the mysterious and magical power through an expansive range of works, both familiar and new, that have invited us to set our imagination ablaze, and illustrate the Festival theme: The Power of Music Through Storytelling.
As we head into the final week of the Festival, we are reflecting on some of the aspects that have made this year so special for our fellows: