Two More Contributors For TAFTO 2009

Joining the contributor list for the Take A Friend To Orchestra (TAFTO) 2009 project are Alabama Symphony Executive Director, Curtis Long, and Chicago’s very own cultural Swiss Army Knife Andrew Patner who works as author, broadcaster, journalist, and arts critic. When Andrew isn’t writing for traditional media outlets or working as Critic-at-Large and program host at WFMT-FM, Chicago’s renowned classical music station he authors The View from Here, a Chicago based cultural blog…

For those of you keeping track, this brings the total number of contributors to eight:

• Sir Andrew Davis; Music Director & Principal Conductor, Lyric Opera of Chicago
• Giancarlo Guerrero; Music Director, Nashville Symphony Orchestra
• Alan Valentine; Chief Executive Officer, Nashville Symphony Orchestra
• Matthew Guerrieri; Boston based composer, pianist, and conductor and author of Soho The Dog
• Janelle Gelfand; Music critic, Cincinnati Enquirer
• Brian Bell; WGBH live concert producer
• Andrew Patner; Chicago based author, WFMT Radio broadcaster, journalist, and arts critic
• Curtis Long; Executive Director, Alabama Symphony Orchestra

I do hope this is enough to help some groups get started in putting together a TAFTO event for this spring. If you’re looking for ideas, the Grant Park Music Festival designed and implemented a spectacular program based entirely on TAFTO for their 2008 season. You can read details about the event here and here.

The Chicago Sun-Times published a wonderful article about the event written by Bryant Manning and although the article has since moved to archive purgatory, I’m trying to secure some usage rights so you can see exactly the sort of media impact a focused TAFTO concert event can have outside of new media sources.

If you aren’t already familiar with TAFTO, it is an opportunity for the people who care the most about classical music to participate in a proactive way. You can read more along with the dozens of fantastic contributions over the years at the TAFTO main page.