A good friend of ours shared some information about the musical activities in a well-known area known as The Villages, “Florida’s Friendliest Hometown”.
The Villages is located in central Florida mid-way between the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. It’s an hour north of Orlando near Interstate 75 and the Florida Turnpike, close to Florida’s famous tourist attractions and Orlando’s International Airport.
This popular city is far from what most would consider a retirement village as you will see from just the musical activities available there. Our new friend Corky has supplied us with a few of their instrumental activities and I wanted to share them with you to let you know that there are areas in our fine country which are not only offering fine music but also promoting fine music.
The Bands Of The Village (BOTV) consist of seven instrumental performing groups made up of Villages residents for the benefit of all Villagers. There are no membership dues or fees for the bands and musicians need only to provide their own instrument and music stand.
The Villages Band program offers the following ensembles-
The Villages Concert Band
The New Horizons Concert Band
The Villages Hometown Band
The BOTV Ensembles (one of which is their Trumpet Choir pictured above)
The Villages “Sunshine Strollers”
The Villages Swing Band
The Jazz Workshop
Does this sound appealing to you? It does to me.
To those in the Villages, I salute you for what you have done and are continuing to do for the advancement and propagation of fine music. To you all, “Thank you and watch for me to be down there to check you out in the near future”.
You sound like “my kind of people”.
