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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Jenine Baines
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MULTI-TASKING FOR
MUSIC
Musician Ben Harper
didn't realize he was also a talented photographer until he picked up a camera
for the Mobile Symphony. In August, the Mobile Arts Council will mount an
exhibition of his works at the Skinny Gallery in Mobile.
MOBILE, Ala. When
it comes to multi-tasking, Ben Harper puts even the busiest of us to shame. In
addition to serving as Orchestra Stage Manager, Box Office Assistant and
Preludes instructor for the Mobile Symphony Orchestra (MSO), the classically
trained musician has become the orchestra's website designer and photographer
of choice.
"They're skills I didn't know I had until those jobs were
thrown on me," Harper confesses with a smile.
Harper's ability to snap that perfect shot and capture that
inimitable image of the MSO has become legendary. On August 1, the Mobile Arts
Council will mount a month long exhibition of his photographs - The Mobile Symphony Orchestra: Creative
Force - in the Skinny Gallery at the Arts Council's offices. The gallery,
which is located at 318 Dauphin Street in Mobile, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
"We often joke with Ben that
beyond regular duties, he should ‘expect other duties as assigned' - which
means that when we need something done, we call on him," says Executive
Director Stephen Hedrick. "And just look what that's led to. Recently Ben's
photos appeared in a national publication, Symphony magazine, and now they'll
be featured as an art exhibit. Bravo, Ben!"
"I haven't yet discovered what Ben Harper can't do,"
adds MSO Music Director Scott Speck. "He's been a huge asset to the Mobile
Symphony. Above all, I love the sheer joy that he brings to everything he
does."
The source of that joy is no mystery, according to Harper,
whose father Andrew Harper was chairman of the music department at the
University of South Alabama for 18 years. "Music is what I eat and breathe.
It's who I am," Harper explains.
He is not exaggerating. For starters, Harper is the master
of many musical instruments, including the flute - he studied with the MSO's
principal flutist Andra Bohnet - guitar, and bass.
"I play bass sitting in with as many jazz bands as I can fit
into my schedule," Harper confides, "as well as a lot of other instruments just
well enough to impress the 1st and 2nd graders in my
Preludes classes."
Harper, who has a degree in Music Education, came to the MSO
while working at WHIL radio, where his duties at the classical station included
stints, over 13 years, as a late night and morning drive DJ as well as program
director.
"When I first met Ben, he was a superb radio announcer,"
Speck recalls. "Then I found out that he's an excellent guitarist, a terrific
teacher, a wonderful Stage Manager and, now, a top-notch photographer and
web designer."
Today, however, Harper is perhaps best known as a member of
the Celtic band Mithril. The ensemble weaves traditional Celtic music with
American folk, classical and Middle Eastern melodies and is fast becoming one of the most sought after Celtic/World
Music groups on the concert series scene...thanks in no small part to Scott
Speck, who hired the ensemble for its first orchestral gig, an MSO Holiday
concert in 2004.
"Scott Speck and the MSO are the
single biggest reason we've been able to break into the Orchestra circuit,"
Harper recalls. "It was the Perfect Storm of gigs. Scott and the Orchestra were
in top form, Mithril had really started to gel as a band, and the audience was
eating it up, hanging on every note. It
was obvious that the concept really works and that we could take the show on
the road with other orchestras."
Those "other orchestras" include
the West Shore Symphony (also led by Speck), Mississippi Symphony, Columbus
Symphony, Ft. Smith Symphony and Santa Rosa Symphony.
The ensemble will also return to
the MSO for a "St. Patrick's Pops" performance - again, with Speck conducting -
on March 14 and 15, 2009. In fact, two of the ensemble's four players -
violinist/fiddler Tom Morley and Andra Bohnet, Harper's former teacher -
are members of the Mobile Symphony Orchestra...or "the family store," as Harper
calls it. In 1987, his father started the Port City Symphony, which eventually
grew into the MSO as it is today.
Meanwhile, Mithril will travel to Enid, Oklahoma this
November for two performances with the Enid Symphony Orchestra. Enid, as it
turns out, is only 30 minutes away from where Harper attended high school.
"I've contacted my high school choir director to invite him
to the show to see what's grown out of a musical seed he planted years ago,"
says Harper, whose daughter Ruth starts Preludes next year and whose son,
Billy, will begin cello lessons under the MSO's Symphony Strings program. "I'd
love that to happen with one of my kids - my Preludes kids or my biological -
in 20 years."
And, yes, Harper adds, his former choir director has
accepted his invitation. Stay tuned....
The Mobile Symphony
Orchestra was founded in 1970 as the Symphony Concerts of Mobile. Its mission
was to present world-class touring orchestras such as Alabama Symphony,
Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for six evening
concerts. In 1996, the Board of Directors decided that to serve the educational,
quality of life, and economic development needs of the community, it should
create its own orchestra of local professional musicians.
Today, the Mobile
Symphony Orchestra, under Music Director Scott Speck, is the premier producer
of live symphonic music in the Gulf Coast region. It is committed
to enhancing the lives of every member of the community by achieving the
highest standards in live symphonic music and music education.
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