THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 19, 1996 TAG: 9604190526
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Bought a $100 ticket the other day for a raffle.
For a new car, among other prizes. Something just told me to do it. Well, Winnie Maddock Baldwin and Jan Lorenz told me.
Raffle director Winnie will go up to a stranger, grab his tie, wave a ticket in his face and say: ``BUY THIS TICKET OR DIE!''
No, that's not so, she is all sweet reasonableness, as is Jan, president of the Virginia Symphony League. The League's 300 volunteers are selling 1,000 tickets, $100 apiece, to raise $100,000.
Thirty years ago Winnie and I were on the symphony board. My tenure was not quite a month.
It ended when an official said he was embarrassed to find there was one too many members and he wondered if anyone would care to resign. I shot to my feet rocketlike, screaming, ``ME! ME! PICK ME!''
Never had I known people to work harder. Or with such gusto. They still do. Winnie is zestful as ever. Jan, the same. The Leaguers love music and people and work to unite them.
The other day League members were ushering a horde of schoolchildren into Chrysler Hall. To get them in and out took two hours, but for the half-hour concert, the pupils were rapt, still. Angels.
With more than 50 concerts a year of wide variety, the Virginia Symphony draws throughout eastern Virginia and North Carolina and travels around Hampton Roads. It has a fine professional sheen. Its musicians serve the Virginia Opera as well.
National critics hail our director Jo Ann Faletta, so expressive of the music, as one of the country's three or four finest leaders and the orchestra as an outstanding regional success. Really, we are enjoying in Hampton Roads a musical renaissance, reason enough to support it.
You need not be present at the drawing after the April 27 concert in Chrysler Hall.
The first place winner may choose one of three cars: Mercedes-Benz C-220, Land Rover Discovery and Oldsmobile Aurora.
Second place is a five-day stay for two in Hawaii. Third, two box seats for the season.
Two months ago the car would have been handy for me. The convertible threw a rod. Then mechanics said they couldn't inspect the 25-year-old white Pontiac, much less repair it. So, taps for two.
I've been to Hawaii. Just the thought of those volunteers making music possible moves me.
Couldn't tell the three splendiferous cars apart. Don't need a car now. A young friend just handed down to me a vintage Volvo.
Luck, that perverse imp, may pick this time to look my way. If so, I'll look away - and pass the chariot to a charity.
Meanwhile, hang on to that ticket stub. ILLUSTRATION: National critics hail our director Jo Ann Faletta ... as one of
the country's three or four finest leaders, and the orchestra as an
outstanding regional success. Really, we are enjoying in Hampton
Roads a musical renaissance, reason enough to support it.
by CNB