THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506230156
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Portsmouth is one of the few places in the nation where volunteers have continued a concert association for more than half a century.
Portsmouth Community Concerts Inc. now is selling subscriptions for its 57th season. Imagine that! For 57 years volunteers have kept it going. And it's getting better.
It's also getting harder to move people to send in their season subscription money, outgoing president Grace Armistead told me this week. The board has contracted for a $34,000 season. In addition, they must find money to pay for Willett Hall and the crews that work the lights and sound for the concerts.
Armistead said she's positive that the organization will get the 1,200 season members it needs to pay minimum expenses, but she's frustrated at the snail's pace of the current campaign.
So far, half way through the subscription campaign, only 600 people have paid up.
As Grace likes to say, the series is an excellent buy. Starting with the State Ballet of Richmond, a visit that also includes work with school students, the series goes on to a Christmas season program featuring mezzo-soprano Brenda Boozer. The Vienna Choir Boys will come to Portsmouth in January following their annual appearance at Carpenter Hall in Richmond. The season will close with the New Xavier Cugat Orchestra - and that ought to turn everybody on!
Subscribers pay $10 or less for each concert. If they went to the same program somewhere else, they'd pay three or four times that amount for a single performance. Families who are smart buy a family subscription, which admits two adults and all the kids who are still a school. A family of five would wind up paying about $4 seat per concert. That's cheaper than going to a movie and a lot more interesting.
It really is remarkable that this dedicated group has kept such a good series going in Portsmouth.
It's not easy - and never has been - to motivate people to part with their money several months in advance of an event. However, that's the only way the volunteer board can sign the contracts.
I continue to talk about volunteers and their dedicated work because I know how hard it is. Once in my life I was paid to organize season subscription campaigns.
That was a long time ago when the North Carolina Symphony was constantly on the road, taking music to school children from the small towns of Eastern North Carolina to the sides of the mountains in Western North Carolina.
My job took me on the road ahead of the season to organize local folks and launch subscription campaigns. Let me tell you, it was not easy. Even back in those days when many women in a community did not work and had more time to get on the telephone and call their friends, you never knew until the last minute how much money was going to be there.
I lasted one season.
And I was getting paid - granted, very poorly - to live in Chapel Hill and to travel around meeting wonderful people.
That's why I say the Portsmouth people who have kept Community Concerts organized for 57 years really are amazing. They have worked hard and they have kept the impressive series going from one generation to the next.
A lot of the volunteers who serve on the active board put in untold hours to be sure the organization stays solvent. They don't give up even when the going gets tough.
Without the programs presented by Community Concerts, Portsmouth would have been a lesser place. The concert here last year by soprano June Anderson was the finest performance I've heard in many a year.
The coming season has a variety but all of them are known as quality acts. Certainly, it's a season worth the money. Willett Hall is an excellent hall in Hampton Roads, as good as any you'll find.
The volunteers deserve our support. Don't wait until the last minute to subscribe. They don't need the irritation and the hassle of scrambling to get enough subscriptions to sign the final contracts. by CNB