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Hernando Today

Music For Life Brings Local Talent

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By TONY HOLT

Hernando Today

Published: October 6, 2008

WEEKI WACHEE - It was like Live Aid - only the venue was a church and not Wembley Stadium.

Instead of rock stars, it was a collection of local classical music talent - mostly teenagers.

Instead of raising money for world hunger and poverty, the proceeds are going to another global cause - ending the polio epidemic.

"I'm very, very pleased with the talent," said Gretchen Pingley, president of the Brooksville Rotary Club and organizer of Sunday's "Music for Life" concert. "I knew it would be good, but I'm really blown away."

The performers included opera singers, cellists and pianists. Most of them were teenagers - including 14-year-old Jessica Doolittle, a budding Samaritan who runs her own charity group with her older brother.

She learned of the concert through her voice coach.

"I just like helping people," she said.

The same goes for Pingley and the other Rotarians who watched from the pews Sunday. They are taking part in an ambitious cause.

Rotary clubs around the world are banding together to raise $100 million to erase the remaining polio-endemic countries.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has offered a $100 million "challenge grant." Rotarians have three years to match it.

All three of the local Rotary clubs joined forces to hold Sunday's concert, which took place at Nativity Lutheran Church of Weeki Wachee.

Lorraine McLain thanked the audience for doing their part in the fight for ending polio around the world, but particularly in countries that still have an epidemic - India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

A polio survivor, McLain stood before the audience with the help of a pair of metal crutches.

She told them her story, something the veteran teacher still struggles to do.

"I so vividly remember, even though I was only 5, children in iron lungs," McLain said.

She also recalled waking in the middle of the night to the sound of crying. Two parents had just learned of their child's death from polio. Those moments helped shape her life, but they still haunt her.

"For a 5-year-old child to have to experience things like that is just a crime," said McLain, who has taught at Brooksville Elementary School for 31 years.

She was the first-ever recipient of Hernando County's Teacher of the Year award.

The performers also included cellist Steven Schildbach, who ditched the strings for the ivory keys and played "Midnight Dreams," something he composed on his own.

Lauren Healey, 19, a sophomore and vocal performance major at Florida State University, kicked off the show with her rendition of a Fanny Hensel classic.

"I think it's a great cause," she said. "My grandmother as a young girl had polio."

The tone of the show remained upbeat thanks to the comedic talents of Peter Clapsis. It was through his "theater and community connections" that he was asked to emcee the concert and he "readily agreed," he said.

"I try to inject humor in everything I do, but really, the amount of talent these young people have is incredible," Clapsis said during the intermission. "People think we're (too rural), but there is a lot of talent here and a lot of it is untapped."

Other singers and musicians who performed Sunday included Sarah Coit, Stephanie Barrett Sager, Alison Wilfong, Meredith Coats, Sabrina Impresso and Olivia Gustafson.

Coit's mother, Janet Coit, is president of the Spring Hill Rotary Club and suggested the "Music for Life" concert as a way to raise money for the PolioPlus benefit program.

Several of the performers are students of Roberta Moger, a local voice and music teacher.

Reporter Tony Holt can be reached at 352-544-5283 or wholt@hernandotoday.com.

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