"Arts Alive" with Bill DeYoung: Mark Sforzini 5-4 -24

Today’s guest on the Arts Alive! podcast is Mark Sforzini, the founder and general director of St. Petersburg Opera Company. The Auburn, Alabama native is also the music director of the all-volunteer Tampa Bay Symphony, and he’ll conduct Sunday afternoon’s Spring Concert in Ferguson Hall, part of Tampa’s Straz Center complex. The program is repeated next week at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg, and at the New Tampa Performing Arts Center.

Sforzini spent 15 seasons as principal bassoon player for The Florida Orchestra. He is in every sense a musician’s musician, and through the Tampa Bay Symphony’s annual Youth Competition and Composition Competition, he’s on the front lines of “passing it on,” ensuring there will be new generations that love, appreciate, study – and play – classical music.

St. Pete Opera, meanwhile, will close out its 18th season in June with performances of Donizetti’s Lucia de Lammermoor on the Palladium mainstage. Sforzini will conduct the SPO Orchestra for the fully-staged production.

The conversation covers all these musical topics – and much, much more. #artsalive #stpetecatalyst #catalyst #biideyoung #marksforzini #stpeteopera #tampabaysymphony #tampabay #radio #radiostpete