Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. My name is Amanda Stringer and I am the CEO of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. I was managing the Tallahassee Youth Orchestra's and it was my first job in administration. I was coming up on the age of 40 and was kind of doing something different. I had been in academia and wanted to get outside that and trying to get more into community involvement and the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra job came available and I applied for it and have just felt like a kid in a candy shop. I have loved doing it. I love bringing together my knowledge of music and a connection to the community to do something for the larger community and the broader community. So something where you really feel like you're helping as many people as possible through music or serving as many people as possible through music. In large part our conductor and music director decides what we're playing but I think that we all as one body meaning the board, the staff, the conductor, the musicians want to continue to make the orchestra as relevant as possible and to serve people and mean something to the community. Not just present music and say here it is, take it or leave it. So we've been actively searching out projects that will speak to pockets of the community that we might not normally reach. With the Holocaust Project, yeah, the Jewish community actually brought that to us but the second they brought it to us we were like, yes of course we want to do this. This is an amazing project and so we've been actively searching for other projects like that to pursue. We're of the opinion that everybody can love orchestral music. It's just taking down the barriers. You know all the norms that people think they have to be of a certain way to attend a concert. You don't, you just have to show up and open up your heart and your mind and enjoy it. I have an undying passion to keep orchestral music alive. I think it's just an amazing invention and I want to keep this sound alive. My name is Amanda Stringer and I'm the CEO of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. You're listening to voices that inspire.