Nansi Carroll - AMO: A Musical Offering

DELEE PERRY | CROSSWORD PUZZLE | BOOK REVIEW | CALENDAR OF EVENTS
JULY 2012
seniortimesmagazine.com
INSIDE
FROM JUNK
TO ART
Gainesville’s Repurpose
Project Takes Off
Nansi
Carroll
Gainesville’s Hidden
Cultural Treasure
MAJESTIC
MERMAIDS
Celebrate 65 Years
at Weeki Wachee

12
34
34
CONTENTS
28
JULY 2012 • VOL. 13 ISSUE 07
departments
8 Tapas
11 Senior Center
40 Calendar of Events
features
12 From Junk to Art
Gainesville’s Repurpose Project Takes Off
BY ELLIS AMBURN
22 Meet Nansi Carroll
Gainesville’s Cultural Hidden Treasure
BY ELLIS AMBURN
44 Theatre Listings
49 Crossword Puzzle
50 Reading Corner
28 Majestic Mermaids at Any Age
Celebrating 65 Years at Weeki Wachee Springs
BY JEWEL MIDELIS
34 Water Legacy
Ocala Family Teaches Swimming For Nine Decades
BY BONNIE KRETCHIK
columns
18 Healthy Edge
by Kendra Siler-Marsiglio
27 Embracing Life
by Donna Bonnell
4 July 2012 seniortimesmagazine.com
39
Enjoying Act Three
by Ellis Amburn
22
ON THE COVER – Nansi Carroll
studied voice at the Royal Academy of
Music in London, and earned her Master
of Music, Master of Musical Arts, and
Doctor of Musical Arts from the Yale
School of Music. In 1999, she co-founded
Jubilus with Dr. Stephen Coxe, and in
2010 established “A Musical Off ering” to
fund concerts and support outreach.
PHOTO BY TJ MORRISSEY for LOTUS STUDIOS
WINNER!
Congratulations to the winner from our
JUNE 2012 issue…
Donald Smallwood
from Ocala, Florida

FROM THE EDITOR œ ALBERT ISAAC
After much effort,
I have fi nally made our
swimming pool habitable
for human activities.
It required a healthy dose of various
chemicals, new skimmer baskets, a timer
for the pool pump and a formidable
amount of elbow grease.
And just in time for summer. Our
youngest has been in it every day since
getting the green light that it was clean
enough to use. In fact, when I come
home from work I often fi nd him at the
door, clad in his swimming trunks, towel
over his shoulder, waiting to jump in.
“Pool time, Dad!”
By this time of the day the sun is
no longer blasting down upon us. The
water is cool but certainly tolerable. Plus
the rowdy little man keeps me active
enough to stay warm.
“OK,” I tell him. “We’ll swim until
I fi nish my drink or we see a bat,
whichever comes fi rst.”
Yes, bats. As the day ends, the bats
arrive, fl ittering in the sky above our
pool, devouring insects, and occasionally
swooping down for a drink. We are
grateful. I’ve read that one bat can
devour 600 mosquitoes in an hour. So
bats are welcome in our yard.
Snakes are welcome too, by the way.
But that’s another story for another day.
Summer is defi nitely here, and so
we bring you a pair of stories about
swimming — and mermaids. Ocala is
home to a family that has been providing
swimming lessons to the community
for close to a century. Bonnie Kretchik
writes about Ocala resident Delee Perry,
who still teaches swimming, following
a long tradition started by her parents
years ago.
Delee Perry’s father, Newton Perry,
founded Weeki Wachee in 1947, now
one of Florida’s oldest and most unique
roadside attractions. Thus, we also bring
you a story by Jewel Midelis about the
Mermaids of Weeki Wachee Springs,
and the attraction that is celebrating its
65th anniversary this month.
Also in this edition are features on
music and arts in Gainesville.
Ellis Amburn tells us about Nansi
Carroll, who studied at the Royal
Academy of Music in London,
Tanglewood, and the Yale University
School of Music. She has sung with
the Annapolis Symphony, the New
Jersey Symphony under the baton of
Hugh Wolff, the Peabody Trio, and the
Willis Bodine Chorale. Additionally,
she is a former faculty member of
Stetson University and the University of
Florida, among other things.
Lastly, there’s a new project in
downtown Gainesville that transforms
junk into art. Ellis recently visited with
the co-founders of the Repurpose Project.
Read all about
this and other
interesting stories
in this edition of
Senior Times. s
Published monthly by Tower Publications, Inc.
www.seniortimesmagazine.com
PUBLISHER
Charlie Delatorre
charlie@towerpublications.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Albert Isaac
editor@towerpublications.com
Fax: 1-800-967-7382
ART DIRECTOR
Hank McAfee
hank@towerpublications.com
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Neil McKinney
neil@towerpublications.com
EDITORIAL INTERN
Jewel Midelis
ADVERTISING SALES
For more advertising information including
rates, coverage area, distribution and more –
call: 352-372-5468 or visit our website at:
www.seniortimesmagazine.com
ADVERTISING OFFICE
4400 NW 36 th Avenue
Gainesville, FL 32606
352-372-5468
352-373-9178 fax
The articles printed in Senior Times
Magazine do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Tower Publications, Inc. or
their editorial staff. Senior Times Magazine
endeavors to accept reliable advertising;
however, we can not be held responsible
by the public for advertising claims. Senior
Times Magazine reserves the right to refuse
or discontinue any advertisement. If you
would like to discontinue receiving Senior
Times Magazine please call 352-372-5468
for assistance. © 2012 Tower Publications,
Inc. All rights reserved.
If you would like us to
publicize an event in
Alachua or Marion counties,
send information by the 13th day of the month prior.
All submissions will be reviewed and
every effort will be made to run qualified
submissions if page space is available.
1-800-967-7382 (fax)
editor@towerpublications.com
6 July 2012 seniortimesmagazine.com

STAFF œ CONTRIBUTORS
clockwise from top left
ELLIS AMBURN
is a resident of High Springs and the author of biographies
of Roy Orbison, Elizabeth Taylor and others.
ellis.amburn@gmail.com.
JEWEL MIDELIS
is freelance writer and student of journalism at the
University of Florida. In her spare time, she enjoys going
to the beach, camping at state-parks and playing with her
puppies. jmidelis91@yahoo.com
BONNIE KRETCHIK
grew up in Pennsylvania, but has spent her winters in
Florida for the past 10 years. Aside from writing, Bonnie
has been riding horses since the age of six. She enjoys
running long distance and training for triathlons.
bonniek83@hotmail.com
$380Economy
Full Set
(D5110, D5120)
(With Coupon)
Tooth
$85Routine
Extraction
(D7140)
$135
Complex
Tooth
Extraction
Affordable Dentures-Gainesville, P.A.
Stephan M. Showstark, D.M.D.
General Dentist
Springhill Commons Shopping Center
9200 NW 39th Ave, Ste 200, Gainesville FL
No Appointment Necessary
(352)376-8229
GAS DOLLARS
$15OFF
Any Denture
or Denture Package
20107-8-V1.2
GAS
DOLLARS
ECONOMY BUSTER
COUPONS BELOW
DENTURE
DOLLARS
(D7210)
Same Day Service* On-Site Lab
Financing Available
FL Medicaid Accepted For Dentures Only
DENTURE DOLLARS
$50OFF
Any Custom Denture
or Higher
Offers good only at Affordable Dentures-Gainesville, P. A. $50 denture discount
good on any one individual denture purchase at the Custom level or higher –
Full Upper or Lower, Partial, or Full Set. $15 gas discount good on any one individual
denture purchase, or package denture purchase at any level. The denture and gas
coupons can be combined on any any one individual denture purchase at the
Custom level or higher. Coupon must be presented at time of initial payment and
cannot be combined with any other coupons, discounts, package price, insurance
benefit or prior order. Offer expires 8/31/12 and may change without notice.
1-800-DENTURE
AffordableDentures.com/gas
*Same Day Service on Economy Dentures, in most cases, if in by 7:45 a.m.
Additional fees may be incurred depending on individual cases. We gladly
accept Cash, Checks with ID,Visa, MasterCard, and Discover as payment for our
services. These are minimum fees and charges may increase depending on the
treatment required. The Patient and any other person responsible for payment has
a right to refuse to pay, cancel payment, or be reimbursed for payment for
any other service, examination, or treatment that is performed as a result of and
within 72 hours of responding to the advertisement for the free, discounted fee,
or reduced fee service, examination or treatment.
July 2012 7

ART & MUSIC
Nansi Carroll
Gainesville’s Cultural Hidden Treasure
by Ellis Amburn
When Dr. Nansi Carroll, a
gale force in Gainesville
music at 65, was recently
asked to name her favorite artist, she
chuckled before replying, “It always
changes, but there are standouts.”
She mentioned her father, Edward,
who was a Methodist pastor at a church
in Baltimore.
“Roland Hayes presented a recital
there,” Carroll said, referring to the
lyric tenor born in 1887 in Curryville,
Georgia, the son of former slaves. Hayes
became the fi rst African-American male
concert artist to receive international
recognition, earning $100,000 per year
touring and teaching voice. Long before
the civil rights movement, he defi ed
racist segregation laws in Rome, Georgia,
and was beaten and arrested. His
recordings of “Were You There [when
they crucifi ed my Lord?]” and “Go Down
Moses,” are heartrending and noble.
“Marian Anderson,” Carroll continued,
naming another powerful motivator. “I saw
her in a live performance at the Baltimore
concert hall toward the end of her career.”
Called “the voice of the century” by
Arturo Toscanini, Anderson scored a
historic victory over racial discrimination
when she sang “God Bless America”
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
after the DAR refused to let her perform
before an integrated audience in Constitution
Hall in 1939.
“Just to be in her presence...” Carroll
said, and left it at that.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was the
next artist on her list of all-time greats.
“I saw him when he fi rst began singing
— two concerts in London, one all
Schubert. Extraordinary,” she said.
In a British poll, the German lyric
baritone was ranked the second greatest
singer of the 20th century after Jussi
Bjorling, and Who’s Who cited him as
the most recorded artist of all time.
“When I was studying in England at
the Dartington College of Arts, I went to a
summer festival in Devon,” Carroll continued.
“Gerald Moore had just retired from
live performing. He’d been a hero of mine.
He and Janet Baker gave a recital. I walked
two miles back, I was so fl abbergasted.”
Moore had long been the piano accompanist
of choice for the world’s most
celebrated musicians.
“He partnered for Pablo Casals, Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf, Fischer-Dieskau,”
she said. “I met Moore. He wrote a
[1962] autobiography, “Am I Too Loud?”
and made the public aware of the signifi -
cance of the collaborative piano.”
To Carroll, piano accompaniment “is
a serious course of study, and Moore was
the pioneer.” As Fischer-Dieskau wrote
in the introduction to Moore’s 1943 book
“The Unashamed Accompanist,” Moore
raised the status of accompaniment from
a supporting role to equal partnership
with the soloist.
It was also at Dartington that Carroll
encountered the Argentinean-born
Daniel Barenboim.
“His father did a master class there,”
she recalled.
Once the conductor of the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim
is currently music director of both La
Scala in Milan and the Berlin State Opera.
A major pianist as well as conductor,
Barenboim’s keyboard pyrotechnics in
Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto (No. 5),
with Michael Schonwandt conducting, is
22 July 2012 seniortimesmagazine.com

July 2012 23
PHOTO BY TJ MORRISSEY

one of the great free treats on YouTube.
In the Barenboim tradition of multifaceted
musicianship, Nansi Carroll
is a quadruple-threat, adept at piano,
composing, singing, and conducting. She
is also artistic co-director of Jubilus, an
annual classical-music concert series, and
during its Spring Gala at the Doris Bardon
Community Cultural Center in May,
she and fl autist Christine Alicot collaborated
on two pieces by Debussy. Later in
the program she returned to the piano as
bassoonist Javier Rodriguez’s partner in
Villa-Lobos’s “Ciranda das Sete Notas.”
“I’ve known Javier since he was 13,”
she later said, adding that it “was amazing
to see him develop over the years. I
wrote for his senior recital for his bachelor’s
for unaccompanied bassoon. Then
he requested other pieces for his recitals.
“The bassoon used to be called ‘the
clown of the orchestra,’ but it has extraordinary
pitch, agility and range. It
has a lot of depth.”
Puerto-Rico born and Gainesvillereared,
Rodriguez’s doctoral dissertation
concerns Carroll as a composer,
and he also commissioned her to write
“Mr. Mitty,” a piece based on a James
Thurber story.
“I learned a lot about my piece listening
to Javier’s lectures at recital,” she
reminisced with a smile.
In 2009 Rodriguez and saxophonist
Sean Fredenberg, who holds a Master
of Music degree from the University of
North Carolina, launched the Post-Haste
Reed Duo, and in order to expand their
repertoire commissioned Carroll to
work on “The Servant Girl at Emmaus,”
a composition for soprano saxophone,
bassoon, contralto, and three sopranos.
“Javier and Sean wrote the contralto
solo with me,” she said, and explained
that she drew on a Denise Levertov
poem about the dinner the resurrected
Christ ate with the two disciples he met
on the road to Emmaus. “A Velasquez
painting inspired Levertov’s poem. The
main fi gure is the servant girl. She recognizes
Jesus before the disciples do.”
The divine presence is only suggested
through Velasquez’s use of light.
In May, Carroll had just completed a
rush job celebrating the 25th anniversary
of the ordination of Rev. John Phillips,
formerly of Gainesville’s St. Augustine
Catholic Church and more recently of
Holy Faith. As for future compositions,
she said she is “collecting ideas for a
piece for the Post-Haste Duo. Javier and
I will be applying for a composing grant.”
Shedding light on how she goes about
24 July 2012 seniortimesmagazine.com

PHOTOS BY ELLIS AMBURN
OPPOSITE: Artistic co-directors Nansi Carroll and Stephen Coxe at the Jubilus Spring Gala
held in May at The Doris.
TOP: Bassoonist Javier Rodriguez with alto Jenna Nishida and VOICES Choir tenor Cedric
Douglas. A doctoral student at Florida State University, Rodriguez wrote his dissertation on
Nansi Carroll and has commissioned musical compositions by her.
RIGHT: Soprano Adrianna Rodgers (right) and mezzo-soprano Alyssa Rodgers (front) with
parents John and Ressa. Their Rossini “Cat Duet” stopped the show.
BOTTOM LEFT: Gainesville residents Dustin and Rebekah Rodgers.
writing music, Carroll revealed that
improvisation plays a crucial role in musical
creativity. When she was a child,
her uncle, Julius Carroll, an organist,
instructed her when he was doing his
master’s in music education.
“My father’s brother always said, ‘If
you get a child young enough, you can
indoctrinate them in music.’ I would see
him off and on at various times in my life
— it wasn’t concentrated. He introduced
me to improvising. It’s fun to improvise
at the piano.
“There was improvisation in the Baroque,”
she explained, referring to a Bran-
denburg Concerto in which the harpsichordist
improvises the entire second
movement, and, in the classical period, a
Mozart concerto in which “the cadenza
is improvised on the spot. Musicianship
develops through improvisation and using
intervals, composing creatively.”
She called improvisation “the big
deal of my life,” explaining that some
composers “work from a concept, a disciplined
plan from the beginning. With
me, I often fi nd — depending on the
piece — improvising in my life has been
my main creative conduit.”
Her composition, “Stabat Mater,”
which she described as “variations on the
spiritual ‘Were You There,’” was performed
to the choreography of Vic Rose.
Composers who have written settings
to this 13th-century Catholic hymn (“At
the cross her station keeping stood the
mournful mother weeping”) include Palestrina,
Pergolesi, Haydn, Rossini, Vivaldi,
Gounod, Schubert, Verdi, and Dvorak.
For her 40-minute version, Carroll
employed a 20th-century setting.
“It was written at the time of the Second
Iraq War,” she said, referring to the
2003-2011 confl ict over weapons of mass
destruction, of which the U.S.-led Iraq
Survey Group later found insuffi cient
evidence. The war cost the lives of 4,408
U.S. and 110,600 Iraqis, with a total cost
to the U.S. economy of $3 trillion.
“Nansi’s compositions are at once
beautiful, sophisticated, and moving,”
wrote University of Florida music
professor Arthur Jennings. “She creates
July 2012 25

One-Bedroom
Apartments with Utilities
352-376-6366
We do Business in
Accordance with the
Federal Fair Housing Act
The Gainesville Housing Authority (GHA) is accepting housing
applications at The 400 Building for Senior and Disabled
Adults (accessible units available). These one-bedroom units
are located at 400 NW 1st Avenue and utilities are provided.
Applicants must meet eligibility screening criteria (income and
security background check). Rents are subsidized and are based
on family income. The 400 Building for Senior and Disabled
Adults is convenient to shopping, downtown, and transportation.
Contact Becky or Lisa @ (352) 872-5500
TDD (352) 872-5503
You’re Invited...
... for a courtesy consultation!
3731 NW 40th Terrace, Gainesville
If you are afraid to smile,
but more afraid of what it will
require to help you regain optimal
oral health, relax! With over 30 years
of experience, Dr. Angel Reyes and
his staff know how to help and will
give you many options so that you can
decide what’s best for you.
Call for a courtesy consultation.
You’l be glad you did!
Angel I. Reyes DMD, MAGD.
& Associates
COMPREHENSIVE & IMPLANT DENTISTRY
harmony in the world.”
The Yale School of Music, where Carroll
was educated, emphasizes the service
element in music, and service has always
played a large role in Carroll’s work — the
spiritual messages implicit in her compositions,
her co-founding Jubilus with Dr.
Stephen Coxe 13 years ago, and establishing
AMO (A Musical Offering) in 2010 to
fund concerts and support outreach.
Alachua High School student David
Ousley won AMO’s 2012 young composers
competition with his quartet for
French horn, “Taking Flight Fanfare,”
which will be performed by Jubilus Ensemble
musicians at their 2013 festival.
Of considerable help in bringing musical
education to children and youth was the
2010-2011 grant Carroll received from
Yale, thanks to tenacity, imagination,
and being a distinguished 1982 Doctor of
Musical Arts alumni.
Looking to the future, Carroll said,
“The fall gala will be in October, and will
be a preview of the festival in February,
probably to be held at Holy Faith
Church. Two upcoming anniversaries
will fi gure signifi cantly, one marking 50
years since the death of Poulenc, and the
other the 100th anniversary of Benjamin
Britten’s birth.”
Her 2011 retirement as music director
of St. Augustine Catholic Church and
Student Center, a ministry begun in 1987,
evidently has not slowed her down. What
she most desires now is for “people to
realize what a wonderful resource Jubilus
is for the community: a wide range of programming
and commitment to the works
of living composers and new pieces.”
UF’s professor Jennings declared,
“The Jubilus Concert Series that she
organizes and presents annually is truly
among Gainesville’s greatest cultural
‘hidden treasures.’”
Most important, “the concerts are
free!” Carroll said. “We just want people
to come. Our audiences are getting bigger
all the time.” s
26 July 2012 seniortimesmagazine.com