Eunice Symphony Wows Audiences With Radio Hits

By Todd C. Elliott
todd.elliott@eunicetoday.com

The sound of any city is not in its loud daytime traffic or night time sirens. And only when those sounds become song, can that society, or city, hear what it truly sounds like in the world of music.
Harry Simon shuffled out from behind the curtains of stage of the historic Liberty Theater to tell the nearly capacity, Sunday night crowd the reason the The Eunice Symphony Orchestra existed.
The mission of the orchestra is to not exclude anyone within the community from the sounds of music. Community orchestras help bring citizens of any community together and to gather around the music makers,
according to Simon.
“I think you have to admit the ($5) admission to tonight’s performance was most reasonable,” said Simon from the stage to the chuckling crowd.
“And the reason for that is due firstly to the effort of local advertisers that you’ll find in this evening’s program. It’s not just a symphony orchestra, doing its own thing, called the Eunice Symphony Orchestra.
And it’s not just a community orchestra that just happens to be in Eunice. It’s real and relevant.”
A community of local advertisers came together to rally and support a local endeavor of local cultural significance, according to Simon. It only makes sense. If there is a symphony about to perform, the people need
to know about it, he hinted as he exited the stage to allow the conductor of The Eunice Symphony Orchestra, who is also his wife, Nancy, to get the night started.
The symphony came out swinging at the younger generation and modern pop music lovers alike with a number made popular by Adele, proof that the Liberty stage could withstand another form of music besides
Cajun or Zydeco. The stage could actually hold 52 playing performers playing 24 songs.
The theme of the night was “Over the Air Waves”, a musical tribute to songs made popular on American radio. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Queen, Louis Armstrong and Journey songs were all featured in the night’s performance.
The audience reacted more enthusiastically than any average, big-city “community orchestra” audience, clapping and singing along. The Eunice crowd made their own music with their hands and voices as they hungered for more of the songs that they love.
Every spectacular night has its pinnacle moment, its crescendo. The surprise of the evening, which received a standing ovation, came when a soloist, a male singer, was invited to the stage adorned with a 1949 RCA ribbon microphone – which was on loan from the private collection of Rick Nesbitt of KEUN radio. The would-be crooner took the microphone and was then unleashed. Little did the audience know. This singer was introduced as an Italian opera singer from Basile.
He approached the mic in the form of Jonathan Thompson, of Basile, who did a smashing rendition of “Torna a’ Surriento”– an opera tune which would later get an English translation as “Come Back to Sorrento”, which would later become “Surrender” made popular by Presley and by Dean Martin.
Thompson sang in Italian as well as English. So the rendition of the song was perfectly “old school.”
Thompson and The Eunice Symphony Orchestra brought down the house and all before intermission. Thompson and the orchestra received a Eunice standing ovation, which was music to the ears of all those on stage.