[Pat] We started in 1969, a group of volunteers got together and decided we needed to bring
something unique to The Keys.
And now 50 years later we're still doing that.
We enjoy bringing in these young people that are one their way up.
We try once a year to find a true, major prodigy who is potentially going to have a huge breakout
career.
And we call this the Rising Star Concert.
His name is Tengku Irfan, and Irfan is probably one of the great musical geniuses of the generation.
At the Juilliard School where he attends, not only a spectacular pianist, but he is
also a composer and a conductor.
And the audience is stunned by what these young people can do.
You can even come up, shake their hands talk to them after the performance.
You would never get that anywhere else unless of course you had special back stage passes
or something like that.
[Norman] Classical music is almost always played just with a pure acoustic instrument,
no electric, no amplification.
And we just follow that tradition in the space here because it is so intimate and so live,
you can be in the very back row and it's almost like you're sitting in the front row with
the quality of the sound.
[Pat] 100% of our ticket sales, donations, sponsorships, ads goes back into bringing
great music to The Keys.
Pop music, rock music, all that can sustain itself in the commercial market and it thrives.
But for those of us that really appreciate classical music, opera, serious jazz, that
really requires a nonprofit organization driven economically by significant donations from
the people who really want to see it happen and use their resources to help it happen.
That is our mission, to bring truly wonderful artists, national artists, international artists
of the highest caliber here to the Florida Keys to perform serious, mostly classical
music.
We'd like to try to teach other people to enjoy that don't presently.
[Pat] And as you see, we have seating on the sides of our venue here for students.
We do have them come in for free 'cause we're trying to encourage young people.
Marathon was hurt, as you know, so badly in Hurricane Irma so we're struggling a little
here in Marathon.
But so many people had to move after the hurricane.
They lost their homes, so we plan on Marathon coming back as they are.
We saw a dip, we did see a dip.
It hurt our ticket sales.
[Norman] We just do hope that people perhaps watching this might realize what we have here.
Now we know where we can go in Marathon to see some great music.
[Pat] And maybe we won't just be known as a little fishing and drinking village.
We do have culture here.
[Norman] I just absolutely love classical music.
It's beautiful, it's powerful.
That's why I'm here.