Community orchestras such as the Gulf Coast Symphony have musicians from many backgrounds and careers, unlike professional groups, whose players tread a well-worn path to a life’s work in music.
Flutist and piccolo player Sherrie Mangan isn’t the product of a music school. She chose a career articulating financial software in business administration. And as with many of us non-pros, she ceased playing music while building a career and a family.
Idaho-born Stacey Gossmann began her musical life as do many of us – in elementary school. But unlike many of us, the Gulf Coast Symphony’s principal bassoonist spent years clawing back from the edge of death to go on to play another day.
Born to a trumpet-playing physicist dad and a pianist mother who ran major musical and theatre productions in Idaho, Stacey Gossmann started out on the cello and shortly thereafter embraced the bassoon.
Growing up in Northern Virginia, David Harler was handed his first horn when he was eight years old. And that day led to a musical and life-long adventure that wound its way to Southwestern Florida and a position as principal trumpet at the Gulf Coast Symphony.
It was a 1930s King Liberty brand trumpet that his uncle first put in his hands. “Why he gave it to me I don’t know. He just said: ‘Here, if you want to play, it play it.’”
Daitch, who has played the violin since age 5, is the concertmaster-violinist for the Gulf Coast Symphony. A concertmaster is often considered the second-most important musician in an ensemble, and in America the position is usually called first chair.
