Fort Lauderdale from the air!

While we didn’t get to go to the beach, we nonetheless enjoyed our quick weekend trip to Fort Lauderdale. It was an honor to be invited to perform on Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church’s Sunday afternoon concert series, and CRPC’s organist Chelsea Chen was a fabulous host.

with Chelsea Chen at Coral Ridge

Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, for those unfamiliar with it, is known around the US (and outside the US) for hosting world-class musical events, as well as employing world-class artists. Diane Bish, “the first lady of the organ” who popularized organ music on TV through her program “The Joy of Music,” served for many years as organist in residence at CRPC. It was truly an honor to be invited to perform a full-length concert at this very large, very well-known church in south Florida!

Inside Coral Ridge Presbyterian’s main sanctuary

Coral Ridge’s famous 300-foot tower

As you can see, the sanctuary is enormous! The church is equally renowned for its unique architectural style as it is for its music. Due to acoustics and the small nature of our group (only two instruments and no organ!), we performed our concert in the smaller chapel.

Apple Orange Pair performing in Coral Ridge’s chapel

We were impressed at how large our audience was, even though we were in a smaller space, and we even got to meet some young harpists who heard about our concert thanks to the Harp Column and their private teachers!

With young musicians from the audience!

The day before our concert, when we weren’t rehearsing, we ventured into Coral Gables nearer Miami to get a taste of south Florida living. Colleen had picked up a last-minute gig at the Biltmore to cover for a friend who was getting married that weekend. It was super fun to put on a fancy dress and play a historic gold Lyon and Healy harp (from 1915) for the tea at the Biltmore for a few hours! Afterwards, we met up with a friend from Connecticut Summerfest who happened to be in Miami the same weekend and we explored the local taco scene. Delicious!

Colleen subbing for tea at the Biltmore

As you can see, we had a great time in Florida. We hope to be back again some day soon!