According to a press release, Bjaland will help with artistic planning and the national search to locate a new music director, as well as conducting for multiple Masterworks Series and other performances.

Leif Bjaland

Bjaland left the Sarasota Orchestra earlier this year, after 15 years of service. He continues a position as music director of the Waterbury Symphony in Connecticut.

“The SWFLSO is excited to have his expertise,” said Executive Director Frances Goldman in a prepared statement. “His contribution both at the podium, as well as his involvement in launching a clear and obtainable national search process for the appointment of a new music director will be highly valued.”

The annual meeting of the FRIENDS OF THE SELBY PUBLIC LIBRARY will be held at 2 p.m. May 21 in Geldbart Auditorium, Selby Library, 1331 First St., Sarasota. SARAH PAPPAS, president of the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation, will discuss “The Economic Impact of Nonprofits and Foundations in Sarasota County.” 861-1140.

 BETH NEFF will read from and sign copies of “Getting Somewhere” at 6 p.m. May 22 at Bookstore1 Sarasota, 1359 Main St., Sarasota. 365-7900; www.bookstore1sarasota.com.

MARY ALICE MONROE will sign copies of “Beach House Memories” at 5 p.m. May 22 at Circle Books, 478 John Ringling Blvd., St. Armands Circle, Sarasota. 388-2850.

 FRIENDS OF THE SOUTH MANATEE LIBRARY BOOK DISCUSSION GROUP will meet to discuss the works of WALLACE STEGNER at 10 a.m. May 25 at 6081 26th St. W., Bradenton. 755-3892.

 BRENDA SPALDING will sign copies of “Just Batty” at 1 p.m. May 26 at Circle Books, 478 John Ringling Blvd., St. Armands Circle, Sarasota. 388-2850.

The group itself has changed since its founding in 1997, diversifying into a combined men and women’s chorus that stresses in its mission statement that “music builds bridges to bring communities together” and “there is unity in Diversity.”

Diversity celebrates its 15th anniversary this year with a concert tonight in Holley Hall that serves as a prelude to the group’s participation in the quadrennial GALA Choruses festival in Denver, Colo.

Diversity: The Voices of Sarasota / COURTESY PHOTO

“The concert is really a continuing celebration of our 15th anniversary and the GALA Festival being the same year,” said Executive Director David Phillips. “It’s designed to present a variety of music, from the classics of Gershwin to the repertoire of songs performed at GALA Festivals of the past.”

A medley of George Gershwin’s music and a panorama of “West Side Story” songs will be performed at the concert, as well as numbers like “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “What A Wonderful World,” and “Why We Sing.”

Founded in 1982, GALA Choruses is an international association of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and allied choruses. The organization fosters the growth of member choruses and has produced six international festivals, four of which have been attended by Diversity.

“Each chorus performing at the festival has a 30-minute concert time. One hundred and eighty choruses are coming from all over the world,” said Phillips. “It’s expected that over 5,000 singers will attend.”

Diversity began in 1997 as The Gulf Coast Men’s Chorus at the Players Theatre, as guests of the Tampa Bay Gay Men’s Chorus. Then, in 2005, a women’s group called Harmony: The Women’s Voices of Sarasota was formed. While the choruses sang separately, they did combine on certain pieces.

“The combination was so dynamic that we invited the women to join what is now known as Diversity: The Voices of Sarasota,” said Phillips.

Beginning small, Diversity has now performed from California to Canada, as well as in Carnegie Hall in New York City. With 50 singing members and new Artistic Director Derek Edward Weston, Diversity continues to grow and make music that “builds a bridge to bring communities together.”

The SCA’s 68th season “promises to be an outstanding one,” said John Goodman, board president.

Tokyo String Quartet / PHOTO BY MARCO BORGGREVE

The season will open Jan. 14 with the Tokyo String Quartet, which is on its final tour after 44 years of performance. The quartet will be accompanied by Jeremy Denk, whose playing was described by The New York Times as “effortlessly virtuosic and utterly joyous.”

The Cleveland Orchestra and Joshua Bell, with Franz Welser-Most conducting, will perform on Jan. 28. Bell was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in 2007 and recently was named music director for the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the most highly-regarded orchestras in the world; it last performed in Sarasota in January as part of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall’s classical lineup.

The Vienna Boys Choir will perform Feb. 12. The choir has delighted audiences since 1498 and has generated many renowned musicians.

Violinist James Ehnes / COURTESY PHOTO

Violinist James Ehnes, who lives in Bradenton when he isn’t touring the world as a solo performer, will take to the stage on Feb. 26. Ehnes is artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

Stefan Blunier conducts the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn

The season will end with a March 19 performance by the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn, conducted by Stefan Blunier with soloist Louis Lortie on piano. The orchestra is the official orchestra of the Bonn Opera House. Lortie is known for his interpretations of Chopin, Ravel and Beethoven.

The concert association also hosts a series of free “Munchtime Musicales.” The 2012-2013 season includes pianist Sylvia Reynolds Eckes on Nov. 14; singer-songwriter Mindy Simmons on Dec. 12; the Sarasota String Quartet on Jan. 16; violinists Dan Jordan and Chong-Yon Hong and harpist Cheryl Losey on Feb. 20; Studio artists from the Sarasota Opera on March 20 and the Mike Markaverich Trio on April 17.

It wasn’t until WUSF split off its classical music programming into a new station, WSMR, last year that Balsom could make his move.

Balsom was in town last week to meet with WSMR representatives and the Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota to make initial plans for a Dec. 11 taping of the hour-long program of classical music performed by young people between the ages of 8 and 18.

“No one was happier when WUSF acquired that extra signal than me,” said Balsom. “Literally, I said, ‘thank you, now I can start talking to presenters up and down the west coast.’”

The show has been on the air in West Palm Beach “since forever,” with shows recorded at the Kravis Center, and was on the air in Fort Myers until the public radio station there went to a news and information format.

Its roots are at the New England Conservatory of Music, where a renovation of Jordan Hall demanded additional uses for the space.

“From the Top” co-founders Jennifer Hurley-Wales and Gerald Slavet came out of a meeting with the NEC’s president and were standing on a corner batting around ideas.

“And Jennifer says, ‘You know what would be kinda cool would be an old-fashioned radio show, like “Prairie Home Companion,”‘ and Jerry goes, ‘With kids!’” said Balsom. “The creation myth goes that lightning struck at that very moment. The show was almost born whole at that moment.”

The idea was to celebrate young musicians’ efforts in the same way that high school sports teams are celebrated.

Roberto Granados performs on the guitar. / COURTESY PHOTO

“That was the basic concept and, in fact, we really haven’t changed much since then, except that we’ve expanded what that means,” said Balsom, including outreach and education. Young musicians invited to be on the show also attend an arts leadership workshop.

“We think we’re responsible for having a huge influence on the next generation of musicians,” said Balsom.

Among the program’s alumni is Abraham Feder, principal cellist for the Sarasota Orchestra, and Artist Series performers Chad Hoopes, Elizabeth Joy Roe and Greg Anderson, Stefan Jackiw and Monica Pasquini.

The show’s format combines performances by classical soloists and ensembles with onstage and pre-recorded interviews with the young performers.

“One of the things we’ve discovered is the show’s not really about music, or not just about music. In fact, the takeaway is that we’re giving audiences a window into a generation of American kids who are smart, they’re passionate, they’re focused, and they’re not all going to be musicians, but music is an important part of their lives,” said Balsom.

A euphonium player is interviewed on "From the Top." / PHOTO BY ALISSA GARIN

John Fischer, executive director of Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota, said sponsoring “From the Top” dovetails neatly with ASC’s own scholarship and education programs.

“To me this is going to open doors. It just is going to make more people aware of what we do. And also when we get them in, they’re going to have an experience,” said Fischer. “My plan is we’ll get non-concertgoers out of curiosity to come and we’re going to show them the next generation of concert performances.”

Balsom said the show’s listeners range far beyond the typical classical music concert attendee.

“Chris O’Riley, our host, now sees people come to his solo recitals who had never been to concerts before, because they are listeners,” he said. “A friend of ours up in Minnesota walked into an arts supply store one day and heard the show on the radio. She looks around, there’s nobody in the store except these two old geezers behind the counter. ‘You guys listen to a lot of classical music?’ ‘That’s not classical music, it’s “From the Top.”‘ I love that story.”

Balsom said the show will begin its casting process in earnest in late summer, although the show’s format rarely includes all local talent unless it’s in a major city like Boston or New York. Typically between one and three of the five acts on the show are drawn from the local pool.

“We know there’s good talent in Florida,” said Balsom.

Alexia Delguidice is interviewed by Chris O'Riley on "From the Top." / PHOTO BY MIKKI ANSIN

The impending arrival of “From the Top” often triggers community involvement beyond the show itself. In Chattanooga recently, Balsom said, local youth chamber music ensembles played in the lobby before the show, the Chattanooga Symphony performed a 15-minute pre-concert concert, art from local students was hung in the lobby and the public radio station recorded and broadcast local auditions.

“When we come to town, we’re a circus that can bring some attention, because we showcase your kids, showcase your program to a national audience,” he said.

Novelist Jesmyn Ward takes the enormity of that event and brings it into sharp focus in her National Book Award-winning novel, “Salvage the Bones,” in which one poor black family in rural Mississippi stares into the storm’s eye and does not blink.

The story is told by Esch, the only daughter among four siblings who struggle to raise themselves on a rural piece of land that is, in essence, the county landfill. Their mother died giving birth to the youngest, Junior, who has since been raised by Esch and her older brother, Randall, while their father slides into a swamp of grief, odd jobs and alcohol. Skeetah, a year younger than Esch, busies himself with his beloved pit bull, China, who gives birth to five puppies as the novel begins and the TV weather reports begin to issue warnings of the impending storm. It is a measure of the family’s poverty in fictional Bois Sauvage, Miss., that they subsist on eggs laid by the free-ranging chickens on the property (the coop having long since fallen to pieces), ramen noodles and bologna.

Esch, a smart and passionate young woman, finds her only joy outside her brothers, in mythology, which she is studying in school. She finds herself captivated by the story of Medea and sees parallels between the passionate woman of the myth and her own unrequited love for Manny, one of Randall’s friends and, not insignificantly, the young man who has impregnated her.

The days leading up to the storm are ones in which Esch struggles to come to terms with her pregnancy, which has reached the point where it can no longer be hidden. Used for sex by various men and boys since she was 12, Esch believes herself in love with Manny, who is living with another woman and treats Esch as casually as he would a Kleenex.

But Esch’s passion rages in her breast, and it is in mythology that she understands her role in the universe.

“In every one of the Greeks’ mythology tales, there is this: A man chasing a woman, or a woman chasing a man. There is never a meeting in the middle. There is only a body in a ditch, and one person walking toward or away from it,” says Esch.

“Salvage the Bones” is not an easy book, with its poverty, adolescent sex and brutal dogfighting, to say nothing of the horrors of the hurricane itself. But Ward imbues the world of Esch and her family in a painful radiance, where the storm howls around them and yet a fine light still shines upon them.

Steven McRae and Roberta Marquez as Lise and Colas in the Royal Ballet's production of Frederick Ashton's "La Fille Mal Gardee," / Courtesy photo

This was neither a perfect production nor a perfect transmission – the screen went black momentarily three times during the two-hour broadcast and the camera close-ups occasionally left me wondering what was happening elsewhere on the stage – but there was enough to savor to consider it a Ben Franklin well-spent.

Ashton’s comedic classic – about Lise (Roberta Marquez), her suitor Colas (Steven McRae) and Lise’s aunt, the Widow Simone (Philip Mosley, in drag), who tries to marry her off to a wealthy neighbor’s simpleton son, Alain (Ludovic Ondiviela) – has been in the Royal’s rep since 1960 and is nearing its 350th performance at Covent Garden.

That means that while it has nothing to prove in terms of its likability and longevity, every new cast member has the challenge of matching or surpassing those who previously appeared in the roles. In this case, though it certainly appears dated, Ashton’s choreographic cleverness and remarkable musicality underscored the former while uneven dramatic performances by the lead dancers confirmed the latter.

I’m always ambivalent about Ashton’s comedy – sometimes it seems a little smug – but from the opening scene, when a bunch of dancers in chicken costumes authentically peck around a barnyard, I gave in to the sheer fun of what is, admittedly, a silly ballet. From Lise bumping down the stairs on her rump in a funky pout, to the beguiling naiveté of Alain, I was charmed by both the story and the deceptively (and often fiendishly) difficult choreography, which was well-executed throughout.

Ludocix Ondiviela as the simpleton Alain lies across the laps of Gary Avis (as his father, Thomas) and Philip Mosley (as the Widow Simone) as Roberta Marquez (Lise) looks on. / Courtesy photo

A broad comedy such as this, however, begs for more than just technical execution and the leads were not uniformly adept dramatically. Marquez, a gifted thespian who looks a bit like a young Margot Fonteyn, got most everything right – the insipid infatuation with Colas, the pouty, childish tantrums and the sometimes cruel, adolescent dismissal of the idiot Alain. As for McRae, while his precision and athleticism were to be appreciated, with his red hair, boyish grin and aristocratic air, he seemed miscast. I’m quite sure he didn’t project the animal magnetism of a Carlos Acosta (who danced the role several nights previously) or that I believe the role requires.

As a former tap dancer, Mosley executed the famous clogging section flawlessly, but while he was funny, he wasn’t funny enough. For this role, which was created for the late character dancer Alexander Grant (this production is dedicated to his memory) less is not more. I longed for something truly over the top.

Ondiviela, hardly recognizable in a blond wig of curls and a goofy hat, met the difficult challenge for a classical dancer of portraying familiar ballet steps in an unschooled manner. Coached by Christopher Carr, who first danced the role in 1967, he was endearingly naive rather than merely imbecilic.

The cheerful music by Ferdinand Hérold kept the action moving along briskly and the Royals’ gifted corps was uniformly pleasant to watch – that is, when the camera allowed us to linger on them rather than the principals’ faces, which didn’t happen often.

Roberta Marquez and Steven McRae of the Royal Ballet. / Courtesy photo

“Fille” is a perfect introduction to ballet for those who might be prone to snoozing through the Romanticism of a “Swan Lake” and for children, who will appreciate the easily accessible humor, so I hope many locals will take advantage of a live performance when the Sarasota Ballet presents the ballet next April.

All in all, I had to agree with one of the “tweets” (sent in from viewers in theaters around the world) that ran along the bottom of the screen during the final bows: “Wonderful ‘poulets’ (chickens)… Marvelously silly fun.”

Austin Finley and Diana Dizon in the Studio of Classical Ballet's "Don Quixote." / Courtesy photo

With a cast of 175, the performance will also include several dancers poised to make their mark on the professional ballet world, including Sarasota’s Diana Dizon (recently placed in the top 12 at the Youth America Grand Prix ballet competition) as Kitri, Austin Finley (currently a dancer with BalletMet), as Basilio, and Calvin Farias (Next Generation Ballet, Tampa) as Espada.

 Rey Dizon, Diana’s father, will take the title role; Denny Miller, marketing director for the Manatee Players, will dance Gamache and Michael Chau, a four-time national ice skating medalist, will perform the role of Sancho Panza.

Tickets, $15 to $25, are available by calling 366-8450 or going to www.sarasotaopera.org. Group rates are available.