Mailbag: All I want from the Americana is silence

Once again, like many Glendalians, I was startled out of my chair Thursday night by what sounded like gunfire.

I finally decided it must have been fireworks at the Americana at Brand, although I couldn’t see anything (“Lighting up the night,” Nov. 20). Why does the city of Glendale allow this?

Fireworks are for the Fourth of July and places like Dodger Stadium and the Hollywood Bowl in the summer.

They aren’t appropriate for a shopping mall in November that is surrounded by residences.

Of course, I realize that Caruso Affiliated cannot stand silence. One of the most annoying things about the Americana is the music blaring out of lamp posts. Most of the people pay no attention to the music, but you couldn’t pay attention to it even if you wanted to, because there’s too much other noise. Why music that is just more background noise?

So this is a plea to Caruso to stop the noisy fireworks in November and turn off the loudspeakers and give people a little silence. Silence would make a nice Christmas gift to the people of Glendale.

STANTON J. PRICE

Glendale

Setting the record straight on symphony

To paraphrase Mark Twain, “The report of our death is greatly exaggerated.”

As recording secretary of the Glendale Symphony Orchestra Assn., I feel compelled to set a few things straight as far as our status is concerned. First and foremost, we are alive and well, we have money in the bank for a concert, we have plans for a major event just as soon as we can get a union matter settled and we have an active and interested board of governors who continue to meet on a monthly basis.

The article in Nov. 18 Glendale News-Press “Orchestral medleys,” indicated that the symphony has not performed since a 2006 holiday concert at the Alex Theatre. Not true.

We have, indeed, been performing and with great success — just not at the Alex Theatre.

In the summer of 2008, the Glendale Symphony Orchestra had three performances titled the Summer Series.

In April 2007, the Philippine community used the Glendale Symphony Orchestra for a performance. In February 2007, the symphony was hired by a Japanese construction company in Tokyo (Kaijima Construction) to perform at the new Segerstrom Hall in Orange County. They could have hired any number of orchestras for this — they chose us, for obvious reasons. We are the best!

This past summer we had a fundraiser at Forest Lawn where musicians from the Glendale Symphony Orchestra performed beautifully, not to mention various salons where members of the symphony have played.

True, we would like to have a “season” where we can schedule concerts a year in advance. This is something we can shoot for as the economy gets better, wallets and pocketbooks open up and we’ve had time to regroup and settle in with our new board members. We have a number of ideas for delightful concerts and hope to get these in place very soon.

In the meantime, we have a concert planned for early 2010.

Our 85-year-old tradition deserves and should receive a lot of respect. Classical, semi-classical, jazz, show tunes and pops are on our agenda as they have been for a number of years.

The Glendale Symphony Orchestra will continue as world-class musical treasure.

SHEILA FARRELL MURRAY

Glendale