To quote the late, great, Kenny Rogers, “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.”

Yes, I’m a gambler.

Perhaps it’s hard to imagine a lifelong Baptist gambling, but fear not, I’m not gambling my money away.

However, I am taking a significant musical gamble which I will explain.

As a long-time member of the Wallaceburg Arts Council, my membership can be measured in decades as opposed to years.

As a member of the arts council, I’ve been a part of many planning meetings as we struggled to select who we should bring to town and feature.

I love my hometown, but I also know how difficult it is to attract an audience to something that isn’t a rock, country or blues concert.

My experience has been that if people think a presentation might fall into a category I’ll refer to as “fine art,” they often run in the opposite direction.

From my perspective, it has always been a struggle who our organization should attempt to expose our citizenry to.

It’s a double-edged sword.

We’ve always wanted to expose people to artists that we in Wallaceburg aren’t exposed to regularly, but at the same time, don’t want to preach to people what we might think they should be listening to.

Most don’t like to be preached to, but there is so much untapped music out there that we (I) feel is worthy of at least a casual listen.

My musicianship can be easily questioned but if I have a strength, it’s in programming.

I know what sells and what doesn’t.

Keeping that in mind, as our Wallaceburg Concert Band has matured, I’ve been very careful in programming our........

© Sarnia Observer