Tonight I have just returned from practice with the Lakeland Community Band which reminds me of another wonderful concert we attended while in Prague. On Saturday morning, we were wandering the grounds of Prague Castle when we came upon a set-up for a program. We joined the early-arrivers and realized that we were about to hear the Castle Guard and Czech Police Orchestra. The group seemed characteristic of both our miltary and community bands in America. They played standard favorites and brought out vocalists for a few numbers. We heard "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Old Man River" in Czech. Then a female vocalist came and sang, in English, "My Heart Will Go On." The Titanic exhibit was in town and the Czechs seem quite taken with the movie of ten years ago. Our tour guide, Petr, said he puts the movie on "while ironing" and he's seen it 17 times! That is more than Tina and her middle-school friends who loved Leonardo DiCapprio in 1997 - I think her total was nine times. But the thing that made me feel so at home during this concert was the audience who clearly had this marked on their calendars and came very early to get a good seat. (Just like at the Lakeland Center.) Though the event was in a tourist area, most of the elderly audience seemed to be local and the emcee spoke all in Czech. Music truly is a universal language - it was fun to see that some things transcend borders.
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