MARGO HAMMOND w/Mary E. Corbett, Violinist The Florida Orchestra

Arts correspondent Margo Hammond’s guest today is Mary Corbett, a violinist for the Florida Orchestra since 1989. This week Corbett was a guest speaker at the Tampa Bay chapter of Creative Mornings, a free monthly breakfast lecture series for creatives that now hosts events in 247 cities all over the world, both in person and online. This month's theme for speakers was Revival.

Corbett has a unique story to tell — not so much of revival as survival. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, she got her start on the violin at the age of eight, growing up in Buffalo, New York as the only Black girl in her neighborhood, her school and her music program. She says it was challenging to not be able to see anyone who looked like her in the orchestra — and in the audience. She joined the Florida Orchestra in 1989 and although the FSO has featured other African Americans in its performances, today Corbett is the only American American player in its ranks.

In this interview Corbett describes her musical journey which has included a two-year stint with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Leonard Bernstein and an appearance with Whitney Houston for her iconic Super Bowl performance of the National Anthem. She also makes a case that the story of classical music itself is not so much a story of revival either as it is one of constant renewal. Think, she says, of the transformation of a 1939 musical — The Wizard of Oz — into Wicked.  Even music hundreds of years old can be made relevant today.