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A Love Affair With Music

Photo from Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center

Matt Catingub, conductor for the Honolulu Symphony Pops, will guest conduct the Florida Orchestra's Valentine's program.

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By KATHY L. GREENBERG

Tribune correspondent

Published: February 1, 2009

The Florida Orchestra will set the mood for Valentine's Day weekend with "An Evening of Romance and Love Songs." As fitting as the program's lineup of classic love songs is its choice of guest conductor: Matt Catingub.

The conductor for the Honolulu Symphony Pops has enjoyed a love affair with music from Day One.

"My mom being a professional singer and growing up in a household and lifestyle where I was meeting the likes of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. introduced me to the music that I'm doing for Valentine's Day," he said.

"Mom" was the late, great jazz singer Mavis Rivers, "Polynesia's First Lady of Song," who Catingub says was "definitely my biggest influence." She taught him to appreciate all forms of music, and now the multitalented musician is practically a one-man band, singing, composing and conducting or playing numerous instruments such as piano, saxophone and flute (though not all at once).

In collaboration with The Florida Orchestra, Catingub will demonstrate these fluid skills while performing such ballads as "Unforgettable," "As Time Goes By," "My Romance," "When I Fall in Love" and "It Had To Be You."

The concert is "a tilt toward the great American songbook. All we're doing this weekend are my arrangements," he said.

Guest vocalist Elizabeth Nelson will join him onstage. She is an up-and-coming jazz singer, and giving her a shot at the "big time" is something Catingub is happy to do because of his own experiences.

"I've worked with so many great artists who have taken me under their wing or been kind in offering me their wisdom. One of my greatest mentors was Rosemary Clooney. I got to work with her the last four or five years of her life, and one thing I learned from her was to remember why I got into music in the first place.

"I don't care how sophisticated you are, you're still in the business of show," he said. "You want it to be fun and entertaining. That's what I've taken with me. That's served me very well."

Now that's true love.

CONCERT PREVIEW

An Evening of Romance and Love Songs

WHAT: Special Valentine's pops program with guest conductor Matt Catingub

WHEN AND WHERE: 8 p.m. Feb. 13 at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Ferguson Hall, 1010 N. MacInnes Place, Tampa; 8 p.m. Feb. 14 at Mahaffey Theater, 400 First St. S., St. Petersburg; 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15 at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater

TICKETS: $19 to $65; call 1-800-662-3331 or go to www.florida orchestra.org

More in February with The Florida Orchestra:

•Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4: Guest conductor David Alan Miller and Chinese erhu virtuoso Betti Xiang will perform the violin concerto "The Butterfly Lovers," then the Florida Orchestra will perform Tchaikovsky's ever-popular Symphony No. 4; 8 p.m. Friday at Ferguson Hall, Tampa; 7:30 p.m. Feb. 8 at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater; $19 to $65

• "Blue Danube": Guest conductor Klauspeter Seibel and pianist Markus Groh will join the orchestra to perform Mozart's Symphony No. 35, Haffner, and Piano Concerto No. 17, followed by Strauss' "Gypsy Baron Overture," "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" and "Emperor Waltzes" for this Viennese-themed evening; 8 p.m. Feb. 20 at Ferguson Hall, Tampa; 8 p.m. Feb. 21 at Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg; 7:30 p.m. Feb. 22 at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater; $19 to $65

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