With the arrival of Elite Airways service, Sarasota Bradenton International Airport will now enjoy the passenger traffic levels not seen since AirTran left the market in 2012. “As we look forward, things are moving in the right direction,” says SRQ President Rick Piccolo.

Officials from Elite Airways today will announce commercial flight service twice a week between SRQ and Portland International Jetport [PWM] in Maine. “The demand for Maine-to-Florida service has been consistently strong, and we are thrilled to add these new nonstop flights while also expanding existing service in other markets starting this fall,” John Pearsall, president of Elite Airways, said in a release. “We sincerely appreciate the support from community and airport leaders in Sarasota and Portland, and expect this to be a very successful route.”

Beginning Nov. 17, the new service will operate twice a week on Thursday and Sunday, with a plane departing PMW at 11:45am to land at SRQ at 2:45pm, then departing SRQ at 3:30pm to land at PWM at 6:30pm. The addition of Portland as a destination expands the connectivity of nonstop flights to and from SRQ. Piccolo expects during peak holiday season for flights to run five times a week, and during the Spring Break/Easter season to run three flights a week.

The addition also puts annual passenger traffic back at comfortable levels for SRQ. After Southwest took over AirTran in 2012, it dropped service to 15 markets, including SRQ, taking with it roughly a third of all passenger traffic in and out of the airport. Back then, the airport saw roughly 1.3 million total passengers each year. With the arrival of Elite at SRQ, the airport expects to see roughly 1.25 million total passengers. Elite joins carriers such as Westjet, Air Canada and United in opening or expanding service to SRQ in the past four years. “And we were able to do all that in the midst of the greatest recession since the Great Depression,” Piccolo boasts.

Piccolo says Elite was drawn to SRQ for a number of reasons, including marketing opportunities with both Visit Sarasota County and the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, but was also drawn because the airport retired the last of its debt in 2014. “There will be no big spike on horizon to pay for some need,” Piccolo says. 

Photo courtesy Elite Airways

It’s been near 15 years since the terror attacks of September 11 but the country has sworn never to forget and with the exhibition “And Then There Was Quiet: New York After 9/11” Sarasota artist Dave Gordon offers audiences an intimate glimpse of Ground Zero at ground level. Through a mix of documentary photography and art installation, Gordon illuminates the small and quiet moments of reflection and mourning often missed amidst the scale of the day’s events. Currently on display at Bradenton’s Downtown Central Library, the artists will be in attendance tonight at 6pm for an opening reception and discussion of the work and experience.

“Everybody who was there tried to photograph the big things,” says Gordon, who rushed from his home in Massachusetts to New York City in a matter of days. “I tried to focus on the small things and the intimate moments.” Featuring more than 20 large mounted photographs alongside smaller photographs and objects, the exhibit eschews grand vistas of destruction and the totality of the rescue efforts in lieu of snapshots and scenes of individual New Yorkers making their way in the aftermath. “I discovered a quiet and somber New York that was profoundly supportive,” he says, “and that the rest of the country was largely unaware of.”

Showing across the country at libraries and galleries and institutions such as the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington D.C., Gordon preserves these moments not only through his photography but a series of art installations recreating specific environments from those days, like a wall of missing posters from hopeful families or a makeshift shrine of candles and flowers arranged on the street. Another presents a world in dust like that which covered the streets of New York City.

“And Then There Was Quiet: New York After 9/11” runs through September 30 in Bradenton’s Downtown Central Library. The opening reception and artist talk begins tonight at 6pm. On September 10 the library will host a 9/11 remembrance where the public can share their memories of that day and take part in the creation of new artwork for consideration in future exhibits. 

The National Association for Music Education came out with the most recent national standards in 2014 about music literacy. The standards emphasize conceptual understanding in areas that reflect the actual processes in which musicians engage. The standards cultivate a student’s ability to carry out the three artistic processes of creating, performing and responding.

These are the processes that musicians have followed for generations, even as they connect through music to their selves and their societies. And isn’t competence in creating, performing and responding what we really want for our students?

Students need to have experience in creating, to be successful musicians and to be successful 21st-century citizens.

Students need to perform as singers, as instrumentalists and in their lives and careers.

Students need to respond to music, as well as to their culture, their community and their colleagues.

It is the informed intention of the Music Compound to work in collaboration with children, families and professionals in the fields of music education and music performance, to draw out the musical ability in every child. By collaborating, educating and inspiring children to create, perform and respond to music, we believe we are unleashing the joy and love for music that each of us innately, and we give children the tools to be able to communicate that to the greater community. Music Compound employees highly educated instructors with extensive experience in composing, songwriting production performance and artistic development.   

Music Compound

Last Friday's VIP Opening party for Boca Kitchen Bar & Market was electric with elated energy, the air palpable with the crowd's eagerness to experience the menu in its full glory. With a packed house, craft cocktails and beers made the rounds along with inventive appetizers, signaling the sumptuous flavors to come. The obvious favorite came floating out of the kitchen on deep stained wood chop blocks—the brie and apple flatbread, a piping-hot crunchy slab topped with creamy brie cheese, tart Granny Smith apples, tender pickled red onions and hearty chunks of white meat chicken. According to Lydia Lopez, director of sales and marketing for the restaurant's parent company BE-1 Concepts, the first night of service (Monday, September 5th) had to stop taking reservations mid-way through the afternoon. "The community has embraced us with open arms," Lopez says. The flatbreads and other farm-to-table delights are now available daily for lunch and dinner as well as weekend brunch. 

Pictured: A chef prepares flatbreads in front of the pizza oven and appetizers at the VIP Opening Party last week.

Boca Kitchen Bar & Market, 21 South Lemon Ave., Sarasota, 941-256-3565.

A local nonprofit dedicated to strengthening families, Forty Carrots Family Center, announced that Dr. Rosemary Cullain joined the agency in the newly created position of Clinical Supervisor for Child & Family Therapy Services. With 35 years of experience in schools and private practice as well as expertise in autism, Cullain will be in charge of overseeing a program that has grown from 61 percent in the last 12 months.  

Forty Carrots

Founded by Roger Wiltshire in 1991, the Pure H20’s Quatreau Tap System was nominated by Better Homes and Gardens, Beautiful Kitchens and Baths “30 most innovative products of 2016.” The Quatreau Tap is the first touch-screen multifunction tap to deliver the purest instant boiling, instant chilled and instant sparkling water.  

Quatreau Tap

Stephen Lingley has been named Florida Realtors Associate Realtor of the year. Lingley is part of Premiert Sotheby’s International Realty’s Venice office and was described as the epitome of a team player for the company. Sotheby’s International Realty has over 900 associates and employees in 37 locations.  

Premier Sotheby's International Realty

This month in Sprig of Soul, we take on the sweeping menu at North Orange Avenue's newest must-eat spot: The Rosemary. With a menu boasting succulent flavors from all corners of the globe, Owner George Armstrong utilizes his vast knowledge of recipes to satisfy any guest, from Bermudan classics to North Carolina BBQ. Dive into this article to explore your palate’s far-flung hankerings. 

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