The Staten Island Philharmonic is adventure-ready ahead of their next show but there’s one crucial piece that will really help them sing.<\/p>\n
Or rather, one person.<\/p>\n
John Adrian is the ensemble’s vice president and technical director. The Philharmonic performs all over Staten Island. Adrian, a volunteer, makes sure all of the sound equipment works and mixes well together when it is showtime.<\/p>\n
“I have been doing it for so many decades,\u201d he said. “And I’m working with equipment that I know. and I’m working with people I like. and this is important.”<\/p>\n
Adrian discovered a love for audio and visual technology as a teenager.<\/p>\n
“An innate talent for understanding how it works. That’s the only way I can describe it,” he said.<\/p>\n
Half a century and scores of A\/V projects later, a friend asked the St. George resident to help prepare equipment for an upcoming Staten Island Philharmonic performance.<\/p>\n
“I looked at her like \u2018Now’s a week before a concert,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI looked at her and I said ‘You might have given me a little advance warning.'”<\/p>\n
Adrian now assists with the Philharmonic’s dozen plus shows each year… making sure audiences can hear every note.<\/p>\n
“There’s a lot of technical details that need to be, that need to be attended to,\u201d said Lawrence Zaidan, a guest conductor with the ensemble.\u00a0 \u201cAnd, and John helps out with all of that stuff.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He has tremendous value,\u201d said Kevin Clark. He plays the bass trombone and serves the Philharmonic\u2019s treasure, assistant contractor and librarian.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause as an independent set of ears out apart from the orchestra, he can see if we’re missing the balance internally, then he can adjust for it,\u201d Clark added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adrian also helps the community in other ways. He teaches driving safety classes with AARP. He writes and performs with a senior citizen theater troupe. And the 83-year-old is the treasurer of his church.<\/p>\n
“We have a wide range of ages and orientations and interests,\u201d Adrian said. It makes my life interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an interesting life for Adrian as he creates moments of harmony.<\/p>\n
“I enjoy the music,\u201d he said. \u201cI enjoy the challenge of the work.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
For sharing a tune of service, John Adrian is our New Yorker of the Week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Staten Island Philharmonic is adventure-ready ahead of their next show but there’s one crucial piece that will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[7914,25,7913,9,24,7911,12,63,7912,134,136,135,27,200],"class_list":["post-346172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-app-new-yorker-of-the-week","tag-app-top-stories","tag-chelsea-katz","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-yorker-of-the-week","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-pat-kiernan","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}