Harmony Gallery: Sarasota Orchestra Mixes Music With Art

Blending the artistic power of the visual and performing arts, The Harmony Gallery in the atrium of the Beatrice Friedman Symphony Center in Sarasota plans a public reception Tuesday, Oct. 5, from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

The brainchild of Artistic Director Leif Bjaland, the Gallery's mission is to introduce larger audiences to the greater communicative aspects of art presented collaboratively in all its forms.

Attendees will be treated to "Shorelines,'' an exhibit by painter Maro Lorimer of Bradenton's Village of the Arts.

The Sarasota Orchestra selected Lorimer's work to be shown during its 2010-2011 season.

Lorimer's large acrylic paintings reflect the beauty of the Gulf coast from a variety of perspectives.

"Often I place the horizon line near the top of the canvas to give a sense of great distance," she says. "We might be looking at a wide beach or a distant shore. In other paintings I move the line to the bottom, as if to zoom in on a shoreline for a closer look at a tropical forest that fills the rest of the canvas."

Visiting the Gallery is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and evenings and weekends during symphony concerts and other events at the Symphony Center. The Center is situated between Art Center Sarasota and Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall at 709 N. Tamiami Trail.

Writer: Diane Egner
Source: Maro Lorimer, painter
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Diane Egner is a community leader and award-winning journalist with more than four decades of experience reporting and writing about the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. She serves on the boards of the University of South Florida Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications Advisory Council, The Institute for Research in Art (Graphicstudio, the Contemporary Art Museum, and USF’s Public Art Program) Community Advisory Council, Sing Out and Read, and StageWorks Theatre Advisory Council. She also is a member of Leadership Florida and the Athena Society. A graduate of the University of Minnesota with a BA in journalism, she won the top statewide award for editorial writing from the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors while at The Tampa Tribune and received special recognition by the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists for creative work as Content Director at WUSF Public Media. Past accomplishments and community service include leadership positions with Tampa Tiger Bay Club, USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy (WLP), Alpha House of Tampa Bay, Awesome Tampa Bay, Florida Kinship Center, AIA Tampa Bay, Powerstories, Arts Council of Hillsborough County, and the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. Diane and her husband, Sandy Rief, live in Tampa.