A few years ago, I learned a fancy word: ineffable. It is defined as “too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words,” as in the ineffable natural beauty of Crater Lake. Speechless is another way to say it. I have experienced this ineffability at the Britt Festival Orchestra concerts more than I can count. It usually goes like this: the orchestra finishes a moving piece of music. There is a moment of silence. To applaud feels like it would break the spell. I turn to my family and friends next to me. Without words, we look at each other, shrug as if to say, “Wow! Did you experience what I just experienced?” No words. Applause. No words.

How can an orchestra so consistently make me speechless? I have a rudimentary appreciation of “classical” music, but that has little to do with the experience. I don’t need to understand the music. I simply have to feel it, and under the baton of Teddy Abrams, that’s what happens. He makes sure of it.

The caliber of the professional musicians who assemble each year in our town is extraordinary. Working with Teddy, they love to share their enthusiasm for what an orchestra can do with old music, new music and everything in between. They’ll go anywhere to share it. (Remember last year’s pub crawl of Beethoven’s Fifth?)

But more than this, I think there is a secret ingredient in the Britt Orchestra experience: love. (Really? We’re just talking about an orchestra, after all.) We could call it “connection,” “becoming one,” “a shared experience,” and many other things.

I have heard from numerous musicians how much they love coming to Jacksonville each summer. Many of them stay with the same host family year after year. It is like a family reunion with only the cousins you like. AND they happen to be world-class musicians who have come to put on a show just for us.

On those evenings on the Britt hill, I look around and see my Jacksonville family—people I run into at the Good Bean or at the post office, at the farmers market or in city meetings. There is a sense of goodwill, a sense of the ineffable, the unspoken, “Can you believe this happening in our little town? Aren’t we lucky to be living here?”

Each summer is like a big family reunion. A lovefest. Our orchestra loves our town and we love OUR orchestra. It really does not get any better.

Featured image: Frank with Britt Orchestra’s Teddy Abrams – Photo by Ken Gregg