Concert Sunday in tribute to Carol Guild’s memory
In tribute to the memory of Carol Guild, who was instrumental in the growth of the Ilse Newell Fund for the Performing Arts, this year’s final concert will feature mezzo soprano Jessica Ann Best, accompanied on the piano by Guild’s brother Rob Goodling.
The show this Sunday, April 28 at Trinity Church in Apalachicola begins at 4 p.m. with special spoken tributes to Guild during intermission.
Guild’s expertise in marketing and advertising, drawing on 43 years of experience, including 23 years as owner of an advertising agency, helped to bring the organization to the next level. She created the Ilse Newell Fund playbill, playbill inserts, advertisements, newspaper articles, artwork, fundraising, and artist bookings. She added the Holy Family Center as a venue and tweaked the after-performance receptions the late Fran Edwards had established.
From 2018 until her untimely demise in 2023, Guild brought musicians from as far as Italy to perform genres that included classical, opera, folk, jazz, Latin, contemporary, pop, Broadway, Americana, and this year, bluegrass.
Guild’s abilities and love of music provided the impetus for the board of directors to carry on her vision and to bring 10 performances this year to Apalachicola, six to Trinity Episcopal Church and four to the Holy Family Center to benefit the Elder Care Community Council. Through her service as board member and volunteer, and behind-the-scenes efforts, she added new dimensions to the operation and vision of the Ilse Newell Fund. Guild’s presence and contributions to the Fund are sorely missed but her spirit has enlivened the current organization to heights that will carry on for many seasons including next year’s 40th. Many thanks to Guild, her husband Dan, and her family for their support and understanding during her years of service.
Best, a nationally renowned cross-disciplinary artist of opera, musical theater and jazz, has premiered the roles of Mrs. Otis in Gordon Getty’s The Canterville Ghost with LA Opera, the stepmother in Anton Coppola’s Lady Swanwhite at Opera Tampa, and Alice in Alice Ryley by Michael Ching with the Savannah Voice Festival.
In 2021, she debuted as Carmen in Georges Bizet’s Carmen with the Salt Marsh Opera Company. Currently she tours The Great American Songbook and is a returning New York City artist with Susie Mosher in The Lineup at the Birdland. At Rochester’s Blackfriars Theater, she recently curated “La Reine, Queens of Stage and Song,” a production of opera, Broadway, musical theater and jazz. In Spring 2023, Best toured Poland, singing and directing opera scenes with the Rzesźow Philharmonic and the Krakow Academy of Music.
Best holds a masters of music in vocal performance from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s in vocal performance from Nazareth University, where she is a professor and artistic director of opera. In 2024 she will be performing in and directing a production of Francis Poulenc’s opera, “Dialogues of the Carmelites.”
Goodling, who has performed for Ilse Newell audiences with tenor Mark Daniels, is honored to be accompanying Best in this tribute recital for his sister.
Tickets are available in advance online at inconcertapalachicola.org for $20 and for $25 at the door.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.