Longtime RPO Patron says "Music is Medicine"

If you regularly attend RPO performances, you might begin to recognize the same faces in the crowd from concert to concert. But few in the audience have been RPO supporters for as long as Joe Mancini. An RPO patron for nearly eighty years and a donor for more than sixty, Joe can’t imagine his life without music in it.

Joe was introduced to the RPO through his uncle, who brought him to an RPO Pops concert when he was just 10 years old (he’s now 89). He doesn’t recall what the orchestra played that night, but that first concert whet his appetite for more. As his appreciation for music grew, he says he “graduated” to more complex programming.

As he grew older, Joe discovered music as a source of solace. He remembers several occasions in college when, frustrated with his studying and schoolwork, he would take a break to listen to classical music. Even today, music continues to be a restorative experience for Joe:  “I turn to music when I’m down,” he says. “That’s my medicine.”

Like his uncle before him, Joe delights in introducing family and friends to classical music. Over his many decades as an RPO patron, he has brought his nieces and nephews to Pops and Philharmonics concerts, as well as to musical theatre performances and even to operas at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. “To this day, they are still interested in music,” he says proudly.

Joe has broad musical tastes and says “I can listen to anything.” However, he admits that opera is particularly close to his heart – an affinity he shares with RPO Music Director Ward Stare. Joe is especially looking forward to the Philharmonic Series Finale, when the orchestra will perform Bizet’s Carmen in Concert. Joe himself takes voice lessons at Hochstein School of Music and Dance, focusing mostly on opera. He has already performed in two recitals.

Having been an RPO patron for almost eight decades, Joe has seen the orchestra grow and change. He has fond memories of former music directors David Zinman and Erich Leinsdorf. Today, he is particularly admiring of Ward Stare’s command and control of the orchestra. “They’re giving their all,” he says of the orchestra.

Asked why he supports the RPO, Joe says that music “is an art form that if you allow yourself to be overwhelmed by it, the rewards are fantastic.” After each concert, “I come out on such a high,” he says. He adds that “this is the art form that just keeps giving.”

At RPO concerts, you’ll find Joe sitting near the cross aisle on the orchestra floor. “If you hear someone yelling ‘Bravo!’, it’s me,” he says.