Last weekend, Jose and his Bandmates Jay Stollman, Marc Alan, David Rivera and Musical Director, Steve Sasloe, along with Jose, Mikey and Jonnie Feliciano, traveled to Texas for their long-anticipated date at the Victoria Fine Arts Center, home of the Victoria Symphony.
The invitation was accepted, ages ago, pre-COVID in fact, but like everything else, was rescheduled a time or two before being postponed by the virus' strike upon several members of the band, just two weeks before the engagement.
After months of delay, preparation, scheduling and rehearsals everyone was finally in Texas, ready to present Feliciano's first full symphonic concert in nearly ten years!!! Jose has been honored to share the stage with many of the world's top symphonic orchestras throughout his career so realizing it'd been so long was not helpful for everyone's raging butterflies especially, for Jose.
Finally, the moment arrived when the 40+ members of the orchestra took their places and tuned their instruments.Their esteemed music director, Maestro Darryl One, entered the stage with a few words of welcome introducing, appropriately, their first piece of the evening, the National Anthem of Ukraine. When all were again seated and Feliciano's Introduction Video was shown, the words, "And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Jose Feliciano" was returned with a standing ovation as he walked across the stage, joining his fellow musicians. Jose greeted his audience and began the evening with his iconic rendition of his solo guitar interpretation of the Star-Spangled Banner, and so it began.
90 minutes later a most remarkable concert had regrettably come to an end and with Feliciano's gratitude to his musicians and audience viscerally abundant, the audience again, on their feet, responded to his love in kind...
