The Side Door, 2019
I've always loved Russian music, especially the folk instruments
like the Balalaika. I even purchased samples of the whole family of those.
I have albums of Balalaika orchestras. I saw an older couple, Anatoliy Tromifo & Tamara Volskaya, when they gave a concert in Pinellas Park on their Russian folk instruments. I get emails from The Palladium, where I used to
shoot a lot. They were advertising one of these ensembles and I bought a
ticket and took my camera. These guys were very very good. The singer, Elona Krasavtseva, as it turned out, lives here and is practically a neighbor.
She and her husband are the current owners of the Paradise Acres Recording Studio (that I had applied for a job at years earlier). It is a
beautiful setting very close to where we live now. They have horses there
and a koi pond. After I saw the Side Door concert, I went to a concert they
gave on their porch. I was told the instrumentalists are from Siberia. They are all virtuosos.
The grounds at Paradise Acres are very beautiful. I think they have remodeled and upgraded the recording studio, but I didn't get to see it. Once
I heard a Christian artist named Rachel Potter sing at Berean's, a Christian store, and I bought her album, which she signed for me. After she performed, I talked to the then-owner and found out she had recorded the CD at Paradise Acres. I had no idea there was a recording studio tucked in back there. I found out later that Rachel Potter was a Miss Seminole and became the star of the Broadway musical, Wicked.
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