INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A family connection, a funeral home’s hall and a fledgling non-profit are coming together this month to produce a benefit concert by one of the top virtuoso guitarists performing today.
If it seemed the stars aligned for guitarist Jason Vieaux’s visit, in reality, it was largely the hard work of island resident Cathy Lacroix. She not only asked Vieaux personally to play, but also coordinated various packed calendars to allow for the Nov. 29 performance.
Vieaux, a friend of Lacroix’s brother, will be visiting his parents in Sarasota for Thanksgiving.
Approached by Lacroix after a Boca Raton concert more than a year ago, Vieaux eventually found a break in his schedule this month, and was willing to travel to Vero on the Tuesday after the holiday.
He has offered his talents at a reduced fee.
Plumbago Volunteer Services will share the concert’s proceeds with Abilities Resource Center,a Vero organization that helps the mentally challenged.
Plumbago is one of many causes championed by Lacroix. It is one of multiple non-profit boards she sits on, while still managing to regularly mentor children and chair the community ministry at Holy Cross Catholic Church.
It is not the first time Lacroix’s charity work has benefited Vero Beach’s arts scene.
Three years ago, Lacroix brought in legendary guitarist Pepe Romero from California for a concert benefiting Haiti Partners, another charity on whose board Lacroix has served.
He also performed for Big Brothers Big Sisters, of which Lacroix is a founding member.
With a resume that reads as if she were a career volunteer, Lacroix seemed a perfect fit when she was approached to join Plumbago’s board nine months ago.
The volunteer coordinator for Safespace, a domestic abuse shelter, Lacroix created the volunteer coordinating group at United Way of St. Lucie County, where she worked until recently as director of finance and administration.
Plumbago was formed only three years ago.
Already it has 200 volunteers in its database, ready to help with any of several dozen agencies.
Located in the United Way building downtown, it works closely with that organization, and receives requests for volunteers from a broad swath of both non-profit and governmental agencies.
She also has worked on the boards of Feed the Lambs Enrichment, an organization that provides tutoring and mentoring to children.
For the past nine years, she has worked with Fellsmere’s Farmworkers Association of Florida, and helped with a grant through the John’s Island Foundation to buy computers for an after-school program.
As for the charity classical guitar concerts, Lacroix draws on a family tie.
Her brother, Richard Long, who recently retired as a professor of European history at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, is editor of Soundboard, the magazine of the Guitar Foundation of America, which bills itself as the largest multinational organization for guitar enthusiasts.
Through Long, Lacroix was put in touch with Romero, a professor at University of Southern California and part of a family of classical guitar legends.
Romero frequently works with Long, who owns a music publishing business that researches and transcribes historical music.
It was Long who first told Lacroix Vieaux, a friend of Lacroix’s brother, will be visiting his parents in Sarasota for Thanksgiving.
Approached by Lacroix after a Boca Raton concert more than a year ago, Vieaux eventually found a break in his schedule this month, and was willing to travel to Vero on the Tuesday after the holiday.
He has offered his talents at a reduced fee. Plumbago Volunteer Services will share the concert’s proceeds with Abilities Resource Center, a Vero organization that helps the intellectually challenged.
Plumbago is one of many causes championed by Lacroix. It is one of multiple non-profit boards she sits on, while still managing to regularly mentor children and chair the community ministry at Holy Cross Catholic Church.
It is not the first time Lacroix’s charity work has benefited Vero Beach’s arts scene.
Three years ago, Lacroix brought in legendary guitarist Pepe Romero from California for a concert benefiting Haiti Partners, another charity on whose board Lacroix has served.
He also performed for Big Brothers Big Sisters, of which Lacroix is a founding member.
With a resume that reads as if she were a career volunteer, Lacroix seemed a perfect fit when she was approached to join Plumbago’s board nine months ago.
The volunteer coordinator for Safespace, a domestic abuse shelter, Lacroix created the volunteer coordinating group at United Way of St. Lucie County, where she worked until recently as director of finance and administration.
Plumbago was formed only three years ago.
Already it has 200 volunteers in its database, ready to help with any of several dozen agencies.
Located in the United Way building downtown, it works closely with that organization, and receives requests for volunteers from a broad swath of both non-profit and governmental agencies.
About Vieaux, a virtuoso guitarist the New York Times last year called “one of the youngest stars of the guitar world.”
Last year, Lacroix heard Vieaux play in a concert with the Boca Raton Symphonia.
“I was bold enough to go up to him afterward to tell him how much we enjoyed his music,” says the soft-spoken Lacroix. “I told him we’re from a community that really loves the arts, and asked if he would ever consider coming up here to do a concert for charity. We told him we couldn’t pay him very much, but he said he’d be delighted. He believes in community and volunteering.”
Vieaux was raised in Buffalo, New York and trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he now teaches, the youngest person to head the department of guitar. At 19 he became the youngest winner of the international competition of the Guitar Foundation of America.
A decade later, he gave a week’s worth of live performances on the nationally broadcast public radio show, “Performance Today.”
Last year, he performed with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke at the Kennedy Center, and recently performed at Lincoln Center.
The most recent of his 10 albums was released last month, “The Music of Astor Piazzolla.”
The concert will be held in a relatively new – and relatively affordable – venue in Vero: the Plaza, located in a small strip mall just over the 17th Street Causeway, across U.S. 1.
The was space originally opened to serve the lunchtime needs of grieving friends and family at Strunk Funeral Home next door.
Within months, though, the well-appointed room and commercial kitchen was being for celebratory function – weddings, reunions, retirement parties and numerous nonprofit fund-raisers.
Owner Dorothy Strunk, whose family owns the strip mall where the Plaza is located, says another 1,000 square feet of space is being added by joining with the unit next door.
The Nov. 29 concert is from 7 to 8 p.m., with an optional reception to meet Vieaux beginning at 6 p.m.
Tickets for the reception and concert are $50.
Tickets for the concert only are $35; student tickets (for anyone under 25) are $25.
The Plaza is at 884 17th St. Call (772) 257-8193 for more information.
