ORILLIA’S ROTARY AQUA THEATRE RE-OPENS WITH CITY’S CONCERT BAND IN GRAND FORM

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

ORILLIA — New sounds — and a new look.

The sunlight shone brightly last night on the Orillia Concert Band and the Rotary Aqua Theatre as their annual outdoor concert season series kicked on beautiful summer’s eve.

The band and its bandstand on Lake Couchiching were together again after COVID and the two looked and sounded great.

With a new façade the Couchiching Park facility has a make-over that spruces up the popular waterfront concert venue built in 1958.

And the band was up to the opening night task with conductor Randy Hoover welcoming and waving to the appreciative crowd of several hundred in the seven front row bleacher seats — but mostly nestled comfortably sitting on lawn chairs back up on the hill or under the trees affording them a lovely vista.

The Sunday evening shows continue Canada Day weekend — with the official re-opening July 7.

Randy Hoover conducts the Orillia Concert Band in the playing of God Save the Queen and O Canada to re-open the 84-year-old refurbished Rotary Aqua Theatre last night at Couchiching Park.
The sun shone on Gravenhurst Bifocals band members Carolyn Grant, left, Steve Richardson, Gary White, Karen Richardson and Angie Bullick who are also members of the Orillia Concert Band.

The band opened with God Save the Queen as a tribute to Elizabeth’s II’s 70th year as Canada’s monarch.

A rousing end to Sunday night’s concert had the audience clapping along on a beautiful night on Lake Couchiching.

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