By Nancy Bargar
Bemus Point, NY – What started five years ago as a Labor Day Concert played from a rooftop of Bemus Point restaurant is expanding this summer into a season of music on the water.
A custom-built floating stage anchored off the village of Bemus Point is Chautauqua County's newest contribution to the arts. A 60-foot-by-60-foot platform with a saddle span canopy will be just off the shore of the Italian Fisherman Restaurant presenting entertainment.
Among the bookings are Buffalo born saxophonist Don Menza and a sampling of musicians and dancers from Chautauqua Institution.
Dan Dalpra is used to the sight of 600 boats tied together in the bay and 15,000 people sitting on the Bemus shoreline enjoying the rooftop concerts. He is the entrepreneur behind this development.
"A lot of people have boats and want to go boating," Dalpra said. "And nothing's worse than for them to be dragged to an arts event of some sort when they want to be able to go out on their limited weekends that you have here and not be able to use their toys or just do something like that. This solves that problem because now in the summer you're still not limited.
"You can go out on the lake. You can be on your boat. You can be sunning and still enjoy a great arts performance, so it's kind of a win-win for everybody."
John Marcellus, principle trombonist with the Chautauqua Symphony and a professor at the Eastman School of Music, thought Dalpra was a little nuts at first. But he was quickly a convert.
"He had everything lined up for us to be ready to go for that first concert in 1998 and it's been very successful ever since and now it's just going to another level with this new floating stage," Marcellus said. "It's fantastic."
He brings his students down before the Labor Day Weekend as a way to get started for the year.
"We go camping at Camp Chautauqua and have a nice outing and present a nice concert here of just trombone players from the Eastman Trombone Choir."
The Bemus Bay Pops series of jazz and pops programming is scheduled mostly for Sundays from 4 to 7. And, it's free.