A Prodigal Daughter Returns

June 12, 2020

Flutist Sherrie Mangan Crunches the Numbers on the Job, Counts the Beats on the Stage

Community orchestras such as the Gulf Coast Symphony have musicians from many backgrounds and careers, unlike professional groups, whose players tread a well-worn path to a life’s work in music.

Flutist and piccolo player Sherrie Mangan isn’t the product of a music school. She chose a career articulating financial software in business administration. And as with many of us non-pros, she ceased playing music while building a career and a family.

Sherrie began playing the flutophone, a recorder-like introductory instrument, in the fourth grade in her hometown of Brunswick, Ohio. A few months later, the flute found her. “I wanted to play the clarinet so badly. But by the time it was my turn to choose an instrument, there were already so many clarinets that the teacher said, ‘why don’t you just start out on the flute.’”

She did and seems well suited to the flute. Over the years, Sherrie has managed a high standard of playing without the benefit of directed musical study. “In the fifth grade we had group lessons, and then you were on your own. I didn’t have lessons after that.”

Sherrie learned how to play the flute by intuition, lots of practice and tapping up others about technique. “I guess you could call it a God-given talent that I had. And I learned an awful lot just by listening, watching and talking with fellow players.”

Many musicians are self-taught. But most of those aren’t great at it. But for Sherrie, improvement was never in question, perhaps because music is in her genes. “My whole family played instruments. My mother played the piano and I had four brothers who played—between them—guitar, trumpet, drums and saxophone.”  

Sherrie added the piccolo a couple years later and moved on to high school, where she joined the concert and marching bands. There was no orchestra.

Marching bands are run like competitive sports in America. They’re revered in Ohio, and they demand a lot of practice time, skill, coordination and smarts. “You’re marching, the instrument is jiggling all the time and you have to figure out how best to hold it. You have to memorize all the music. We had 10 home games, and had to learn a different routine for each.”

It Starts With “a One and a Two and a Three“

Upon graduation, however, flute and piccolo ceased to feature in Sherrie’s life, as adulthood meant earning a living and raising a family. “After high school, I went and got a fulltime job working in the office of a warehouse, and that’s where I met my husband.”

Sherrie had a facility for working with those new-fangled spreadsheets and databases that were being developed in the early 1980s. “I was very much into computers.”

She had a grasp of the then-industry standard spreadsheet pioneer Lotus 1-2-3 and later progressed to successor productivity suite Microsoft’s Office and its Excel spreadsheets. Those were useful skills for an office and a career.

Then in 1985, Sherrie’s little family moved to Fort Myers, where her parents had been living and where good jobs were available.

Armed with her spreadsheets and database experience, Sherrie has since been working in Fort Myers, mostly for non-profits. She was 19 years with the American Cancer Society and also worked for Habitat for Humanity. For the past four years, she has been at Florida Southwestern State College, as Senior Foundation Specialist, still working with spreadsheets and databases.

Back in 1986, Sherrie’s husband was working Saturdays, and she sought something to help pass the day. “So, I picked up my old flute and started tinkering around with it.”

As luck—or family—would have it, Sherrie’s mother lassoed her into playing at a local Fort Myers church. “She was a choir director and said ‘why don’t you just play a solo for me at the church once in a while.’”

And as you might expect, “once in a while” turned into once a month and then every other week. Sherrie’s musical life was reborn.

One day, Sherrie spotted a newspaper ad seeking musicians for the recently formed Gulf Coast Symphony. That would have been in 1995. And thus, the former high-school band musician joined the Symphony.

“I had never played orchestra music at all. Band music was all flats; Orchestra music was all sharps. It was a little bit of a challenge. But I enjoyed it and grew into the position.” 

Sherrie’s run with Gulf Coast Symphony, however, lasted just into the second season. She says her section grew from a normal compliment of three flutes the year before to six, making for a crowded and competitive situation.

Meanwhile, she had heard about a volunteer orchestra forming down the road in Naples and felt she could gain more playing time, orchestra experience and confidence faster there.

So, she left the Gulf Coast Symphony for ‘I Musici de Napoli.’ No, we’re not talking Italy here. It was Naples, Florida. The orchestra leader apparently had a yen for the Italians.

“They had no flutes down there, and they were looking for one. I went, auditioned and got the position. I was down there for around eight or nine years,” Sherrie says.

You Can Go Home Again

In community orchestras, one player often will tip off another to opportunities elsewhere. For Sherrie, that opportunity was back with the Gulf Coast Symphony, after a nearly 10-year absence.

A flute and clarinetist acquaintance, John Giacco, played in the Gulf Coast Symphony, where he is still principal clarinet. “John sent an email saying Gulf Coast Symphony needed a piccolo player. I went to help out in a concert, and the next thing you know, I’m involved in the orchestra.”

In 2005 and 2006, Sherrie played both with I Musici and the Gulf Coast Symphony—a heavy workload. She then settled on just the GCS, where she has played since. “This one was so much more professional. It plays tougher music, and it really challenges you.”

On that score, it takes commitment for players with non-music daytime jobs to attain a standard to perform before as many as 1,800 people at a concert staged at Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall. “You’ve got to be willing to put in the time. If you have trouble with a passage, you need to work on it at home. That’s what I do: I have a good time woodshedding at home.”

Returning to what had become a big-budget orchestra—the GCS—and its demanding music director Andrew Kurtz, Sherrie for the first time opted for lessons. For five years, she studied with Bill Larsen, principal flutist at the Southwest Florida Symphony. “I wanted to work on improving my sight-reading and tone.”

And her commitment to Gulf Coast Symphony has gone beyond playing. She was a member of the orchestra’s board when, among other things, it started reaching out to the community in more ways. “I was the head of the outreach committee for a while and have worked on our annual fundraising gala since.”

By Art Mooradian