Wetass Culture Update–The Underwater Music Festival: If you were a parrot fish hanging out at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary over the weekend, you would have come across an unusual sight beneath the waves: a conductor in scuba gear, waving a red snorkel as a baton and leading an orchestra of underwater musicians through an otherworldy repertoire of classical music. And you wouldn’t have been alone. Four hundred snorkelers and divers were also there at Looe Key Reef, bathing in the sounds of Beethoven and other classics for over six hours. Instruments included the “trombonefish,” “harmoni-crab” and “manta-lin.” Okay, the instruments weren’t real and the music was piped through underwater speakers via a local radio station. But the musicians and the conductor–a veteran of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops and the Tokyo Philharmonic–were real enough. And so was the extraordinary experience of hearing beautiful music under water, where sound travels five times as fast as it does through air. “The music seems to surround you,” notes Bill Becker, the news director for WCNK Radio who launched the annual festival in 1984. “Not only do you hear it in your ears, you hear it in your jaw, your head and your body. Your whole body feels like it vibrates with the music.” Hmmm, wonder what else went on beneath the ocean waves…?



“Uh-oh, here come some sharks. Ditch the Mozart and give me a little Jimi Hendrix…”