Creative Pinellas Competitors

St. Petersburg College (SPC) puts your dreams within reach and offers a foundation for achievement and success. We offer a wide range of options to meet your education needs at 10 learning sites in Pinellas County, FL. If you want to develop new job skills, advance your career or start a new one, we provide a flexible, affordable opportunity to further your education.

The Straz Center began as a dream by visionary citizens of Tampa who persevered to bring to reality one of the finest performing arts centers in the nation. It is many things to many people and it’s more than just a building, more than just a performing arts center. It is a presenter, a producer, an educator, a community partner and an economic engine for the Tampa Bay area. It is a cornerstone of the Tampa Bay community. The Straz Center creates a regional economic impact of more than $100 million each year. To our local economy it can mean more tourists staying in hotels, eating in restaurants, shopping in stores and visiting other venues when they are here. At both the local and national level, it provides access to more than 700,000 people of all ages, abilities and cultures each year. It also provides jobs for artists and other professionals who have a passion for the arts and for our mission.

The Florida Orchestra’s history is steeped in orchestral tradition from both sides of Tampa Bay. In 1966, the Tampa Philharmonic and St. Petersburg Symphony merged as the Florida Gulf Coast Symphony, which opened its first season on November 14, 1968, under the baton of Music Director Irwin Hoffman. Performing as the Florida Gulf Coast Symphony until changing its name to The Florida Orchestra in 1984, the orchestra has since been led by music directors Jahja Ling and Stefan Sanderling. In 2015, Michael Francis took over as music director. Over the years, The Florida Orchestra has had a series of successes. In 2011, it launched a multi-year cultural exchange with the Cuban Institute of Music as well as its Accessibility Initiative, which effectively reduced ticket prices to all of its Masterworks and Pops concerts. The orchestra also has taken steps to be more involved with the Tampa Bay community, including a collaboration with the Tampa Bay Lightning to produce the team’s onetime theme song and free pop-up concerts in hospitals, malls and beyond. To showcase its artistic excellence, the orchestra released a CD featuring music by Florida influenced classical composer Frederick Delius on the Naxos label in 2012. On the CD, the orchestra is joined by The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay and baritone Leon Williams in a performance of Delius’ Sea Drift and Appalachia. In 2014, the orchestra released another CD, Holiday Pops Live! on its label TFO Live! The Florida Orchestra is recognized as Tampa Bay’s leading performing arts institution, one of the leading professional symphony orchestras in Florida, and one of the most vibrant orchestras in America. Through extraordinary musical performances, the orchestra inspires the people of Tampa Bay and serves as a leader and beacon for the musical arts throughout the state.