Friday, October 16, 2026
The Rockaway-Five Towns Symphony Orchestra is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a “World Cruise of Music” concert.
Founded in 1950, the orchestra is not only a part of Long Island’s cultural history, but is one of the oldest community musical ensembles in the metropolitan area.
Its mission is to promote live music in the community and to give talented local musicians of all ages and backgrounds the opportunity to collaborate in the art of music making, according to rftsymphony.org.
The concert is scheduled for May 10, at 8 p.m., at West Hempstead High School. General admission is $10 for adults and $5 for students.
The orchestra includes musicians of all ages, from high school to those in their late 70s, from the Five Towns and the surrounding communities. It has performed in the Rockaways; at Lawrence High School, in Cedarhurst; in Lynbrook; and at the James A. Dever School, in Valley Stream.
Maestro Louis Panacciulli, the group’s music director, conducts the orchestra he has been involved with since 2016. Panacciulli also leads the Nassau County Pops. An Elmont resident, he grew up in a family of musicians. His father played guitar and violin, and his mother was a pianist.
“My older siblings played the piano, but I was the only one who pursued it professionally,” Panacciulli said. “I started when I was 6 or 7 on the piano.”
He went on to become a music teacher after studying music at New York University. He taught music to fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at Valley Stream Elementary for 20 years, and has been the band director at Nassau Community College for 34 years.
“We are a classically based group,” Panacciulli said of the orchestra. “We do the classics the Beethovens, Mozarts, Strausses and Tchaikovskys of the world.”
He wanted to do something different this year to commemorate the ensemble’s diamond jubilee anniversary, and that includes featuring the vocal stylings of four-time Grammy Award-winning tenor John Easterlin.
“John and I developed a program of music from different parts of the world, and I thought we’d call it ‘a world cruise of music,’ where John will sing in seven numbers,” Panacciulli said. “We have 52 musicians in our group, and only three more rehearsals until the concert. We’re hoping to bring in a big crowd and share our love of music.”
Easterlin performed on Broadway in “The Phantom of the Opera” from November 2016 to April 2017, and has sung in opera houses around the world.
“This opera career, I’ve been very blessed to sing all over the world and across the country,” he said. “With playing very believable characters, to me it’s a merger between theater and opera.”
Easterlin met Panacciulli through the Nassau Pops, with whom Easterlin has performed many times, and he said he was looking forward to reuniting with Panacciulli for this special concert.
“It makes me so happy to know I will be seeing friends,” Easterlin said. “Before each of the numbers I will give a brief explanation, and provide an interesting piece of information about the song I will be presenting.”
The pieces vary from operettas to grand opera to American musical theater.
“It’s a nice way to celebrate and encourage not only the Rockaway-Five Towns Symphony Orchestra in their 75th anniversary,” Easterlin added, “but to encourage the arts at a time when it’s needed now more than ever.”
Benjamin Coleman, the orchestra’s president is its longest-tenured member, having joined in 1994. He is the band director at West Hempstead Secondary School.
Coleman recounted his first orchestral concert, with Rockaway-Five Towns, when he was a student at Hillcrest High School in Queens. His music teacher was a member.
“I thought it was funny how, a decade later, I ended up playing with them,” Coleman said.
The orchestra’s percussion section is composed entirely of West Hempstead students whom Coleman teaches.
“It’s such an unforgettable experience, and I just want the same for my students,” he said.
Coleman’s mission is to keep the orchestra alive. “I’ve seen the group struggle when I first came in, in the ’90s, to being such a strong and much-needed group for the community,” Coleman said.
Tickets for the May 10 concert are available at the box office at West Hempstead High School, at 400 Nassau Blvd.
