Fiddelee-dee & Company: A Fable for People of a Certain Age

Mr. Fiddelee-dee, a semi-retired cellist who moved from the East Coast in search of a quieter life, settled into the town of Elvira USA with his wife Frannie. Having been a professional cellist all his adult life, Mr. Fiddelee-dee, through his agent Geoffrey Ideslford, decided to ease out of the rigorous demands of a professional musician by playing as a guest performer only in the winter months, and teaching cello in Elvira during the rest of the year. Frannie Fiddelee-dee died shortly after their move to Elvira.

When Mr. Fiddelee-dee was invited to perform at the grand opening of the Words Are Wonderful Bookstore, he met the bookstore’s founder and owner Ima Reeder, a future student by the name of Rita Note, and an aspiring chamber musician, pianist Penelope Haversnat. Penelope Haversnat arranged a tea party to which she invited other musicians: Florence Biddlewhite (flute), Violet Overbee (viola), and Timothy Turnbolt (triangle and marimba). The group congealed quickly and formed Penelope’s Chamber Players, becoming friends and colleagues as they played standard classical repertoire and composed their own music, occasionally branching out into jazz and popular tunes.
 
Their reputation was sealed when a new composition went awry, bringing Penelope Haversnat’s neighborhood to her door. Electronic circuitries were disrupted throughout the neighborhood when that piece, programmed into the laptop computer of a young friend, Farley Glover, was set to “play.” Farley Glover saved the day by “tweaking,” thus impressing even the mayor, who nominated the young man as the year’s Grand Marshall for the Independence Day Parade on the spot. Mayor Trufoon was not impressed enough to go along with the group’s plan to build a bandstand in the park, however. Knowing that the town of Elvira had no grand budget for a performance hall, Penelope's Chamber Players had opted for the bandstand compromise. But Elvira Park had long been home base for the Elvira Tigers, a championship baseball team coached by none other than Coach Fishberg, and for the annual Independence Day Picnic. Financing a bandstand seemed a ridiculous scheme to the mayor and his cronies. Penelope’s Chamber Players were skilled musicians with a lifetime of music behind them. Unfamiliar with the intricacies of politics, their entry into the civic affairs of Elvira taught them valuable lessons about themselves and their fellow Elvirans.
 
A fable for people of a certain age, Fiddelee-dee & Company puts music and friendship center stage, thus bringing warmth, cheer, and an insatiable desire for creative work and collaboration to young and old.