I’VE HEARD IT argued that most people like only one kind of music. So those who plan performances, such as the dedicated volunteers who program and present the Upshur County Arts Council events, have to consider what kind of audience they might attract.

The same folks who may turn out for the Tyler Big Band may not be interested in hearing Anton Kuerti, concert pianist, for example. Or the Light Crust Doughboys may not please the same people who make up the audience for the Fort Worth Chamber Orchestra.

Many other such contrasts could be drawn from the dozens of concerts that the Arts Council has brought for more than a decade to the Gilmer Civic Center and, before the Center was opened, to the Trinity Street Gym.

ONE OF THE nationally syndicated newspaper columnists recently wrote on the subject of whether federal money should support classical music through the National Endowment for the Arts. He made the flat statement that no one likes both Merle Haggard (or maybe Waylon Jennings or some other big country name) and a Bruckner Symphony.

The name of the columnist escapes me, but the idea stuck, because I couldn’t disagree more.

I may be in a minority, as often happens, but I enjoy both Waylon, Willie and the boys and symphonies by Bruckner — or Mahler, or Beethoven, Brahms and others. I’ve recently read Joe Lynn Patoski’s excellent biography of Willie Nelson, which both justified my fondness for and added to my knowledge about that great one.

I ALSO ENJOY grand opera, and for more than 15 years have trekked to Tyler for Jim Yancy’s excellent non-credit opera classes, now held at the UT Tyler Cowan Center in a special room with excellent sound and movie/video equipment for the Yancy collection of great opera recordings from around the world.

Each of those years I have enjoyed season tickets for the Dallas Opera with transportation in the chartered buses that the class takes from Tyler.

I saw my first grand opera at age 10 when my mother sent me to Dallas on the train for a friend to take me to the Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Daughter of the Regiment with Lily Pons at the State Fair Music Hall.

MANY ARE the other Metropolitan productions I enjoyed there before the tours, which had begun in 1898, were stopped in 1986 because of financial problems. Dallas Opera is still at the Music Hall, but it will be taking a step up next fall when the new Winspear Opera Center opens in the arts district downtown. I have my seat reserved.

Without a doubt, the music of one’s youth and young adulthood has a lasting effect, as proven by the audiences that show up for ‘50s doo-wop concerts broadcast as public television fund-raisers.

These are apparently made up of the same age cohort that always fills up large halls for Johnny Mathis concerts, which take place about once a month, on average, with symphony orchestras in Dallas, Houston, and elsewhere around the country.

If children are exposed to all kinds of music, they may grow up with an appreciation of the many forms it takes. That’s one of the aims of the Arts Council’s student programs.

Considering the appeal Branson music demonstrably holds for Northeast Texans, there should be a good turnout for the Hughes Brothers Variety Show when it comes here next Tuesday as a post-Valentine’s Day treat.

The adult tickets priced at $15 are a bargain compared to other live performance venues in this area. The show starts at 7 p.m. at the Civic Center.

Hope to see you there.

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AS YOU MAY have heard,Texas hosts more migratory birds than almost any state. The state Parks and Wildlife Department in 2002 established the three divisions of the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trails and began distributing maps that can guide you to the top birding sites.

Many serious birders from all over the world converge on these areas in the fall and spring when huge bird migrations pass through these areas and provide great chances to add to their “life lists” of birds sighted.

The Upper Coast map covers driving loops from the Louisiana border, through the Houston and Beaumont coastal areas, and down to Brazosport. The Central Coast map starts near Matagorda Bay, goes through the coast around Victoria and Corpus Christi, and ends just south of Kingsville.

The Lower Coast map takes in the southern tip of Texas along the border with Mexico, from South Padre Island through Brownsville, Harlingen and McAllen, and west towards Laredo.

I ENVY THOSE who have both the strength and the wherewithal to settle in with their binoculars at these sometimes remote sites, but I must content myself with backyard bird watching. This year it’s been pretty good at my north Gilmer house.

The migratory goldfinches, juncoes and song sparrow flocks are still competing for the seeds in feeders and on my deck. They will soon be gone, no doubt to the relief of the resident cardinals, titmice, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches and downy woodpeckers, the smallest of their breed, that compete with them.

THE OTHER DAY I was watching from my living room when a Eurasian collared dove swooped down like a bomber, scattering all the other birds that were less than half his size.

It wasn’t the first I had ever seen, but the first this season. Like the house sparrow, this dove is an import from Europe that stowed away on some ship and entered through Florida a few years ago.

My 2000 edition of the Sibley Guide to Birds shows it resident only in Florida and along the coastlines of states from South Carolina to Lousiana along with isolated spots through the Middle West, Texas and elsewhere.

The Eurasian collared dove is easily distinguished from our native mourning doves by its larger size, very pale grey color and a black neck mark that does, indeed, look like a collar.

sgreene@tatertv.com Sarah Greene Archives