This was a terrific program. The members of GRT re-created an episode of the radio drama, “The Adventures of Ellery Queen – The Last Man Club,” with a Bernard Herrmann score played by an 11-piece band. Scott Klavan played Ellery Queen, Laura Leopard was Nikki Porter (and others), Martin McGeachy was Inspector Queen, Ellery’s father (and others), with Vince Trani as Multiple Roles (I’m not making this up, you know). Oh, and just for giggles, Nyssa Duchow, the violinist in the band, popped in as Lucille Cherry, and the conductor, Jacob Thomas Carr, also doubled in a couple of acting roles.
This group has this style down pat—multiple accents coming out of people at the drop of a hat; a “sound effects” table with glasses, spoons, water, shoes (for that clip-clop sound); a little door (for, d’oh!, slamming doors); etc. It was like watching a bona fide 1940s radio studio broadcast. As another cool aside, since this was performed at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, they had the actual Bernard Herrmann score on display in the lobby, with the composer’s handwritten cues.
The convoluted case of The Last Man Club was eventually solved by Ellery Queen. Before the murderer was announced (and there may have been an additional clue for us audience members), we were invited to circle our choice on a supplied list of suspects. I voted for the wrong one. SPOILER: Though I doubt you’ll get to see or hear the tale of The Last Man Club, go “la-la-la-la” for awhile. One twist is that the man who was killed was the murderer, even though he didn’t actually murder anyone. As a member of The Last Man Club, he meant to kill the other members in order to achieve financial gain when there was a final disbursement of funds to the club members. (I said ahead of time that it was convoluted.) He swapped out a cut-glass cordial bottle (no labels, only an identifying mark on the bottle) of poisoned créme de menthe for the usual cherry liqueur used for the celebratory toast at the club’s once-a-year meeting.
Ellery solved the case by proving that the murderer had to be color blind; therefore when all of the other suspects were able to be cleared by Inspector Queen via a color-blind visual test, only the dead man was left. The twist was that the dead man was really a victim of a hit-and-run accident, even though it was strongly implied that he had been murdered. His dying breath was a warning to the other club members to be wary of murder, since he wouldn’t be there for the final toast. Ellery saved the day, no one drank the poisoned cordials, and the dead man was unmasked as the (potential) murderer.
The Bernard Herrmann score was terse, and slightly jagged, for dramatic effect. And unlike film scores, it was mostly used as interludes to set up scene breaks, rather than being used as underscoring. It was played and conducted very well, exactly filling the bill it was designed for.
All in all, a really great afternoon of theater and music. I’ll be on the lookout for Gotham Radio Theatre in the future.
ConcertMeister
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Piano & Violin (10/15/15)
Raskin & Fleischmann performed at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York recently. Philippe Raskin, piano, and Johannes Fleischmann, violin, presented a varied and interesting program.
Sonata for Piano and Violin in E minor, KV 304 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Phantasy for Violin with Piano Accompaniment, op. 47 – Arnold Schönberg
Matsushima Fantasy, op. 21 – Christoph Ehrenfellner
Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat major, op. 18 – Richard Strauss
The first movement of the Mozart opened with the piano and violin playing completely in unison followed by an interesting mix of phrases and filigree. At times, repeated chords were used to drive the rhythm forward. The second movement was fairly gentle, yet still with forward energy, just not some of the heavy, dramatic type of the first movement. I rather enjoyed this sonata. Schönberg’s Phantasy was atonal from the very beginning. It was sort of playful but very harsh—even when the violin phrases were longer and smoother, there was still an awful lot of dissonance. Although it was played well, I didn’t really enjoy it.
Christoph Ehrenfellner’s fantasy had a dramatic opening for solo piano, with deep, full chords. This was followed by long, dramatic lines for solo violin, then for violin with piano accompaniment. The piece was definitely modern—contemporary classical, I’d say—but not quite as jarring as the Schönberg. I also heard hints of a “water music” feeling along the lines of some dramatic Debussy. This was followed by separate sections that were connected in a cohesive way. There was a brief pizzicato section, one section that was bombastic and frantic, and then the piece closed with a section that had the sound that I can best describe as breathing on the strings. For a modern, contemporary piece, this one came off pretty well.
From the pen of 23-year-old Richard Strauss, the sonata’s first movement opened with a full, quasi-Romantic sound. You could really hear and sense the beginnings of the passion that would show up later in his operas. It was rather lengthy and had some themes that kept recurring from time to time. The second movement had a sweet tone to begin with. In general, it was very pretty and accessible in terms of just sitting back and listening. A slightly more rhythmic and dramatic section followed before returning, and ending, gently and tuneful. There was a martial feel to the beginning of the finale. The movement had lots of energy, even when settling into more tuneful sections. And there were many different types of ideas floating around—maybe too many? Still, it was a very nice piece, once again showcasing the more fully developed composer that Strauss would become.
After a bit of rhythmic clapping, the type that European-style audiences are so fond of, the duo played a couple of improvised encores. Even though they were improvised, the pair seemed to have a too pat rapport—I have a feeling that their improvisations are almost slightly scripted. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting program played by two very talented musicians.
ConcertMeister
Sonata for Piano and Violin in E minor, KV 304 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Phantasy for Violin with Piano Accompaniment, op. 47 – Arnold Schönberg
Matsushima Fantasy, op. 21 – Christoph Ehrenfellner
Sonata for Violin and Piano in E-flat major, op. 18 – Richard Strauss
The first movement of the Mozart opened with the piano and violin playing completely in unison followed by an interesting mix of phrases and filigree. At times, repeated chords were used to drive the rhythm forward. The second movement was fairly gentle, yet still with forward energy, just not some of the heavy, dramatic type of the first movement. I rather enjoyed this sonata. Schönberg’s Phantasy was atonal from the very beginning. It was sort of playful but very harsh—even when the violin phrases were longer and smoother, there was still an awful lot of dissonance. Although it was played well, I didn’t really enjoy it.
Christoph Ehrenfellner’s fantasy had a dramatic opening for solo piano, with deep, full chords. This was followed by long, dramatic lines for solo violin, then for violin with piano accompaniment. The piece was definitely modern—contemporary classical, I’d say—but not quite as jarring as the Schönberg. I also heard hints of a “water music” feeling along the lines of some dramatic Debussy. This was followed by separate sections that were connected in a cohesive way. There was a brief pizzicato section, one section that was bombastic and frantic, and then the piece closed with a section that had the sound that I can best describe as breathing on the strings. For a modern, contemporary piece, this one came off pretty well.
From the pen of 23-year-old Richard Strauss, the sonata’s first movement opened with a full, quasi-Romantic sound. You could really hear and sense the beginnings of the passion that would show up later in his operas. It was rather lengthy and had some themes that kept recurring from time to time. The second movement had a sweet tone to begin with. In general, it was very pretty and accessible in terms of just sitting back and listening. A slightly more rhythmic and dramatic section followed before returning, and ending, gently and tuneful. There was a martial feel to the beginning of the finale. The movement had lots of energy, even when settling into more tuneful sections. And there were many different types of ideas floating around—maybe too many? Still, it was a very nice piece, once again showcasing the more fully developed composer that Strauss would become.
After a bit of rhythmic clapping, the type that European-style audiences are so fond of, the duo played a couple of improvised encores. Even though they were improvised, the pair seemed to have a too pat rapport—I have a feeling that their improvisations are almost slightly scripted. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting program played by two very talented musicians.
ConcertMeister
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Movie and Concert (10/10/15)
Saturday afternoon found me watching the silent version of The Mark of Zorro (1920), starring Douglas Fairbanks. I found it very interesting, especially with Mr. Fairbanks in the dual roles of schlub and swashbuckler. He played both of them quite well, which also added a touch of humor from time to time. Because I grew up seeing only serial versions of Zorro on television as a child, it came as a bit of a surprise to me that Zorro is unmasked at the end of the film as Don Diego Vega (the schlub)—but he still gets the girl.
While I didn’t stay very long at the Q&A afterwards, I did hear that during the rehearsals for the film, it was discovered at what height the jumps and other stunts could be safely be performed, and then the set pieces involved in the stunts were shortened by a couple of inches for the final filming, to better showcase the flair of the derring-do. Another interesting item, this one gleaned from Steve Massa’s program notes, is that United Artists was co-founded in 1919 by Mr. Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. As always, Ben Model provided the thoroughly delightful score—and in this case, for a much longer film than the usual two or three short comedies presented by Silent Cinema Presentations, Inc.
Saturday evening found me at a new, to me, venue, Baruch Performing Arts Center. The construction was concrete block walls and ceiling, with pale wooden baffling framing the stage, and pale wooden sound panels attached to the center of the ceiling of the hall. The effect was slightly modern, without being harsh. Due to horrific traffic (I had to give up trying to get on the subway, and took a slow-as-molasses-going-uphill-in-January bus), I still got to the theater just in time. That said, I also got there before the printed programs did! so the concert was delayed by just a bit.
Now, on to the concert, performed under the auspices of The New York Piano Society. This is an organization whose members are not professional musicians; they’re talented amateurs who have “real” lives, as it were, outside of the music world. Since there were seven pianists and thirteen pieces on the program, I’ve decided not to list the pianists’ names and not to comment on every piece. But I did hear Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach, along with Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Franck, Kabalevsky, Scriabin, and Liszt, performed by a mathematician, a biostatistician, a professor of English, an M.D., a lawyer, and an accountant. So it was sort of like a smorgasbord.
First up was Beethoven’s Sonata in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3, played with a nice fluidity and a firm control of dynamics. The next piece had the same pianist accompanying Filip Pogády, a professional violinist who is the current NYPS Artist in Residence. Meditation, from Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op. 42, by Tchaikovsky, began with a solo piano opening in a calm mood, with a lovely melody that had a touch of sadness. The violin, when it joined in, reminded me of melancholy tinged with positive sentiments. Rondo, Op. 59, by Kabalevsky, was pretty much an exercise in perpetual motion with modern, though not jarring, harmonies that were contrasted with a section that had slower rhythms, especially for the left hand. This was played by Sabina Marra, who is the NYPS 2015 Young Guest Artists Audition Winner. She played very well; she’s currently continuing intensive studies in music and academics.
Of the four Liszt pieces on the program, I liked the Concert Étude, “Waldesrauschen,” which had a uniform structure with lots of notes, yet was neither overpowering nor overbearing; Libesträume No. 3, which was very sweet and immediately recognizable (an online search will probably get you lots of hits); and, for piano and violin, Paganini-Liszt La Campanella, with its gazillion (not a technical term) notes.
Also of note and of interest was the four-movement Bach Partita No. 2 in c minor, BWV 826 for solo piano. The Sinfonia had nice two-part writing, after a chordal opening, while the Allemande that followed was relatively gentle. The Courante was more energetic, and the Capriccio finished with more clearly defined rhythms in the left hand.
So for a smorgasbord, the evening turned out quite nicely. Not everything was to my liking, but a lot of it was. And it’s good to know that “real” people are dedicated to making music.
ConcertMeister
While I didn’t stay very long at the Q&A afterwards, I did hear that during the rehearsals for the film, it was discovered at what height the jumps and other stunts could be safely be performed, and then the set pieces involved in the stunts were shortened by a couple of inches for the final filming, to better showcase the flair of the derring-do. Another interesting item, this one gleaned from Steve Massa’s program notes, is that United Artists was co-founded in 1919 by Mr. Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. As always, Ben Model provided the thoroughly delightful score—and in this case, for a much longer film than the usual two or three short comedies presented by Silent Cinema Presentations, Inc.
Saturday evening found me at a new, to me, venue, Baruch Performing Arts Center. The construction was concrete block walls and ceiling, with pale wooden baffling framing the stage, and pale wooden sound panels attached to the center of the ceiling of the hall. The effect was slightly modern, without being harsh. Due to horrific traffic (I had to give up trying to get on the subway, and took a slow-as-molasses-going-uphill-in-January bus), I still got to the theater just in time. That said, I also got there before the printed programs did! so the concert was delayed by just a bit.
Now, on to the concert, performed under the auspices of The New York Piano Society. This is an organization whose members are not professional musicians; they’re talented amateurs who have “real” lives, as it were, outside of the music world. Since there were seven pianists and thirteen pieces on the program, I’ve decided not to list the pianists’ names and not to comment on every piece. But I did hear Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach, along with Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Franck, Kabalevsky, Scriabin, and Liszt, performed by a mathematician, a biostatistician, a professor of English, an M.D., a lawyer, and an accountant. So it was sort of like a smorgasbord.
First up was Beethoven’s Sonata in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3, played with a nice fluidity and a firm control of dynamics. The next piece had the same pianist accompanying Filip Pogády, a professional violinist who is the current NYPS Artist in Residence. Meditation, from Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op. 42, by Tchaikovsky, began with a solo piano opening in a calm mood, with a lovely melody that had a touch of sadness. The violin, when it joined in, reminded me of melancholy tinged with positive sentiments. Rondo, Op. 59, by Kabalevsky, was pretty much an exercise in perpetual motion with modern, though not jarring, harmonies that were contrasted with a section that had slower rhythms, especially for the left hand. This was played by Sabina Marra, who is the NYPS 2015 Young Guest Artists Audition Winner. She played very well; she’s currently continuing intensive studies in music and academics.
Of the four Liszt pieces on the program, I liked the Concert Étude, “Waldesrauschen,” which had a uniform structure with lots of notes, yet was neither overpowering nor overbearing; Libesträume No. 3, which was very sweet and immediately recognizable (an online search will probably get you lots of hits); and, for piano and violin, Paganini-Liszt La Campanella, with its gazillion (not a technical term) notes.
Also of note and of interest was the four-movement Bach Partita No. 2 in c minor, BWV 826 for solo piano. The Sinfonia had nice two-part writing, after a chordal opening, while the Allemande that followed was relatively gentle. The Courante was more energetic, and the Capriccio finished with more clearly defined rhythms in the left hand.
So for a smorgasbord, the evening turned out quite nicely. Not everything was to my liking, but a lot of it was. And it’s good to know that “real” people are dedicated to making music.
ConcertMeister
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Beethoven and Brass (10/3-4/15)
Saturday was the first of a three-part series titled Beethoven Encounters. Members of the New York Classical Players played three Beethoven string quartets. Ken Hamao (violin), Grace Park (violin), Wei-Yang Andy Lin (viola), and Michael Katz (cello) performed String Quartet Opus 18, No. 6, No. 3, and No. 2.
No. 6 – I. Allegro con brio; II. Adagio ma non troppo; III. Scherzo: Allegro; IV. La Malinconia: Adagio – Allegretto quasi Allegro
No. 3 – I. Allegro; II. Andante con moto; III. Allegro; IV. Presto
No. 2 – I. Allegro; II. Adagio cantabile – Allegro – Tempo I; III. Scherzo: Allegro; IV. Allegro molto, quasi presto
As we can see from the movement titles (and later from my comments) all three quartets are pretty much fast, slow, fast, and fast (excepting the Malinconia). But all three were also very different.
The first movement of No. 6 was bright and bubbly, with some experimentation in the way Beethoven moved melodic phrases from one player to the next. The second movement was slower, though not exactly stately, and had nicely filigreed turns of phrases, some of which were quietly dramatic. While also moving the melody from player to player, it had a lovely winding down to a pizzicato ending. The Scherzo was pleasant—at times a bit spare, at others, fuller—ending once again with a very light touch. The final movement opened slowly with just the two violins and the viola, followed by a brief section with one violin, the viola and the cello. This Malinconia section was interrupted by a couple of instances of harmonic angst, before eventually slipping into the Allegretto that then bounced its way to the conclusion.
Quartet No. 3 opened with fuller, denser writing and was at times very energetic. As a side note, I have not explored whether the numbering system of the six quartets is strictly chronological or was arranged by some other method. The second movement had a chorale-like feel to it before developing into more individual lines, creating the whole, with a feeling of solidity that then led to a calm ending. The third movement was once again pleasantly solid but with a rather abrupt ending (i.e., short but not unnaturally cut off). The final movement here had a quite brisk, but not frantic, opening, with pretty much a constant forward motion, while including a few dramatic pauses. It didn’t quite have the bang-up ending that I was expecting, instead closing out with a very effective lower energy finish.
Quartet No. 2 began with graceful, pleasant sections that featured strong accents as well as strong unison phrases, including some rich, romantic harmonies. For all of that, it had a fairly quiet ending. The second movement also had a chorale-like opening followed by a section that was jaunty yet restrained (maybe contained is a better word). The return to a slower tempo introduced some new thematic material before closing out quietly. This Scherzo was bright and graceful, yet also with some accented sections that were similar to, though not exactly mirroring, those of the first movement. This movement seemed more fully formed than some of the others, to my ear. The final movement made use of strong sudden accents again. Some of the extremely fast writing toward the end seemed almost overdone, to me, although it, and the entire concert, was played extremely well. The next installment of the Encounters, in early December, will be the other three quartets of Opus 18.
The Brass of Beethoven and Brass was the second of the Overlook Concerts in Riverside Park. On a breezy and chilly Sunday afternoon, the Manhattan School of Music Brass Quintet presented a well-rounded performance of eleven pieces for brass quintet. A quick Wikipedia look told me pretty much what I thought I knew—there are the “usual suspects” but there is also flexibility in the makeup of a brass quintet. Here, we had Nolan Tsang (trumpet), Jerome Burns (trumpet), Corinne Judd (horn), Preston Judd (trombone), and Aden Brooks (tenor trombone). In addition, Mr. Burns played an E-flat trumpet in one of the pieces.
This is a student quartet and, as a result, some of the playing was a bit sketchy, although the afternoon was a total delight. Mr. Tsang carried the emcee responsibilities for most of the afternoon, assisted by Mr. Brooks and Mr. Burns. All three acquitted themselves well, even allowing for a mis-speak of a composer’s name at one point.
Selections ranged from Gabrieli (1500s) to a nifty arrangement of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square; from an arrangement of Debussy’s The Girl with the Flaxen Hair to Jazz Suite #1 by Dmitri Shostakovich; and from Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (with the E-flat trumpet) to Amparito Roca (1925), by Jaime Texidor (1884–1957).
Along with Señor Texidor, I was also introduced to other composers—J. Pezel
(1639–1694) and Ludwig Maurer (1859–1927)—whose Six Pieces and Three Pieces, respectively, were quite interesting.
Bluegrass is on the agenda for next Sunday, which I may or may not attend. Still and all, it was a fun weekend (with some Alice at 150 thrown in for good measure; maybe more about that later).
No. 6 – I. Allegro con brio; II. Adagio ma non troppo; III. Scherzo: Allegro; IV. La Malinconia: Adagio – Allegretto quasi Allegro
No. 3 – I. Allegro; II. Andante con moto; III. Allegro; IV. Presto
No. 2 – I. Allegro; II. Adagio cantabile – Allegro – Tempo I; III. Scherzo: Allegro; IV. Allegro molto, quasi presto
As we can see from the movement titles (and later from my comments) all three quartets are pretty much fast, slow, fast, and fast (excepting the Malinconia). But all three were also very different.
The first movement of No. 6 was bright and bubbly, with some experimentation in the way Beethoven moved melodic phrases from one player to the next. The second movement was slower, though not exactly stately, and had nicely filigreed turns of phrases, some of which were quietly dramatic. While also moving the melody from player to player, it had a lovely winding down to a pizzicato ending. The Scherzo was pleasant—at times a bit spare, at others, fuller—ending once again with a very light touch. The final movement opened slowly with just the two violins and the viola, followed by a brief section with one violin, the viola and the cello. This Malinconia section was interrupted by a couple of instances of harmonic angst, before eventually slipping into the Allegretto that then bounced its way to the conclusion.
Quartet No. 3 opened with fuller, denser writing and was at times very energetic. As a side note, I have not explored whether the numbering system of the six quartets is strictly chronological or was arranged by some other method. The second movement had a chorale-like feel to it before developing into more individual lines, creating the whole, with a feeling of solidity that then led to a calm ending. The third movement was once again pleasantly solid but with a rather abrupt ending (i.e., short but not unnaturally cut off). The final movement here had a quite brisk, but not frantic, opening, with pretty much a constant forward motion, while including a few dramatic pauses. It didn’t quite have the bang-up ending that I was expecting, instead closing out with a very effective lower energy finish.
Quartet No. 2 began with graceful, pleasant sections that featured strong accents as well as strong unison phrases, including some rich, romantic harmonies. For all of that, it had a fairly quiet ending. The second movement also had a chorale-like opening followed by a section that was jaunty yet restrained (maybe contained is a better word). The return to a slower tempo introduced some new thematic material before closing out quietly. This Scherzo was bright and graceful, yet also with some accented sections that were similar to, though not exactly mirroring, those of the first movement. This movement seemed more fully formed than some of the others, to my ear. The final movement made use of strong sudden accents again. Some of the extremely fast writing toward the end seemed almost overdone, to me, although it, and the entire concert, was played extremely well. The next installment of the Encounters, in early December, will be the other three quartets of Opus 18.
The Brass of Beethoven and Brass was the second of the Overlook Concerts in Riverside Park. On a breezy and chilly Sunday afternoon, the Manhattan School of Music Brass Quintet presented a well-rounded performance of eleven pieces for brass quintet. A quick Wikipedia look told me pretty much what I thought I knew—there are the “usual suspects” but there is also flexibility in the makeup of a brass quintet. Here, we had Nolan Tsang (trumpet), Jerome Burns (trumpet), Corinne Judd (horn), Preston Judd (trombone), and Aden Brooks (tenor trombone). In addition, Mr. Burns played an E-flat trumpet in one of the pieces.
This is a student quartet and, as a result, some of the playing was a bit sketchy, although the afternoon was a total delight. Mr. Tsang carried the emcee responsibilities for most of the afternoon, assisted by Mr. Brooks and Mr. Burns. All three acquitted themselves well, even allowing for a mis-speak of a composer’s name at one point.
Selections ranged from Gabrieli (1500s) to a nifty arrangement of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square; from an arrangement of Debussy’s The Girl with the Flaxen Hair to Jazz Suite #1 by Dmitri Shostakovich; and from Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (with the E-flat trumpet) to Amparito Roca (1925), by Jaime Texidor (1884–1957).
Along with Señor Texidor, I was also introduced to other composers—J. Pezel
(1639–1694) and Ludwig Maurer (1859–1927)—whose Six Pieces and Three Pieces, respectively, were quite interesting.
Bluegrass is on the agenda for next Sunday, which I may or may not attend. Still and all, it was a fun weekend (with some Alice at 150 thrown in for good measure; maybe more about that later).
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Songbook – September 2015 – The Music of Robert Lindsey-Nassif
A reminder, Songbook is a concert featuring the music of up and coming theater composers and lyricists—except when it isn’t. The current iteration was a combination concert and celebration of the 25th anniversary of Songbook. In fact, Mr. Lindsey-Nassif performed in the inaugural concert. So, though he’s not a fully established composer, he’s further along than many who appear in the series, e.g., his Flight of the Lawnchair Man (3hree) has already had several productions, at least one of which was directed by Hal Prince.
This was a plus and a minus for this concert, in my opinion, because while we heard some songs from current projects that he’s working on, we also heard songs from earlier works that have had many staged performances, so a little freshness was lacking (once again, in my opinion). And a few of the songs had that build up to the end followed by holding the last note a long, long, long time. It’s effective but, maybe because of the evening’s song selections, a bit overused. But those are minor quibbles in an evening filled with good songs that were well composed and very well performed. There were thirteen selections, so I’ll report on what I considered the highlights.
The concert started with a high-energy performance by Eddie Korbich of PersonaliTNT from Hoods and Hoofers, a show set in the 1920s. Very, very up tempo and quite humorous as well. Two songs from Eliot Ness: The Man Who Broke Capone (I’ve also found the title to be Eliot Ness in Cleveland) were sung by Adam Shorsten, who was in fine voice if a bit “over-singy” from time to time. Starting to Disappear began in an introspective mood that turned into much more of a rock feel. Will It Matter that I Was was a strong personal anthem.
A set of four songs from Opal followed. Opal is a young girl whose parents die in a storm at sea; Opal washes ashore and ends up in an Oregon logging camp. It’s loosely based on a true story. In Mother, Father, a ten-year-old powerhouse, Lily Adams, sings a plaintive lament to her lost parents. Send You a Sign followed, a duet by Miss Adams and Marni Nixon—yes, the Marni Nixon. She was a joy to see and hear and the duet was quite effective, with Ms. Nixon explaining that the girl’s parents will send a message to say that they’re gone … but they’re not gone. If the pipes aren’t quite what they used to be, there were still flashes of sheer brilliance in her singing. Joshua Dixon added a nice touch as a bumpkin with real sincerity in Sears and Roebuck Wedding Band.
Mr. Korbich returned with I Want to Fly, from Lawnchair Man, expressing the joy of actually making it up into the air, and Brandi Chavonne Massey sang The Air Is Free strongly, as a sort of diatribe to/against an FAA agent.
Castles in the Air, from Hoods and Hoofers, was convincingly sung by Scarlett Strallen, though the song itself suffered a bit from the range and the setting of the text. Often, it’s very difficult to clearly get, as in understand, the lyrics when sung in extremely high ranges; that said her soprano was lovely.
Music in This Mountain, from Honky-Tonk Highway and set in a roadhouse in Tennessee during the 1970s, had Erin Hill playing the harp and singing, joined by the ensemble of Jacob Christopher, Penelope Deen, Michael Penick, and Mikki Sodergren. In a somewhat boisterous fashion, it showed us that the universal feelings of music are all around us—and in us.
And here’s a shout out to John Znidarsic (Producer) and all of the performers, vocalists and instrumentalists, who volunteered their time and energy to this worthwhile effort known as Songbook. While I only came across it in recent years, it’s great to know that it’s still going strong in its 25th year. I’ll most likely be returning to more of the presentations throughout the rest of the season.
ConcertMeister
This was a plus and a minus for this concert, in my opinion, because while we heard some songs from current projects that he’s working on, we also heard songs from earlier works that have had many staged performances, so a little freshness was lacking (once again, in my opinion). And a few of the songs had that build up to the end followed by holding the last note a long, long, long time. It’s effective but, maybe because of the evening’s song selections, a bit overused. But those are minor quibbles in an evening filled with good songs that were well composed and very well performed. There were thirteen selections, so I’ll report on what I considered the highlights.
The concert started with a high-energy performance by Eddie Korbich of PersonaliTNT from Hoods and Hoofers, a show set in the 1920s. Very, very up tempo and quite humorous as well. Two songs from Eliot Ness: The Man Who Broke Capone (I’ve also found the title to be Eliot Ness in Cleveland) were sung by Adam Shorsten, who was in fine voice if a bit “over-singy” from time to time. Starting to Disappear began in an introspective mood that turned into much more of a rock feel. Will It Matter that I Was was a strong personal anthem.
A set of four songs from Opal followed. Opal is a young girl whose parents die in a storm at sea; Opal washes ashore and ends up in an Oregon logging camp. It’s loosely based on a true story. In Mother, Father, a ten-year-old powerhouse, Lily Adams, sings a plaintive lament to her lost parents. Send You a Sign followed, a duet by Miss Adams and Marni Nixon—yes, the Marni Nixon. She was a joy to see and hear and the duet was quite effective, with Ms. Nixon explaining that the girl’s parents will send a message to say that they’re gone … but they’re not gone. If the pipes aren’t quite what they used to be, there were still flashes of sheer brilliance in her singing. Joshua Dixon added a nice touch as a bumpkin with real sincerity in Sears and Roebuck Wedding Band.
Mr. Korbich returned with I Want to Fly, from Lawnchair Man, expressing the joy of actually making it up into the air, and Brandi Chavonne Massey sang The Air Is Free strongly, as a sort of diatribe to/against an FAA agent.
Castles in the Air, from Hoods and Hoofers, was convincingly sung by Scarlett Strallen, though the song itself suffered a bit from the range and the setting of the text. Often, it’s very difficult to clearly get, as in understand, the lyrics when sung in extremely high ranges; that said her soprano was lovely.
Music in This Mountain, from Honky-Tonk Highway and set in a roadhouse in Tennessee during the 1970s, had Erin Hill playing the harp and singing, joined by the ensemble of Jacob Christopher, Penelope Deen, Michael Penick, and Mikki Sodergren. In a somewhat boisterous fashion, it showed us that the universal feelings of music are all around us—and in us.
And here’s a shout out to John Znidarsic (Producer) and all of the performers, vocalists and instrumentalists, who volunteered their time and energy to this worthwhile effort known as Songbook. While I only came across it in recent years, it’s great to know that it’s still going strong in its 25th year. I’ll most likely be returning to more of the presentations throughout the rest of the season.
ConcertMeister
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