Steve Parks - Chestertown Spy

Spy Arts Diary: Classic Festivals, Gay Pride, & Old Glory

May 27, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

June gets off to a classical start with a pair of high-brow music festivals – first in Chestertown and a week later in Easton.

Opening on June 4, the 11th annual National Music Festival – its motto is “Great music performed by tomorrow’s stars” – combines tuition-free master-class tutoring and showcase concert opportunities for talented young musicians-in-residence on the historic Washington College campus, produced by OuterArts Maryland, a nonprofit focused on youth programs.

Starting on June 9, it’s followed by the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival in the resplendent and acoustically pleasing Ebenezer Theater downtown starring long-accomplished masters of their instruments.

The National Music Festival (NMF) presents concerts ranging from solo recitals and chamber quartets to full symphony orchestral performances. Among the highlights are the Festival Symphony Orchestra led by NMF artistic director Richard Rosenberg in a June 10 program featuring Beethoven’s 7th Symphony and the finale with the orchestra performing Mahler’s 7th and Nielsen’s Helios Overture, both at Decker Theatre on campus.

You can also savor free lunchtime “Chamber Bites” mini-concert pop-ups at locations all around town and two Saturday morning Farmers Market music appetizers in Fountain Park.

This year, Chesapeake Music’s chamber theme is “Cultural Crossings,” led by the festival’s co-artistic directors, cellist Marcy

violist Catherine Cho

Rosen and violinist/violist Catherine Cho. Both bring their string magic to a June 9 opening night of Mozart and Brahms, plus Tara Helen O’Connor featured in the “Cities of Air” Flute and String Quartet by Paul Wiancko.

Week 2 of the 38th annual festival opens with “Drama and Delight” chamber pieces by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Dvorak and closes with quartets by Haydn and Benjamin Britten and a Mendelssohn quintet. Featured players include clarinetist J. Laurie Bloom, retired festival co-founder, and violinist Randall Goosby, who returns to the Ebenezer after starring in Chesapeake Music’s Rising Stars concert in February.

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nationalmusic.us and chesapeakemusic.org As part of Pride Weekend, June 16-18, the Delmarva Pride Center presents its second annual Pride Drag Show, hosted by Miranda Bryant – no relation, we suspect, to the late Anita Bryant. Pride friends describe Miranda as “our own Eastern Shore darling.” The show, at the Avalon Theatre, starts at 7 p.m. June 16. To avoid political controversy, Delmarva Pride encourages attendees to bring along their “adult friends to see our queens.” Proceeds go to supporting gay pride events and services. For its part, the Avalon Foundation states on its website that it is a “nonpartisan organization which rents its facility to many organizations. The Foundation neither endorses nor censors content presented by facility renters.”

Elsewhere on the site, Avalon announces its free outdoor summer concert series Saturdays at seven on Harrison Street in front of Tidewater Inn and kitty-corner to the Avalon. First up on June 3 is the homegrown Delmarva Big Band, followed by several Navy bands and ensembles alternating with a medley of acts playing Latin, Motown, R&B, country, dance music, and more. You can set up your lawn chairs on the closed-off block between Dover and Goldsborough streets.

avalonfoundation.org

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June 14 is Flag Day, a national holiday that isn’t officially so. But if it’s observed in any state, it would be Maryland, where the original star-spangled banner once waved o’er Baltimore’s harbor and inspired Francis Scott Key, aboard a British warship bombarding Fort McHenry, to write, “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave. . . .” Later to become, of course, our National Anthem.

Flag Day is a holiday with free admission at the Star-Spangled Flag House, a National Historic Landmark museum at Pratt and Albermarle streets within easy walking distance from the National Aquarium, the Power Plant dining/entertainment hub along the Inner Harbor, and nearby Port Discovery Children’s Museum. The 1793 Flag House interprets the life of Mary Pickersgill, who was commissioned to sew two Fort McHenry flags – the smaller storm flag and the gargantuan garrison flag (30-by-42 feet) that was a target of the bombardment on the night of Sept. 13, 1814 – toward the end of the War of 1812.

The victorious turning-point Battle of Baltimore is commemorated on Flag Day at Fort McHenry, a National Monument Historic Shrine. (Update: The Flag House has been closed for repairs this month but is scheduled to reopen by Flag Day. Check its website.)

To see the original Star-Spangled Banner, head south on I-95 to D.C., where it is encased at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

flaghouse.org, nps.gov/fomc and americanhistory.si.edu

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Memorial Day may be the unofficial start of summer, but it remains chilly at the beach before actual summer, June 21. So if you’re headed to Ocean City or Rehoboth Beach, here’s a nearby venue for outdoor pop concerts – away from the surf. Freeman Arts Pavilion in Selbyville, just across the Maryland-Delaware line from North Ocean City, has already opened its summer season. One of my favorite back-in-the-day American rockers, the Steve Miller Band (reconstituted), plays on June 29, when you may not need a sweater under the stars, followed by Ziggy Marley the next night. Coming up sooner on the calendar is Trombone Shorty on June 9; Keb Mo on June 17; Grand Funk Railroad on June 24, and Cheap Trick on June 25. Don’t forget to bring your lawn chairs. With these bands, you may be too mature for standing only.

freemanarts.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts writer and editor now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Summer Preview by Steve Parks

May 19, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

While the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is very much a year-round institution, its high season coincides with summertime. Although most of the museum’s visitors are amateurs at boating and fishing, its mission is to preserve the history and culture of watermen and women who made their livelihoods a vital industry of the Bay region.

While many of those who still make their living on the Bay’s waters do so in all seasons – sometimes under inhospitable conditions – for the rest of us, the closest we get to fishing, crabbing or oystering is at a supermarket seafood counter. Hopefully pre-frozen. At best, we’re fair-weather fishers. “Summertime, an’ the livin’ is easy,” as the Gershwin song goes, explains why Memorial through Labor Day is primetime at the maritime museum.

Festivals from Easter and Passover through the winter holidays draw well, but more so in the months after Memorial Day weekend. On the calendar June 16-18 is the Antique & Classic Boat Show and Coastal Arts Fair. It’s followed by Big Band Night on July 1 with a live concert of classic standards and a perfect waterfront vantage point on the museum campus to take in St. Michaels’ early Independence Day fireworks. Watermen’s Appreciation Day on Aug. 13 features a boat-docking contest, live music and a cash feast of steamed crabs, beer and more. (Bring your credit card.) Labor Day weekend brings the Sept. 2 Charity Boat Auction and a chance to get out on the water yourself or take a step up in your boating ambiance. October’s Mid-Atlantic Small Crafts Festival and the Oysterfest on the 8th and 28th, respectively, are big draws and two of my personal favorites. (If forced to choose, I’d go for the bivalves.)

Of course, maritime museum attractions are not limited to festival events. CBMM is open daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s days. And there’s so much to see that general admission tickets are good for two days – except on certain festival days.

But what’s new at the maritime museum, those of you who haven’t visited since last summer or fall? Beyond all the standing permanent installations, CBMM rotates special exhibitions on a yearly basis.

Jen Dolde, director of curatorial affairs and exhibitions, led a team that included exhibition designer Jim Koerner, VP of education and interpretation Jill Ferris and chief historian Pete Lesher to launch the extraordinary “Changing Chesapeake” exhibit. The team started by sending out a detailed call for artistic submissions. Of nearly 150 artworks received, a panel of five representing art, art education and science communities undertook a blind review – no names attached – of artworks and artist statements – to cull that number down to something close to the 78 in the show. The curatorial team then adjusted those selections to account for space limitations and to ensure a greater variety of artists.

“From the outset, our intention for this community response exhibition was to give primacy to the artists’ viewpoint,” Dolde said. “Changing Chesapeake,” which opened March 1 and runs through Feb. 25, 2024, is a not-to–be-missed multimedia expression of the emotional and practical impacts of climate change on the Bay region that is our home. Seventy artists from both sides of the Chesapeake and all around its watershed produced works ranging from tragic to comic commentary on what they’ve witnessed or are warning us about the earth’s devolving environmental burden on our children, grandchildren and generations beyond.

Edward Klein of St. Michaels directly addresses this concern in his song, “What Did a Crab Look Like?” Performed on video at the museum by guitarists and vocalists alongside a printed commentary, offers the “hope that future generations . . . will not have to ask . . .” the title question.

But we don’t need a fast-forward time machine to see what is and has been happening for years, if not decades. Straight ahead as you enter the two-story exhibit from the first-floor Steamboat Building entrance, you can’t miss “Looking Out at the Ghosts of the Coast,” a quilted blanket collage depicting a window framed by a homey 3-D crocheted curtain and the view of a naked dead forest outside. It’s a homespun masterpiece by Laura Guertin, an earth sciences professor at Penn State, Brandywine. It’s one of a dozen or so Ghost Forest references in this show as it is so outfront obvious to where we live. Have you visited Dorchester’s Blackwater Refuge lately?

While the home Guertin depicts is not yet threatened – so cozy inside, warm as a blanket – the same cannot be said of the “Sea Rise” installation by George Lorie of Rockville, which takes up a big chunk of the central floorspace of the second-floor galleries. The painted and laminated wood project is composed of collective waves representing Bay waters lapping at a peaked roof – all that remains visible of some family’s lost home.

Barbed comedy is what we make of “Ospreys Don’t Wear Coats,” by Annapolis resident Nicholas Thrift, about his oil-painted native bird wearing an overcoat while grasping two (likely) non-biodegradable coffee cups.

Virtually all the arts are represented here. If it wears you out, peering at all this thought-provoking imagery, you’re encouraged to touch the art – rare in a museum – of printed poetry on painted maritime-themed boards. Bench seats nearby invite you to read one or two at your leisure.

Putting all this together in a manner that seems to make linear sense was the job of designer Koernor, who Dolde gives credit for “grouping pieces so that they connect and play off one another.” Ferris is working to bring some of the artists back to the museum this summer for a presentation or an open conversation. We all need to have such conversations.

For more on “The Changing Chesapeake,” click to Val Cavalheri’s coverage of opening night (link here).

Accompanying this show, is a related photo exhibit in a conference room across that hall, “The Coming Coast” by filmmaker/photographer Michael Snyder. His photo series captures a making-the-best-of-it scene “Flooding, Norfolk, Virginia,” of a girl on a tree-limb swing whose flight is reflected in standing water below. “If you look out our backyard, it’s pretty much always flooded now,” says homeowner Angela Ramsay.

“Cafe on Smith Island,” photographed in Ewell, population 267, is augmented by an observance by Hoss Parks (no known relation): “I dig graves for a living. I may be the last one doing it because there ain’t nobody left. The young ones have almost all gone off.”

Still, life presses on elsewhere across the region. Among Snyder’s aerial photos is “New Houses Near Kent Narrows.” Lots of them. The Narrows, by definition, are all at water’s edge.

But aside from what’s new at the maritime museum, for those of you – newcomers, perhaps – there are free tours (with entrance fee) of such long-standing exhibitions as “Oystering on the Chesapeake” and “Waterman’s Wharf.” Or you can climb to the top of Hooper Strait Lighthouse, circa 1879, for better views of St. Michaels Harbor and the Miles River, or check out the working shipyard, where there’s always something nautical going on.

Finally, perhaps capping off the summer sometime in September, is the new visitors center just to the left of the parking lots as you enter the CBMM campus. As you’ll see, it’s well underway and promises to be a more accessible entryway for everyone – wheelchairs and strollers included. Never mind the out-of-character 21st-century architecture: It’s meant to signal a welcoming destination for all ages and avenues of life.

Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through October; 213 N. Talbot St., St. Michaels cbmm.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Arts Diary: Both Sides Now and Regional Outdoor Season Blooms

April 30, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

Although May is not a summer month, Memorial Day weekend is widely recognized in the USA as the unofficial launch date of the summer season – never mind frigid ocean beach temperatures most anywhere north of Key West, Florida.

But without dipping even a toe in the surf you can enjoy a high and dry evening under the stars – assuming the weather cooperates – as Classic Theatre of Maryland kicks off its outdoor season on May 16 in the courtyard of historic Reynolds Tavern (circa 1747) in Annapolis. Catch snippets of all 37 plays in just 97 minutes in “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” – 7:30 every Tuesday night through Aug. 29 – including, of course, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Sometimes abbreviated as “The Compleat Wks of Willm Shkspr” (Abridged), it’s the funniest treatment of Bill the Bard’s genius this side of Cole Porter’s lyrics in “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (“If she says your behavior in heinous, kick her right in the ‘Coriolanus’ ”) from Broadway’s “Kiss Me Kate.”

If you’re craving a full-on Shakespearean experience, you’ll be tempted by “The Tempest” at Classic Theatre of Maryland’s outdoor summer venue, the Grisham Estate in nearby Edgewater. Thursdays-Sundays June 6-23.

classictheatremaryland.org

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Continuing with the fresh air theme, the Wolftrap National Park for the Performing Arts gets into full swing on Memorial Day weekend with three concerts by the Avett Brothers, May 25-27, at the Filene Center amphitheater on the grounds of Wolftrap Farm outside Vienna, Va. The Filene venue offers covered, open-air reserved seating as well as bring-your-own lawn-chair or blanket seating on the lawn of the rolling, tall-trees landscape. All three Avett Brothers concerts are at 7:30 p.m.

wolftrap.org

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A pair of weekend music festivals open the season in May and June at Columbia’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. The M3 Rock Festival is headlined on May 6 and 7 by Styx, best remembered for its 19702 and ’80s progressive rock power ballads, followed by the Capital Jazz Fest featuring George Benson, the Isley Brothers and Peabo Bryson June 2-4.

merriweathermusic.org

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Koe Wetzel brings his national tour of blended rock and country to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, 7 p.m., May 18, at the Pier Six Pavilion concert tent, introducing a summer season of pop and hip-hop on the waterfront.

baltimorepavilion.net

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The Mainstay in Rock Hall takes its weekend concerts outdoors to its backyard stage, weather permitting, with pianist Joe Holt’s First Friday-of-the-month concert on May 5 as he accompanies singer Randall Butler – she’s a soprano despite her first name – and guitarist Jeff Davis. Together they cover tunes associated with Whitney Houston, Bonnie Raitt, Billy Joel, Lady Gaga, Adele, Stevie Wonder, Etta James, the late great Elvis and others you’ll recall. Next up at the Mainstay on May 13 is singer/songwriter Pam Ortiz and her husband Bob, who accompanies with his hands on guitar and piano.

mainstayrockhall.org

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Downtown Easton’s Avalon Theatre brings the theatrical concert tour of “Both Sides Now” to its Art Deco main stage at 8 p.m. May 5, fresh off a sold-out two-week run at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va. The cabaret-style show embraces the music of longtime friends and onetime lovers Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen as performed by Robbie Schaefer and Danielle Wertz covering such treasures as “Suzanne,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Hallelujah” and the show’s title song.

Moving outdoors, the Avalon Foundation presents the 23rd annual Multicultural Festival, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. May 6, with performing artists from Easton’s Allegro Academy, bagpiper Randy Welch, drummer Kofi Dennis from Ghana and Easton Elementary Spanish dancers. (In case of inclement weather, the festival takes shelter in nearby Easton Middle School.)

avalonfoundation.org

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Last but most of all, be sure not to miss my personal Spy Diary top pick: Beginning Memorial Day weekend and continuing through to year’s end, Baltimore welcomes the touring “Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited” to Maryland where it all began. The Maryland Center for History and Culture (formerly Maryland Historical Society) hosts this Muppet-branded multimedia show featuring puppets, obviously, plus costumes, character sketches, original scripts and storyboards as well as motion picture film and TV video clips. Besides his Muppets, Henson contributed mightily to the original “Sesame Street” puppet characters who engage children to this day. Which brings to mind one question that speaks volumes to Jim Henson’s legacy – two, really: Who doesn’t like “Sesame Street” and the Muppets? Henson died far too soon in 1990 of lung abscesses from an earlier bacterial infection. He was 53.

As a University of Maryland grad, class of 1970, I’ve long recommended to any College Park visitors that they should stop by the front entrance to the Stamp Student Union building to take in the statuary tableau of Jim Henson on a bench in apparent conversation with his enduring character creation, Kermit the Frog. Henson preceded me as a fellow alum in 1957. I hereby nominate Kermit for an honorary Terrapin doctorate.

As a University of Maryland graduate, class of 1970, I’ve long recommended to any College Park visitors that they should stop by the front entrance to the Stamp Student Union building to take in the statuary tableau of Jim Henson on a bench in apparent conversation with his enduring character creation, Kermit the Frog. Henson preceded me as a fellow alum in 1957. I hereby nominate Kermit for an honorary Terrapin doctorate.

Steve Parks is a retired arts writer now living in Easton, rooting as ever for the Terps.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Concert Review: MSO’s Fitting 25th-Anniversary Finale

April 29, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra played the first of its final set of concerts in a 25th anniversary season. It also marks the debut of its new music director, Michael Repper, who won the Grammy Award for best orchestral performance in February.

The opening night concert Thursday at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center featured guest soloist Dominique de Williencourt, a Knight of the French Order of Merit, among many other honors, performing Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto in E-Flat Major. I can’t say that de Williencourt labored through what is widely regarded as the most challenging concerto ever written for his instrument. Still, by the end of the frenetic fourth-movement finish, he looked like a triumphant athlete catching his breath after a 25-minute sprint. After the concert, he said modestly of his 1754 Gagliano cello, “It practically plays itself.”

The concerto opens with a four-note theme repeated most prominently toward the end, giving the piece a cyclical structure. Born in Russia under the 20th-century Soviet regime, Shostakovich was regarded suspiciously by Kremlin autocrats – particularly Stalin – who denounced his modern music as insufficiently proletarian. In this, his first cello concerto, he may have sought to curry favor by including references to one of Stalin’s favorite songs, the title of which translates as “Soul.” But by his twisted interpretation of the tune – replete with musical distortions that seem impossible to play with any clarity – the composer may well have been thumbing his nose at the mass-murder dictator. Whatever the historic motive, the gyrations between strident attacks on the strings followed by pizzicato intervals seem intended to punish any cellist who dares to take on the challenge. De Williencourt, with Repper and 42 MSO musicians as skilled accomplices, manages to make sense of what could be anarchic cacophony.

The evening began with a short performance that reflected both the accomplishments of Repper, who guided New York Youth Symphony students to create an award-winning album and earned a Grammy for it, and the MSO. The MSO, known for its annual competition for young chamber ensembles, featured the winner of the inaugural Dove Marimba Competition held at D.C.’s Kennedy Center for its season finale series. The competition, named after MSO timpanist Barry Dove, gave 16-year-old Rishab Jain a chance to perform a solo gig with the orchestra. He showcased the fourth movement of Brazilian composer Ney Rosauro’s Marimba Concerto No. 1. Latin folk themes came to life with teardrop notes tapped out on a similar instrument older Americans may know as a xylophone.

After intermission, Repper and the orchestra were on their own – sans solo support – except for reprises by individual MSO musicians. Czech native Dvorak’s epoch “New World” symphony – his ninth – written on a years-long exposure to the USA (principally New York and Iowa), is a Romantic crowd-pleaser for all time. Perhaps ahead of his time or not fully realizing the stain of America’s original sin of slavery, Dvorak said in the 1890s, “The future of music of this country must be founded on what is called ‘Negro melodies.’ . . . These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America.” Several such folkloric strands are evident in the first-movement theme that resembles “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” A scherzo second movement highlighted by a foundational theme for French horn played by Mark Hughes includes brief solos from virtually every section of the orchestra, becoming more apparent on the catchy repeating melody, reminding us of why America is still great despite its tragic flaws. Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra Season Finale

Thursday, April 27, Chesapeake College, Wye Mills. Remaining concerts, 7 p.m. Saturday, April 29, Cape Henlopen High School, Lewes, DE, 3 p.m. Sunday, April 30, Ocean City Performing Arts Center; midatlanticsymphony.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Art Review: Shadows, Female Figuration, and Teen Curators by Steve Parks

April 27, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

We’ve all heard about cursing the darkness. But here, in one of the Academy Art Museum’s (AAM)latest exhibitions, we view images and read the text In Praise of Shadows – that is, in praise of darkness to varying degrees. The first we encounter in AAM’s Lederer Gallery is Japanese artist Utagawa Kunisoda’s mid-19th century color woodblock print titled “Scene from a Kabuki Play.” The text accompanying this and other artworks, which are far more contemporary than “Kabuki,” presents a narrative dialogue about what we see before us. Japanese author Jun’ichiro Tanizaki recalls his childhood introduction to kabuki as an exaggerated theatrical form that survives best in dim lighting that veils its lack of subtlety. The next woodcut, “Tenderness,” by Kiyoshi Saito (1968), suggests a shadow play of hands performed by parents to entertain their child with an elongated figure of a hen – warm and harmless.

Alison Saar’s “Rise”

As the art in “Shadows” strays further from the Japanese source material, the dialogue changes, too. Prolific African-American printmaker Dox Thrash’s 1939 mezzo print “Charlot” deploys ink throughout his haunting portrait by way of reverse facial features – somewhat like a photo negative – created through gradations of relative light amid the dark for a surprise bump-in-the-night effect.

Louise Nevelson, the American sculptor who died in 1986, once said that the color black makes any material look “more distinguished.” Maybe she was thinking of tuxedos. Her “End of Day” painted-black wood structure juxtaposing angular shelving with curved objects implies a puzzle of pieces that don’t fit. Go figure.

Kate Breakey’s “Five Figs”

While Australian artist Kate Breakey’s nine charming images are not accompanied by textual commentary, it may be because her photographic technique speaks, as the saying goes, more eloquently than a thousand words. From her “Shetland Islands” to her “Lunar Eclipse,” Breakey’s magical photo on art glass with gold-leaf effects brings a shimmering glow to each scene she captures. Even the “Reclining Nude” (from behind) seems imbued with pixie dust. Her “Lone Tree, Midlands, UK” cries out for company while her “Two Trees, Kew Gardens” appear to embrace one another like a couple that inhabits a forest all their own. And whether they are five birds or seven finches, the arboreal inhabitants of Breakey’s winged casts pose regally, as does the lone hummingbird in perfect nectar-beak profile.

I would say Kate Breakey’s show-stealers – including the succulent “Five Figs” still life – are worth the price of admission, except that it’s free at AAM.

Photography reigns in the gallery across the hall as Will Wilson presents portraits of representatives of many Native American nations – Cherokee, Apache, Navajo, Ogala, and Hopi- augmented by autobiographical details for each person he photographed from 2013-2018. All images are large black-and-white archival prints that look candid though most if not all, are likely posed. They are displayed here by way of the Art Bridges Collection, available to small- to mid-range museums.

LaToya Hobbs’ “Stargazer (Thea)

Kottie Gaydos’ “Untitled Cairns,” created just this year, occupies the space in the center of the Healey Gallery floor. They represent the fragility of the human body through porcelain vessels dipped in an emulsion. I expect we’d all be vulnerable if immersed in a painterly emulsion, but her point is well taken. We’re more vulnerable than we admit.

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LaToya Hobbs, a Baltimore-based painter and printmaker, presents a small survey of her woodcut portraits of Black women – 13 of them in the two small galleries just off the courtyard entrance to the museum. These works, according to her artist’s statement, “use figurative imagery to facilitate an ongoing dialogue about the Black female body in the hope of showcasing a more balanced perception of our womanhood – one that dismantles prevailing stereotypes. Through portraiture,” she adds, “I explore themes of beauty, spirituality, motherhood, and sisterhood.”

To that end, the first image we encounter is “Lunar Blessing,” a 2017 black-and-white figurative study of a reclining woman who, judging from the radiant beams emanating in all directions from her aura, is deep in dreams. The next print is a Hobbs self-portrait. Is the artist observing the sleeping subject to her right? Keeping them company in the first gallery is a smiling “Angelia,” imbued in a green-on-chartreuse swirl in this 2011 portrait,” while “Stargazer (Thea)” from 2022 presents a face of wonder at the sky above.

Entering the second gallery, “Sharbreon’s Joy” (2019) catches your eye, if not your ear, with her bespectacled laughter, while in contrast, next to her, “Herera Woman,” a 2015 linocut, frowns in stern disapproval. “Delita Study #1,” from 2019, shares her portrait space with two male face masks that have her attention. “Crowned” (2021) describes the effect of a young woman’s fabric headdress pushing her hair up into an elaborate bun. Most of these highly individualized portraits are of women looking askance. They are not peering into our eyes. But “Rose” (2019) is an exception. It struck me that she was about to challenge me in a staring contest. As I am forced to blink, and she is not, Rose wins.

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During the winter just behind us, teen interns who participated in Academy Art’s program went through the museum’s permanent collection to serve as curators of “(Dis)Connection,” now on exhibit in the upstairs hallway gallery. Each artwork selected by the 13 teen-terns is accompanied by text that explains why the piece appealed to them. Here’s a sampler:

* Of Will Barnet’s “Cat and Canary” screenprint – reminding me of Warner Bros.’s Sylvester and Tweety Bird, Kate Lorentz writes: “There is a strange understanding the two animals have with one another, a connection between two very different creatures – not to mention predator and prey.”

* Of Alison Saar’s “Rise” linocut on letterpress, Ed Tilghman comments: “ ‘Rise’ is a prime example of her mission as it was created during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. . . . [The Black woman’s] stoic expression, bold lines, and use of red pulls me in to recognize the serious issue of racial injustice.”

* Of Judy Chicago’s “In Praise of Prairie Dogs,’’ an 11-color lithograph, Leslie Monter Casio observes: “This piece resonates with me as it pushes me to consider the connection that humans have with nature and how we are inextricably linked. Far too often . . .we are ignorant of the consciousness of animals; we are much more similar to them than we think.”

* Of Clarence Holbrook Carter’s “Jane Reed and Doris Hunt,” a 1950 lithograph depicting two women walking along or crossing a railroad track, Sophia Principe shares this: “The print makes me feel as if I were present in the scene, walking with the mysterious figures after a long day. I can almost feel the wind chilling my face.”

* Of Sam Robinson’s “7 AM, 90 [Degrees]” 2004 oil on canvas, Aviyah Durante relates emotion: “This picture invokes darker feelings of frustration in me. . . . We can infer that Robinson was not only trying to showcase his own story with this piece but the meaningful connections that one has with home.”

These thoughts and much more helps connect us with the art that teens selected for “(Dis)Connection.”

“In Praise of Shadows: Jun’ichiro Tanizaki and Modern & Contemporary Art” and “(Dis)Connection: Selections from the Permanent Collection by AAM’s Teen Interns,” through July 16, and“LaToya Hobbs: Woodcuts” through July 23, all at Academy Art Museum, 106 South St., Easton; academyart.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Arts Diary: B’way in B’more, Photo Art in DC and Music All Over

March 25, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

We’re halfway through the EGOT season now. EGOT, of course, stands for the top four performing arts prizes. T.V.’s Emmys aren’t awarded until September. Of local interest, the recent Grammys included a triumph for Michael Repper, music director of Easton and Delmarva’s Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra. The Oscar presentations passed without a major incident. So that leaves the Tony Awards with the top prize of Best Musical. It will be announced on May 2, with the awards show on Sunday, June 11.

If you haven’t already, you can catch up on the big winner from the 2022 Tonys.

“Hadestown,” with music, lyrics, and book by Anais Mitchell, inspired by one of Greek mythology’s greatest hits, “Orpheus and Eurydice.” It tells the story of a hungry girl who seeks nourishment by working in Hell’s underworld, from which her equally impoverished lover tries to rescue her; his ardor expressed in moving songs and ensuing dancing. It’s a love story burnished in Hades. Whether you believe in Hell or not, it’s a damn good tale and has been for a thousand years.

You can still catch the reigning Best Musical Tony winner at Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre. But the national tour arrives closer to home – downtown Baltimore – with eight performances April 11-16, starting at 8 Tuesday through Saturday, plus a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee and shows at 1:00 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday at France-Merrick Performing Arts Center’s Hippodrome Theatre.

france-merrickpac.com

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“In the face of severe economic dislocation, widespread civil disorder, and Prime Minister [Margaret] Thatcher’s controversial policies, these artists declared: ‘This is Britain!’”

That’s the concluding statement posted at the entrance to the National Gallery of Art’s photography exhibition, which takes its title from a generation of artists’ symbolic declaration. These are images from the “Iron Lady” period – 1975-1900 – when Thatcher served first as leader of Britain’s Conservative party (the Tories) and, beginning in 1979, as the U.K.’s first female prime minister and its longest-serving PM of either gender in the 20th century. But today, these still images bring to mind current news videos we see from France.

The National Gallery photos are primarily of people coping with poverty, discrimination, but also resentment by a white working class against immigrants of color or neighbors of a different race or religion and even women of their own kind or sons and daughters who don’t believe in love, marriage, and a baby carriage. Sound familiar?

The Thatcher era covered the Catholic v. Protestant “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, record unemployment due to parliamentary cancellation of the “welfare state,” along with mining closures, nuclear power plants, and urban riots. These profound changes inspired such artistic responses as punk rock and a photographic revolution advancing free speech through visual expressions that cannot be censored this side of pornography.

Examples: Vanley Burke’s 1970 black-and-white “Boy with Flag” shot in Handsworth Park, Birmingham, England, site of hellfire riots 15 years later. He’s a black male child sporting a Union Jack on his bike. He could even be one of those pictured strolling down the street in Birmingham with a white friend, passing an overturned burning truck as if it were an everyday occurrence. Apparently, it was in this 1985 shot by Pogus Caesar. Meanwhile, life goes on amid chaos, as suggested in Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s “Young Couple in a Backyard on a Summer’s Day.” A naked man approaches a woman known to him who appears apprehensive, perhaps because a child standing next to them tries to look away.

Other images are accompanied by long titles that give away the photographer’s intent, such as a black-and-white image of a man of privilege seated disconsolately in an exclusive members club with a news rag in his lap. It’s Karen Knorr’s 1981 “Newspapers are no longer ironed. Coins are no longer boiled. So far have Standards Fallen.”

Moving on to color photography, Sunil Gupta’s 1988 “Untitled #1” presents a gay couple posing across the Thames from Parliament. Text imposed in a break separating part of the image states: “I call you my love though you are not my love, and it breaks my heart to tell you.” Guess which guy is thinking that to himself. I say the one on the right.

My favorite photo commentary on the Thatcher rule is Chris Steele-Perkins’ color sight gag titled “Hypnosis Demonstration: Cambridge University Ball,” 1989. All those gathered look like standing-dead zombies. Speaking of the truly dead, the most evocative of the wasted lives from “The Troubles” is Pogus Caesar’s 1985 “Belfast Mourners & Press at the Funeral of 3 Republican Servicemen,” a black-and-white of a casket being lowered into a grave. For what? Christians at war with one another? No different, we suppose, than Muslim Shiites and Sunnis.

May France fare better in its current “troubles.”

“This Is Britain: Photographs from the 1970s and 1980s” through June 11, National Gallery of Art’s West Building, Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C., nga.gov

***

April will bloom with premieres and major concerts, digital and live, for most of the national and regional classical music orchestras near home or within relatively easy driving distance.

* The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra wraps up its 2022-23 season with three concerts beginning at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 27, at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center on the Wye Mills campus, followed at the same hour on April 29 at Cape Henlopen High in Lewes, Delaware, and 3 p.m. on April 30 at Ocean City Performing Arts Center. The program for all three concerts opens with Grammy-winning music director Repper conducting Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major with solo cellist Dominique de Williencourt. Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 from “The New World” follows intermission.

midatlanticsymphony.org

* The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra’s Masterworks’ subscription season resumes at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1 at Maryland Hall in the capital city, and 2 p.m. April 2 at North Bethesda’s Music Center at Strathmore. The “Two Romantics” concert features guest violinist Esther Yoo performing Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Opus 19, followed by Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Opus 73.

annapolissymphony.org

* The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents blockbuster concerts promoted as “Joshua Bell Plays Mendelssohn,” owing to the superstar violinist’s highly deserved reputation for eloquent interpretation of the 19th-century German composer’s poetic concerto. The concerts – 8 p.m. Friday, April 21, and 3 p.m. Sunday, April 23, at Baltimore’s Meyerhoff Hall, and at the BSO’s second home, the Strathmore, at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 22. Russian-born conductor Anna Rakitina leads the orchestra in a program that opens with “When the World as You Know It Doesn’t Exist” by Pulitzer-prize winner Ellen Reid who, at 40, is young for such an accomplished composer. Next, Bell performs the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto ahead of the concert finale: Elgar’s “Enigma,” Variations on an Original Theme.

bsomusic.org

* The National Symphony Orchestra presents a special family concert: the world premiere of “This Is the Rope: A Story From the Great Migration” at 2 and 4 p.m. Sunday, April 2, at Washington’s Kennedy Center. Written and narrated by Jacqueline Woodson on commission by the NSO, it’s the story of a little African-American girl who finds a rope under a tree in South Carolina before the family migrates north. She later learns the history behind the rope that will be handed down from generation to generation.

kennedy-center.org/nso

* In a concert that could not be closer to home, the renowned Philadelphia Orchestra performs Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece “Pathetique” (also known as his Symphony No. 6). Nathalie Stutzmann conducts the program that opens with another Tchaikovsky, Polonaise from his “Eugene Onegin” opera. The concert – recorded at the 2022 Bravo! Vail Music Festival in Colorado is offered on the orchestra’s Digital Stage. Streaming starts at 8 and 11 p.m. Wednesday, April 12 through April 19.
phil.orch.org

***
For an altogether different musical vibe, Easton’s Avalon Theatre brings award-winning blues and soul artist Shemekia Copeland to its main stage at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 8. Winner of the 2021 B.B. King Entertainer of the Year Blues Music Award, Copeland is up for four 2023 Blues Music nominations, including Album of the Year for her Grammy-nominated “Done Come to Far.” Hailed as her generation’s “Queen of the Blues,” Copeland’s 2019-22 album trilogy, culminating with “Done Come to Far,” was preceded by “America’s Child” and “Uncivil War.” In them, she tackles sobering human rights issues while mixing in bits of enlightened humor and a sense of hope. The 44th annual Blues Music Awards will be presented on May 11 in Memphis.

avalonfoundation.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts writer and editor now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Concert Review: A Night to Remember with the MSO by Steve Parks

March 10, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

It was an evening for celebrating winners and also of remembrance at the opener of the penultimate concert series of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s (MSO) 2022-23 season.

Chief among the winners in Easton Thursday evening was Michael Repper. Repper was making his first appearance conducting the MSO since being awarded the Grammy for Best Orchestral Performance last month for the album he recorded with fellow Grammy winners – New York Youth Symphony (NYYS) musicians.

Featured on this opening night was Elizabeth Song, the 13-year-old New Jersey violinist who won first prize in MSO’s Elizabeth Loker Concerto Competition in January. The three concerts Song performs with the orchestra through Saturday, March 11, are part of her prize, along with a $2,000 cash award.

First up in Thursday’s concert was Brahms’ circa 1880 Tragic Overture, a stand-alone symphonic movement, somber in sharp contrast to another he composed near the same time – the high-spirited Academic Festival Overture. This Brahms piece opened with a bombastic D minor temperament urged on by an animated Repper dressed all in black. Intermittent F major passages were more flowing, with an emphasis on strings led by concertmaster Kimberly McCollum, punctuated by clarion calls with Mark Hughes and others in the brass section taking the lead.

Elizabeth Song

Repper next introduced violinist Song by her preferred nickname, Poppy. Song performed the same concerto she played in the competition finals on January 12 at Easton’s Avalon Theater. But this time, she was making her debut with a full orchestra instead of piano accompaniment. Belgian composer Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5, published in 1861, was all but forgotten until rediscovered by 20th-century orchestras and solo musicians. It has become a favorite in competitions because of the technically challenging and listener-friendly phrasing that gives violinists ample opportunities to show off their virtuosity.

After peering back at the orchestra during its celebratory opening, Song took every advantage of her opportunity, deftly diving in and out of rapid changes in pace and mood, from sweet to urgent. During a tumbling stretch of demands on her prodigious skill, she mastered the vicissitudes of the concerto as if it were child’s play. From attack mode to lullaby, she induced weeping-for-joy-or-sorrow glides of emotion while wielding see-saw strokes up and down – almost making her instrument chatter with excitement. Astonishingly, Song has improved on her winning performance just two months ago, though credit must also go to the maestro and the 38 orchestral musicians who made her debut such a smash.

MSO’s concerto competition was named in memory of Elizabeth Loker before the inaugural event in 2019-20. What was to be the second annual competition was delayed three years by COVID. Loker, better known to friends, colleagues, and loved ones as Beth, died of cancer in 2015. Retired from the Washington Post as vice president of publishing technology, Loker moved to Royal Oak and became a board member of both the MSO and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Next year’s competition will accommodate three finalists, who will each get to perform with the orchestra.

Song’s performance was a tough act to follow. But after intermission, Repper conducted the MSO in Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1, which won the previous Best Orchestral Performance Grammy for its recording by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The four-movement symphony begins with a modest passage drawing from African folk tunes, quickly building to a strings-and-percussion crescendo before settling into a hymn-like gospel pastoral. The second movement features a melody inspired or borrowed from Dvorak’s New World Symphony, with horns and reeds joined by strings and drums for a gratifying conclusion. Movement three breaks out in a party mood to a cowboy theme not out of place on “Yellowstone.” Trumpets, led by Josh Carr, declare that it’s time to dance and have fun. The final movement enlists every corner of the orchestra toward a frenzied but disciplined race to the finish.

Price has become a programing favorite of American orchestras – long after her 1953 death – in both February’s Black History Month and March’s Women’s History Month. As the first African-American woman to have her classical music composition performed by a major orchestra – Chicago Symphony in 1933 – Price’s works, most recently discovered in what was once her summer home, deserve attention in both months and all the other 10. That first-ever piece was her Symphony No. 1.

This year’s Grammy-winning album, with Repper conducting the NYYS, includes two other Price compositions – “Ethiopia’s Shadow in America” and her Piano Concerto in One Movement – as well as pieces by Valerie Coleman and Jessie Montgomery, two living African-American female composers.

Personally, I look forward to the day when neither black nor women’s history needs a special recognition month but are broadly recognized throughout the year.

Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s March Concerts
Opening date in the series was Thursday night, March 9, Easton Church of God
7:30 p.m., Friday, March 10, Community Church, Ocean Pines
3 p.m. Saturday, March 11, Epworth United Methodist Church, Rehoboth Beach
midatlanticsymphony.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Review: Works by Four Artists from Turkey by Steve Parks

March 7, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

Judging from attendance on the opening weekend beginning February 24, “Fractured Modernities” will be a popular Academy Art Museum exhibition. In part, it may be due to the show’s subtitle – “Contemporary Art from Turkey” – and the acknowledgment in the introductory wall panel that these works “marry movement and color with the heaviness of the nation’s past, especially in the wake of a catastrophic earthquake that shook Turkey and Syria.”

Untitled Erdem Varol photo inspired by the painting “The Tortoise Trainer.”

It is entirely coincidental that the ‘modernities’ referenced by these four young Turks are “fractured’ beyond recognition in much of eastern Turkey, far removed from the scenes represented in this wide-ranging display of various visual art disciplines.

At the entrance to the first of two galleries, you are greeted by the Turkish word for collaboration in Merve Unsal’s pink neon sign. Inside, the entire wall to your left is covered with black-and-white photos by Erdem Varol. His breadth in subject matter is evident from the start with a large shot of Istanbul high-rises, their middle floors obscured by clouds as the top floors appear to float above the mist. Just below is a small fashion statement with varied plumage protruding from the brim of a hat hiding the face of the man wearing it. Another captures the upturned visage of a sculpture high above a slice of Istanbul’s cityscape beyond. Another shot gives away the secret of his photographic perch as the shadow of an airplane appears in the foreground route to another part of downtown.

The money shot, however, defines the unique geographic character of Varol’s hometown. Hanging over the gallery mantel is a view from 10,000 feet of approaches to a bridge spanning the narrow Bosporus Strait separating Europe to the west from Asia to the east, both within the ancient city of Istanbul (formerly Constantinople, onetime Roman Empire capital conquered by the Turks to form the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century).

Although the medium is very different – ink and/or watercolor on paper – there is a link in vantage point between Varol and Didem Erbas. Starting in the first gallery and spilling over to the second, her Architectural Remains series brings to mind ancient cornerstones unearthed by archaeologists and skeletal fragments of wooden structures. Meanwhile, her Airport Zone and War Zone series suggest barren land exposed in one by modernized transportation and in the other by the devastation of war surrounding Turkey – from Syria to Iraq and Iran and now, of course, Ukraine. Each War Zone of destruction – one in brown, the other mainly in blue – oddly leaves the land left behind in a natural state. A place, maybe, to start over.

On the floor in the same gallery, Erbas has constructed a site-specific installation mainly consisting of piping pieces for plumbing or drainage. Other than as a statement on wasteful water usage, her intended message eluded me.

On the opposite wall, Zeynep Kayan’s video upends our notion of videography altogether. Although we don’t see her face, Kayan stands in front of the camera, repeatedly gesturing, holding a mirror pointed upward to reflect a ceiling light. In the accompanying text to this Mirror III video, it is performance art said to be ‘meditative.’ It might help to have a seat to meditate on this purposeful monotony meant to teach us not to expect to be entertained.

Aerial photo by Erdem Varol of bridge crossing from Europe to Asia in Istanbul

More engaging to me is Outside Instead of Before, a paired series of two-channel videos by Unsal projected on a bare wall. Although there is subtle motion in the images, they are presented more like a slideshow with a view just outside Unsal’s apartment in Istanbul and the major construction site as he sees it from his literal viewpoint. We see curtains fluttering in the breeze brushing past his open window next to a tall yellow construction crane in a vacant lot strewn with building materials. It’s followed by a nearly identical view from his balcony and a night view of the sleeping site next to a peek through his window of lights and moving figures inside. A small stapled script next to the space where the video is projected poses the question, among many others, “Can one eye unsee what the other has seen?”

A provocative thought suggested by Unsal’s juxtaposed imagery.

But the highlight, in terms of Turkish art and history, must go to Varol’s photograph of a young man gazing through a doorway in front of a poor sculptural reproduction of a bearded elder whose image Osman Handi Bey painted in The Tortoise Trainer. The 1906 oil on canvas is regarded as one of the greatest in Turkish Orientalism – compared in importance on the accompanying wall label as what Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is to Renaissance painting. At the feet of the young man and trainer are a swarm of tortoises signifying the slow pace of reforming the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed shortly after World War I. Fear the turtle?

Fractured Modernities: Contemporary Art from Turkey

Works by four Turkish artists were created in this European-Asian crossroad nation. Through April 16, Academy Art Museum, 106 South St., Easton. academyartmuseum.org

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Arts Diary: John Waters in Ocean City and MSO’s Grammy Winner by Steve Parks

February 25, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

John Waters is the celebrity headliner for the seventh Ocean City Film Festival, featured in a live performance on Saturday, March 4, which he calls The End of the World. Let’s hope he’s kidding.

John Waters

But if you want to see one of Waters’ explicitly recallable films, look for them streaming somewhere. The OC Fest showcases movies, shorts, and documentaries from around the world, including the Delmarva Peninsula, most of them from the last two years. John Waters’ most recent film was a 2007 remake of his hit Tony-winning musical Hairspray, based on his 1988 film of the same title.

So before we get to the films you can see at various Ocean City venues March 2-5, allow me to share my favorite John Waters quote from an interview with him for Newsday on Long Island around the time of Hairspray’s 2003 Broadway opening.

“That’s the most subversive thing I’ve ever done,” he said of creating Hairspray.

“Why’s that,” I asked.

“Now every time someone who’s seen Hairspray on Broadway and then finds one of my films listed on late-night cable, they’ll say, ‘Oh, a John Waters film. That must be cute.’ ”

Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972), with its literally filthy ending, and Female Trouble (1974), starring his favorite onscreen accomplice Divine (from a movie of the same name), aka Glenn Milstead, were anything but cute. Funny, yes, if you share Waters’ warped sense of humor and irony. Of his first-ever live performance in Ocean City, he says his monologue will be an irreverent but insightful riff on “all of today’s despair and disease, desires and desperation.”

Baltimore native Waters also recalls Ocean City summers as a teenager living under the Boardwalk and “dreaming of making weird films,” adding: “Now I’m back,” at age 76, “having done just that.” As for the film festival, the outlier who now has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame says, “That’s what these festivals are all about – inspiring creative lunacy.”

Which brings us to the films surrounding Waters’ End of the World show.

Among the feature films: Against All Odds: Surviving the Holocaust, Isatis, an archeological travelog to the ancient desert city in central Iran; Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game, the true story of Roger Sharpe who in 1976 helped overturn New York City’s ban on pinball; Worst Laid Plans, three tales of vacation-themed horror, and The Automat, a documentary on the once-maligned, now-extinct commissary-style urban eateries fondly remembered by Mel Brooks and the late Carl Reiner. So it’s gotta be funny. Then there’s The First Step, a political docu-commentary about black activist Van Jones, whose attempts to be a “bridge builder” during the Trump presidency predictably fails in divided America, and The Innocents, a supernatural thriller taking place in the long days and short nights of a Nordic summer.

Among opening night highlights are a pair of films of local origin: Hedgehog, produced by Dave Messick of Unscene Productions, focusing on Stephen Decatur High School graduates in nearby Berlin. Biggest Little Farm: The Return, a 30-minute documentary directed by Ocean City native John Chester, is a follow-up to his award-winning feature that debuted at the 2019 OC festival tracing the farm’s transformation.

In addition, dozens of showcase shorts under varied themes ranging from Maritime Life to Sex, Love, Romance & Intimacy will be screened nightly at venues including Ocean City Performing Arts Center, Flagship Cinemas, Fox Gold Coast Theater, and Ocean City Downs Casino.

Ocean City Film Festival

For tickets, dates, and times to these and other events, parties, and awards night presentations, go to OCFilmFestival.com
***
Music director Michael Repper conducts his first Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra concerts since winning the Grammy Award with the New York Youth Symphony for Best Orchestral Performance.

Michael Repper

The opening night of the three-concert series is 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 9, in Easton at the Church of God, followed the same time the next evening at the Community Church in Ocean Pines, and at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 11, at Epworth United Methodist Church in Rehoboth Beach. The program for each concert opens with Brahms’ Tragic Overture. Next is Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Minor, featuring the winner of MSO’s recent Elizabeth Loker Concerto Competition, violinist Elizabeth Song as honored guest soloist. After intermission, the orchestra performs Florence Price’s Symphony No. 1.

As the first African-American woman to have a composition performed by a major classical music orchestra – the Chicago Symphony – Price has been an in-demand Black History Month choice by orchestras across the United States. All the music on the Grammy-winning album recorded by the young musicians Repper nurtured during the height of the COVID pandemic was by African-American women – Price and two living composers, Jessie Montgomery and Valerie Coleman.

“My entire mission as a conductor,” Repper said just after his February 5 Grammy triumph, “is to connect people through music. I’m so proud that this project brought people together during the challenging time of the pandemic, and thrilled to have been able to share this tremendous music by Price, Montgomery, and Coleman.”

At 13, violin prodigy Elizabeth Song is about the same age as the younger musicians in the Repper-led youth orchestra. Song will play the piece that won her the $2,000 top prize at her live performance at the competition finals on January 12 in Easton.

Song played 19th-century Belgian composer Henri Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Minor, recognized in competition circles as a challenging concerto that allows performers to display their virtuosity. Young Song played it with beyond-her-years confidence and expressive nuance.

Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra Concerts
7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 9, Easton Church of God; 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 10, Community Church, Ocean Pines; 3 p.m. Sunday, March 11, Epworth United Methodist Church, Rehoboth Beach. midatlanticsymphony.org
***
“Don’t let it be forgot, that, for one brief, shining moment there was Camelot.” Jacqueline Kennedy recited that emotive lyric shortly after her husband’s assassination on November 22, 1963, in Dallas and for months and years after that. It was from her husband’s favorite Broadway musical that opened the year he was elected president. The 1960 Broadway musical encapsulates the fleeting idealism of a fictional court and castle in the 12th-century legend of King Arthur.

Years later, Clint Hill, Jackie’s Secret Service agent (who climbed out of the vehicle trailing the presidential limousine to push Mrs. Kennedy back in her seat) wrote that Jackie purposefully cultivated an immortal myth about her husband’s presidency. “Camelot” came to represent the youth, hope, and optimism of JFK and his thousand-day administration.

Previews of a Broadway revival of “Camelot” in a new version created by Aaron Sorkin and Bartlett Sher begin March 9 toward an April 13 opening. I can’t imagine it’s an accident that this “Camelot” debuts on the 50th anniversary year of the JFK assassination. If it runs through November 22, which I fully expect it will, there’s a matinee on that date beginning within the hour, Eastern time, when those of us who remember first heard the awful news.

Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot
Aaron Sorkin and Bartlett Sher collaborate on a new version of the classic musical. Previews begin March 9, Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center, Manhattan, opening April 13. broadway.com and discount sites such as seatgeek.com and stubhub.com

Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Mid-Shore Music: MSO’s Michael Repp Wins Grammy for Youth Symphony Work

February 7, 2023 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

Beyonce and all the prime-time stars were the centers of attention on Sunday night’s Grammy Awards TV broadcast. But the darlings among the off-air Grammy winners were the New York Youth Symphony (NYYS) and its conductor and mentor, Michael Repper, who will be returning to one of his other jobs – music director of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra in March.

It was a colossal achievement for the musicians – ages 12 to 22 – against the odds favoring superstar ensembles in the Best Orchestral Performance category and the pandemic. As Repper noted in his post-awards thank-you remarks, his young orchestra managed to record the winning album at a time when vaccines were available only, if at all, to those of grandparental age.

“I’m so honored to have represented the amazing New York Youth Symphony at the Grammy Awards and that together we took home our first Grammy,” Repper said. More than that, it was the first Grammy nomination (much less award) for any youth orchestra in Grammy history. “This project is a testament to the amazing impact that young people can have when they feel empowered to give it their all and when they have the resources and opportunity to achieve their dream. My entire mission as a conductor,” Repper said, “is to connect people through music. I’m so proud that this project brought people together during the challenging time of the pandemic, and thrilled to have been able to share this tremendous music by Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, and Valerie Coleman.”

The program was selected, in part, to honor largely overlooked African-American composers in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests ensuing from the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. (The New York Youth Symphony album is available on Apple Music.)

Aside from having to rehearse and record in separate socially distanced groups, some youngsters had to do so remotely. “I’m just so proud of them,” Repper said of his NYYS musicians, “not just for playing so far above their age, but also as ambassadors for young musicians everywhere. To these kids, I say thank you for believing in this crazy idea I had and running with it. And then to win the Grammy – it’s just nuts.”

Among the competition they bested in the Orchestral Performance category were John Williams conducting the Berlin Philharmoniker and Gustavo Dudamel leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Meanwhile, Grammy-winner Repper, also the music director of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, takes the podium in concerts on March 9 in Easton, March 10 in Ocean Pines, and March 11 in Rehoboth Beach. Besides the full orchestra, he will conduct 13th-year-old violin soloist Elizabeth Song in a program of Brahms and Florence Price. Repper was one of the three MSO judges who awarded the first-place prize to Song.

Tickets, concert times, and locations are available at midatlanticsymphony.org.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

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