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September 28, 2025

Chestertown Spy

Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Chestertown

Archives 1A Arts Lead

Somerville’s New Documentary Explores History of African American Churches

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Noted vocalist and local historian Karen Somerville announced her most recent film, released by Chesapeake Heartland, at the Starr Center for the Study of American Experience at Washington College.

“A Legacy of Praise and Worship in the African American Church” explores the African American church’s pivotal role and historic influence within the spiritual community.

During her Curation Fellowship at Chesapeake Heartland, Sommerville produced several well-received documentaries. These include “The Story of Emma L. Grason Miller and Mother Mary Lange,” which tells the story of the founding of Henry Highland Garnet School, and the documentary “The Uptown Club,” describing the legendary music venue in Chestertown that hosted some of the most renowned Black performers of the mid-twentieth century.

“I encourage everyone to explore the Chesapeake Heartland site to discover the remarkable collaborations that have preserved our Black History. It’s a treasure trove of stories, memories, and resilience,” Somerville says.

From their website, “the mission of Chesapeake Heartland is to preserve, digitize, interpret, and make accessible materials related to African American history and culture in Kent County, Maryland and beyond. In collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington College’s Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, and a diverse array of local organizations, Chesapeake Heartland seeks to build a model of grassroots preservation, curation, and interpretation for communities across the region.”

To watch the documentary and find out more about Chesapeake Heartland, please go here.

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David Faleris Appointed New Full-Time Executive Director of Chesapeake Music

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David Faleris

As the 2024 Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival concludes, Chesapeake Music is pleased to announce the appointment of David Faleris of Newburyport, Massachusetts as its new full-time Executive Director.

Most recently, Faleris has served as Deputy Director of Newburyport Art Association. Before that, he was the Senior Recruitment & Admissions Officer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, UK. As a seasoned arts administrator, he has over 15 years of diverse experience with renowned institutions across three countries, including working as a program administrator for Tanglewood Institute at Boston University.

Barry Koh, President of Chesapeake Music Board of Directors, states, “We are very excited to welcome David as the new and first full-time Executive Director of Chesapeake Music.  He brings the artistic sensitivity of a musician and composer, and a deep knowledge of modern communication systems, social media, and digital management programs.  David is sure to bring fresh ideas that will lead us to new programming, presentations, and performances.”

Faleris holds a Master of Music in Scoring for Film/TV/Video Games from Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain, and a Master of Music in Trombone Performance from Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music with a minor in computer science from Boston College.

“I think that Chesapeake Music is in a unique position, with its current tools, artistic directors, volunteers, board members, generous supporters, and its rich history,” says Faleris.  “to not only turn the page to a new chapter for itself but also to explore how it might make a positive impact on the future of classical music as a whole”.

He continues, “Collaboration will be quite fundamental to the future of the performing arts. Working in an interdisciplinary fashion can unlock different aspects of artistry, allowing artists to heighten ambitions for their own projects while finding new ways to communicate their ideas. In addition, embracing technology will be essential, not just for music and musicians, but even more for nonprofits as they figure out how to leverage new tools. People are expecting more to be done with fewer resources. We have to adapt to that. It is also a key to attracting the next generation of artists who will continue to take things forward.”

Faleris is looking forward to returning to Maryland, his home state, in early July and to becoming part of the fabric of the Eastern Shore community.

Based in Easton, Maryland, Chesapeake Music is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to bring renowned jazz and classical musicians to delight, engage and surprise today’s audiences, and educate, inspire, and develop tomorrow’s. They have been doing it for more than 35 years! To learn more about Chesapeake Music, visit their website at https://chesapeakemusic.org/.

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Mystery Artist: Who Knows Anything about this Mid-Shore Painting and Painter

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In an upcoming Spy interview with Greg Zimmerman about the future of the site where the Talbot County Health Department is currently is located, he send along to us a remarkable painting of the same spot but almost 100 years earlier. It now hangs in the Maryland Room at the TAlbot County Free Library in Easton.

Sadly, no one at the Library, Talbot County Historical Society, nor the few art experts the Spy contacted over the last few weeks have any additional information about the artist or other circumstances related to this rare view of life on the Hill.

We would welcome any and call tips from the Spy readership to solve this puzzle.

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Virtuoso Cellist Sterling Elliott to Perform at the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival By James Carder

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Cellist Sterling Elliott

“Perfect intonation, style, and total involvement.”

“His discernible love for the music won over the audience.”

Praised for his musicality, sensitivity, dexterity, and performing ease by audiences and critics alike, the 25-year-old American cellist Sterling Elliott will be featured in three concerts at the 2024 Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival held at the Academy Art Museum. in Easton, Maryland. A child prodigy, Elliott began playing the cello at the age of three. He made his orchestral concerto debut at the age of seven and has since received numerous prestigious awards and performed with the world’s leading symphony orchestras. A graduate of The Juilliard School in New York City, he currently is pursuing an Artist Diploma at Juilliard under the direction of renowned cellists Joel Krosnick and Clara Kim.

Chesapeake Music audience members will remember Sterling Elliott’s exciting recital with pianist Elliot Wuu in 2022. The two musicians will be reunited at this year’s Festival performing Claude Debussy’s famous Rêverie in an arrangement for cello and piano (Saturday, June 15). Sterling Elliott will also perform Brahms’ beautiful and majestic first piano trio (with Sahun Sam Hong and Max Tan on Thursday, June 13). He will take the demanding, virtuosic first cello part in Luigi Boccherini’s String Quintet in A Major (with Catherine Cho, Max Tan, DanielPhillips, and Marcy Rosen on Friday, June 14). The last opportunity to enjoy Elliott’s stellar stage presence and joyous musicianship will be at the Festival Finale on Saturday, June 15, where, in addition to Debussy’s Rêverie, he will perform Arthur Foote’s A Night Piece and Scherzo for Flute and String Quartet (with Tara Helen O’Connor,Daniel Phillips, Max Tan, and Catherine Cho).

Asked what he envisioned his future as a classical musician to be, Elliott replied: “My goal as an artist has always been to simply share my passion with audiences across the globe. However, as my career develops and I can expand further on the idea of my role as an artist in society, I would like my ultimate goal in music to be focused on furthering music’s reach in all communities.” To that end, he takes seriously his standing in the classical music world as a Black role model. “Along with performing in concert halls, I frequent smaller communities and educational settings in which my position as a role model and an inspiring figure becomes clearly evident to other people of color.” “It brings me great satisfaction to be at a point in my career where I have the freedom to open up my agenda to several artistic engagements in under-resourced communities which might have a little budget for public music education, let alone a traveling guest artist.” In recognition of this commitment and of his astounding success as a classical musician, in March 2024 Sterling was awarded the highly coveted Sphinx Medal of Excellence and a $50,000 career grant, the highest honor bestowed by the Sphinx Organization – a non-profit dedicated to the development of young Black and Latino classical musicians. The award was presented in recognition of Sterling’s artistic excellence, his outstanding work ethic, and his ongoing commitment to leadership and his community.

And when he is back home, he loves working on, and building cars. “That’s what I love to do – be in the garage all day.”  In Easton, his love for his art, his total involvement with his music, will win over the audience.

For program information and to purchase tickets, go to https://chesapeakemusic.org/festival/.

 

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Concert Review: Chestertown’s National Festival by Steve Parks

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The National Music Festival, now in the orchestral phase of its two-week residency at Washington College, performed one of its signature apprentice-and-mentor concerts Saturday night, anchored by Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3, better known as “The Scottish Symphony,” conducted by festival artistic director Richard Rosenberg.

Richard Rosenberg

Most of the players in these symphonic concerts are talented young musicians who are on the cusp of professional careers. Coming from about 30 states and a dozen countries, they auditioned for a spot in the festival to be mentored by seasoned professionals and teachers who perform among them in major concerts on campus at the Decker Theatre concert hall. First up was Friday night’s program featuring Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with soprano soloist Caitlin Redding, whose usual concert venues are in Barcelona, Berlin and other European arts capitals.

I wondered why several men in the lobby on Saturday, waiting for the pre-concert talk to begin, wore kilts. But then it dawned on me. Of course, the “Scottish Symphony” was the final piece for what turned out to be an all-Scottish program. The first of the evening – Overture in C, Opus 1, No. 2 by Thomas Erskine, the 6th Earl of Kellie – is a title linked to the 12th-century Scottish castle. Erskine was famed for his talent as a composer but also for notoriety as founder of an all-male drinking club. His music fell into obscurity in modern times. So its performance in the festival was something of a curiosity.
Written in the 1760s for a comic opera that made its way to London’s Covent Garden Royal Opera House, the overture in three movements bears some resemblance to a symphony, but not quite full blown. Its sprightly opening creates a see-saw aural effect as written for the string section, broken only by occasional brass and clarinet shoutouts.  The more solemn second movement resembles a strings-only weeping fit that settles into a soothing melody only to switch back and forth before the third movement’s rhythmically danceable motif presents a catchy, if repetitive, melody. Conductor Elisabeth Thomas and the mostly strings orchestra deliver a coherent interpretation of a flawed and outdated museum piece of an overture. An “underture,” if you will.
The difference in quality of composition takes a notable leap with Alexander Campbell Mackenzie in his Pibroch Suite for Violin and Orchestra, ably conducted by Britney Alcine. (Pibroch is associated with Scottish bagpipe music, but no bagpipers were in play Saturday night.) Though his music largely fell out of favor after Mackenzie’s death in 1935, a 1997 recording by Malcolm Stewart and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra brought new attention to the piece’s robust and physically challenging intensity. Although technically written for violin and orchestra, one of the most outstanding contributions by the latter were harpist Eric Sabatino’s dreamy embroidery as violin soloist Emma McGrath endeavored to bring us to tears,  playing her melodrama that ends the first-movement “Rhapsody” with a whispering whistle of bow-on-string.
The middle “Caprice” movement is indeed capricious – given the abrupt changes from dramatic violin pyrotechnics to a tender folk motif that enlivens the full orchestra – brass section and all –  with the opportunity to be more than a mere supporting cast. The final “Dance” movement begins with a chattering solo passage by McGrath, up and down the scale at a flawlessly furious pace with rare breaks from the lead. She looked at times as if she was about to cry herself – maybe from exhaustion at the extraordinary volume of notes to execute, leading to a thunderous finish with all strings on board, led by mentor concertmaster Dane Goode and, of course, the star soloist.
Most remarkable was that McGrath only started to learn the piece a few weeks earlier when the scheduled violin soloist had to drop out. The standing ovation she earned required an encore appearance to take one more bow.
Intermission gave a welcome break, not just for the audience, but for the final performance of the evening with such a tough act to follow. Fortunately, Richard Rosenberg was conducting a piece that more fully engaged the whole orchestra, which proved up to the challenge. Swollen to its fullest extent with upwards toward 90 musicians made for a richer sound than you can expect these days from even the finest professional orchestras whose players all must be paid.
The orchestra got to show its muscle in the somber opening Andante, followed by the sound-and-fury of the aptly named Allegro “agitato” that concludes the first movement. The relatively brief Vivace second movement, introduced with barely a pause, a Scottish folk music theme both in melody and rhythm, which grew in intensity and pace to something of a gallop. The third movement Adagio, suggesting a pastoral scene with a thunderous interlude that subsides before alternating in pace and mood again. Another very brief pause signals the final movement’s serialist Allegro starting with the “guerriero,” which sounds and signifies a combative stance. It’s followed by an Allegro “vivacissimo,” vibrantly fast-paced as if reacting to danger or strife. The Allegro “maestoso,” builds to a triumphant finish heralded by an all-brass bugle call or in this case, trumpet and horn, with patriotic fervor.
There’s another week of the festival ahead. Besides the orchestral concerts, there are intimate chamber music performances, free “Lunchtime Bites” recitals and outdoor pop-up concerts in various Chestertown locations, as well as master classes and open rehearsals. Rehearsing for concerts in a week or less gives the apprentice musicians experience they will need as professionals performing in ensembles ranging from string or brass quartets to full symphonic orchestras.
This year’s cast of mentors include Brazilian guitarist Camilo Carrara and violinist McGrath, who traveled from Australia, where she is concertmaster of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. They join mentors who have been with the festival since its 2011 inception: Dana Goode (violin), Jared Hauser (oboe), Jeff Keesecker (bassoon), Tom Parchman (clarinet) and Jennifer Parker-Harley (flute).
Among the upcoming festival concerts are Friday, June 14, featuring a Rossini overture and Emilie Mayer’s Symphony No. 1, and the June 15 Saturday night finale culminating in the Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” with Rosenberg conducting.
NATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL
Through June 15 in and around Gibson Center for the Arts, Washington College, and other Chestertown locations. nationalmusic.us

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Concert Review: Chamber Music Fest Opening Night, by Steve Parks

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The Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival celebrated its 39th annual opening night on Friday with a diverse medley of classics performed by its longtime lineup of globally acclaimed musicians along with scene-stealing guest artistry by a young Grammy-nominated string quartet known for its dressed-for-fun virtuosity.

The only apparent hitch in the evening had nothing to do with the music. On a relatively last-minute decision, the concert – and possibly the entire festival – was relocated from its Ebenezer Theater home base to the auditorium in nearby Academy Art Museum. More on that later.

Opening night, billed as an “Extravaganza,” mostly lived up to that superlative, beginning with Richard Strauss’ Sextet in Strings, Opus 85, featuring two paired violins, violas and cellos with co–artistic directors Marcy Rosen (cellist) and Catherine Cho (violist) joined by the aforementioned string ensemble, the Aizuri Quartet: violinists Emma Frucht and Miho Saegusa, violist Brian Hong and cellist Caleb von der Swaagh. (No strangers to Easton, they were finalists in the Chesapeake Music International Concerto Competition a decade ago at the Avalon Theater.) The lush Strauss sextet that opened “Capriccio,” the final opera he wrote, introduces  a somber motif passed among the players. Picking up the pace dramatically and without pause, the six string players turned seamlessly to searing passages with violin calls and viola responses, concluding with dual cello solos revisiting the opening theme, this time in a major key.

pianist Leva Jokubaviciute

Next up, and to me the highlight of the concert, was Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in G minor, Opus 17. As pianist Leva Jokubaviciute observed in her opening remarks, Schumann was recognized as one the finest pianists of her 19th-century time but also – rare for that era – as an accomplished composer. She wrote remarkable piano pieces that she played as well or better than anyone of either gender of which this piano trio is regarded as her masterpiece.

After cellist Rosen took charge to rearrange the chairs and music stands to her liking, the wistfully melodic opening allegro gave way to high-drama string interchanges and tumbling piano keystrokes suggesting an intemperate demand for resolution that grows more and more impatient as if throwing serial fits. The mood turns distinctly lighter in the second movement with strings taking the lead early in an almost cheerful demeanor. The piano introduces the third movement Andante tenderly as the melody is taken up by Todd Phillips’ violin, suggesting a let-it-be acceptance. The final movement advances with renewed confidence and determination through perky strings amplified by expressive piano overlay before racing toward an assertively optimistic conclusion.
After intermission, the guest Aizuri Quartet proved their mettle in Schubert’s famously melodramatic “Death and the Maiden” String Quartet No. 14 in D minor. Severely ill at the time he wrote it, Franz Shubert was fully aware he was dying, which accounts for the ferocity of his composition as well as the attacking of strings by the Aizuri foursome. Taken from a song Schubert had written years earlier, a young girl asks Death to pass her by. Moods shift inexorably between dark and light throughout the piece, expressed alternately by angry fortissimo and placid (or resigned) pianissimo. The spirited first movement brings to mind parrying and thrusts as if fencing for notes – or for one’s life.
Throughout, moods shift from lyricism to agitation and back again, rendered by each player, with brief solo violin turns of almost screaming vocalizations of despair to the percussive heartbeat of cello pizzicato. The final movement mimics a chattering exchange among the four in musically disparate states of their duel with Death before returning to agitation at a galloping pace to the end.
So who was the winner of the evening? Everyone who attended. And the best news is there is much more to come.
Festival concerts that follow the opening-night triple play include Saturday night’s “Personal Perspectives,” with festival co-artistic director Cho performing Mozart’s Duo for Violin and Viola with her husband, violinist Phillips. Also on the program is Schubert’s counterintuitively lighthearted Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major composed just a year before his death. In between is a short work commissioned for the Aizuri Quartet, Reena Esmail’s Zeher (Poison) for String Quartet, combining South Asian and Western themes. The guest ensemble returns Sunday with Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s String Quartet in E-flat major, recognizing the unsung sibling of Felix, who – due to conventions of the time – is credited with writing six of his big sister’s songs. Next is Schubert’s Fantasia for Piano
Four-Hands in F minor, considered one of his greatest hits. Wrapping up the late matinee program is Erno Dohnanyi’s Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, Opus 1, written when the composer was 17. It so impressed Johannes Brahms that he performed its premiere himself.
The festival resumes on Thursday next week with Haydn’s “London” Symphony for Flute, String Quartet and Piano. It’s followed by Pietro Bottisini’s Andante and Variations for Flute, Clarinet and String Quartet, featuring perennial festival contributors Tara Helen O’Connor and J. Lawrie Bloom on the woodwind instruments. Brahms puts the final notes on the evening with his Piano Trio No. 1 in B  major, Opus 8, with Sahun Sam Hong on the ivory. Next Friday’s concert puts the spotlight on winners of Chesapeake Music’s most recent biennial International Concerto Competition, the Amara Trio – Christina  Nam (violin), Nagyeom Jang (cello) and Kevin Jansson (piano) – likely reprising their prize-winning number, Shostakovich’s challenging Piano Concerto No. 2 in E minor, Opus 67, preceded by 20th-century composer Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio. The opener for the evening, Luigi Bocchereni’s String Quintet in A major, composed by the virtuoso cellist, brings two other cellists to the fore – Rosen and young Sterling Elliott, who wowed Chesapeake Music audiences twice before, followed by young Oregon-born  composer Kenji Bunch’s “Vesper Flight for Flute and Piano,” a 2021 work commissioned by flutist O’Connor in memory of her parents.
The Festival Finale next Saturday night begins with “A Night Piece and Scherzo for Flute and String Quartet” by American composer Arthur Foote who favored late European Romanticism, Claude Debussy’s “Reverie” arranged for cello and piano, performed by Elliott and his “Rising Stars” partner Eliot Wuu, “Serenade for Clarinet, Cello and Piano” by Danish composer Emil Hartmann inspired by Scandinavian folk tunes and, finally, Elgar’s Piano Quintet that approaches or achieves orchestral proportions.
Something old, something new, something unexpected. That’s the mark of the latest iteration of this distinguished chamber festival.
On a practical note: Ticket holders should pay attention to their emails or text messages. It’s possible that week 2 of festival concerts may switch back to the Ebenezer. According to Bluepoint Hospitality, which owns and operates this and other downtown Easton arts-related businesses and restaurants, the Ebenezer “needed repairs on the former church built in 1856.” Stay tuned.
Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival
Through Sunday and next week through June 15, Thursday-Saturday, Academy Art Museum (or possibly in week 2, at Ebenezer Theater), both in downtown Easton. Concerts start at 7:30 p.m. except Sunday at 5:30. chesapeakemusic.org
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

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Spy Art Minute: OERDY at Out of the Fire

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The Spy has repeatedly noted over the years that one of the best and most exciting art galleries on the Eastern Shore masquerades as a restaurant.  And that continues to be true of Out of the Fire after moving to Washington Avenue last year.

In this case, OOTF is showing in the front room the artwork by German artist OERDY. With an extraordinary backstory of being an East German who attempted to escape to Western Berlin before the wall came down, served time in jail for his failed attempt, and then became one of the recently united Germany’s most respected journalists, Erdmann Hummel took on the name of OERDY for his second life as an artist.

While two paintings on display are portraits of journalists he worked with who have been important witnesses to the Russian war against Ukraine, OREDY has used the power and independence of the zebra as a fitting metaphor for the brave souls caught in war and those attempting to tell their stories.

This video is approximately two minutes in length. Information and opening times can be found here for Out of the Fire. 

 

 

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Dar Williams & Friend Together in Song at the Avalon by Steve Parks

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“I won’t forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy
I’m glad he didn’t check
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night.”
–“When I Was a Boy,” Dar Williams
She was born Dorothy Snowden Williams. One of her big sisters, Julie or Meredith, first mispronounced her name. Dar instead of Dorothy. And it stuck. For life. It’s just as well. Her parents had thought about naming her Darcy, after the character in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” But he was Mr. Darcy. When asked in a phone interview if that’s why she identified as a boy in the song she wrote and recorded on her album, “The Honesty Room” in 1993, Williams replied with a sly smile in her voice: “Maybe.”

Dar Williams

But how did she learn “all the tricks that boys know,” as she wrote in “When I Was a Boy”? She didn’t have brothers to mimic. But the Mount Kisco, New York, neighborhood she grew up in “was filled with boys,” she said, adding that she was more interested in their games – such as football. More than playing with Barbie, we suppose. She was also into garbage and where it went. A teacher told Dar that she might grow up to be a “garbage-olist.” She sort of has. More on that later. For now, just know that she’s playing the Avalon Theater Saturday night, May 11,

Her first love in the arts was theater. Maybe because she grew up acting and dressing like a boy “with short hair and all. I was very theatrical,” she says, as if she might’ve auditioned for the tomboy role of Anybodys in “West Side Story.” Moving to Massachusetts in 1990 to explore a career in theater, she worked as stage manager for the Opera Company of Boston, but soon turned to music, writing her own songs. “When I Was a Boy” led off her self-produced “Honesty Room” album. Williams had enough talent and good luck to attract the attention of Joan Baez, for whom she opened in the early ’90s. Baez was impressed enough to record some of Williams’ songs herself.
So then, Dar Williams had a career. “Joan went out of her way to be a mentor,” Williams says. In the realm of folk music, who could possibly have a better mentor? “She was sisterly,” Williams recalls with love and gratitude. “She modeled for me how to be on the road and enjoy it all and find a home away from home wherever you are.”
Williams seems to be paying it forward during this “Spring Colors Return” tour with Heather Maloney, who in her 30s is 20 years or so younger than Dar. Easton is their ninth stop in 10 days and nights on this road odyssey, which ends in Hawaii after a six-week break. They shared the driving throughout the South before winding up at the Avalon. “We share ideas for audiobooks to listen to, and Heather jumps out of the car to remove a cone that’s placed for our parking spot or calls ahead if we don’t know where the venue’s parking lot is.”
On stage Saturday night, Williams will sing some of her songs and Maloney some of those she’s written “and we’ll sing a few together,” Dar says.
Aside from writing music, Dar Williams is also an author of a few non-fiction books, including “What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musicians’ Guide to Rebuilding America’s Communities – One Coffee Shop, Dog Run & Open-Mike Night at a Time.” Her theme is the recovery of downtowns across the U.S. that were drained by the crush of malls and big-box stores. Easton is on her list of favorite small-town downtowns, possibly because there was never a mall here. And now there probably never will be.
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When the tour ends in late June, the singer-songwriter and budding “garbage-ologist” moves on to her next gig – the annual River Roads Festival in Easthampton with a full day of music Sept. 7 headlined by Dar Williams, along with Cheryl Wheeler, Haley Heynderickx, Gail Ann Dorsey, Paula Cole, the High Tea duo and more artists. But the garbage mission comes into play the next day, as concert-goers and performers turn out to clean up the shoreline of the Connecticut River with the help of Connecticut River Conservancy, for which the festival concert raises money.
“Playing music is very abstract,” says Williams. “Getting my feet wet wading into the river is really grounded.”
When asked if she has a list of songs she considers must-play numbers on her tour, Williams says she has about 10 songs that would qualify, of which she may play two or three. She likes to mix it up, especially with a talented fellow singer-songwriter on the bill with her. But if Dar reads this story, she may consider “When I Was a Boy” my request. Among other songs that might be on her top-10 list are “Beauty of the Rain,” “Fishing in the Morning,” “The Great Unknown,” “It Happens Every Day,” “Mercy of the Fallen,” “The One Who Knows,” “So Close to My Heart,” “You Rise and Meet the Day” and “February.” Williams’ most recent album is “I’ll Meet You Here,” 2021; Maloney’s most recent is “Soil in the Sky,” 2019.
If you miss Saturday’s Avalon concert and can’t make it up to Massachusetts for River Roads, you can book a cruise next fall, October 2025. “Rhine, Women & Song” features Dar Williams, Susan Werner and Heather Maloney. Apparently, Dar loves rivers and the road.
Dar Williams in Concert With Heather Maloney
8 p.m. Saturday, May 11, Avalon Theatre main stage, 40 E. Dover St., Easton.
avalonfoundation.org; River Roads Festival, Easthampton, Mass., Sept. 7. riverroadsfestival.com; “Rhine, Women & Song” Rhine River cruise, Oct. 7-14, 2025. fanclubcruises.com/event/rhine-women-and-song

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Giving Up on Giving In: Christina Vane at the Stoltz by Mark Pelavin

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Over the course of her terrific show at the Stoltz Listening Room, Christina Vane described herself as being “from everywhere” and “from nowhere.”  Those two observations perfectly capture the uniqueness of her songs; while her lyrics and music both reflect a wide array of influences (the Mississippi Delta blues first and foremost) they also capture someone trying to find, or to create, a place for herself in an often-challenging world.

Born in Italy to a Sicilian-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Vane grew up between England, France, and Italy. After college in New Jersey and some hard years in Los Angeles, she has now begun to put down roots in Nashville (a cliche’ that Vane herself would probably be quick to make fun of). 

Vane opened with Make Myself Me Again, the title song from her most recent album and a perfect song to introduce herself. With her powerful voice, and accompanied by her ringing guitar, Vane sings: “Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win/ I’m gonna make myself me again/ I’m giving up on giving in/ I’m gonna make myself me again.” 

The heart of the show was a series of songs Vane wrote on her 2021 road trip from Los Angeles to Nashville. It was her first exposure to the American West, which made a powerful impression on the “woman from nowhere.”  She told an interviewer that before the trip she “seldom wrote about anything besides human emotion and relationships” and that her trip “opened up my experiences to visions and sensations I had never seen or felt.”  Badlands, her tribute to the “land of salt and dirt” was particularly moving. The juxtaposition of her guitar playing, which is deeply rooted in the rich soil of the American South, and her observations about the starkness of the Badlands was striking. Dreaming of Utah, a slow country waltz, was another highlight, with Vane singing “I’m pining for mountains of green/or of stone/for the silence that’s haunting/when you’re truly alone.”

Vane’s guitar playing is just as effective, and vivid, as her songwriting. Her primary guitar is a custom National Resonator, played with a bottleneck slide. (This is the guitar Paul Simon sang about on Graceland, “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar.”)  The guitar’s metal and wood construction gives a distinctive sound that is metallic and twangy, rich and resonant.  None of that would matter if Vane was not a top-flight guitarist. But she is indeed a gifted player; the joy she brought to her short, smart, solos was infectious.

Vane offered up a quartet of new songs, one of which, No Roots, was performed live for the first time. She introduced another new song, Getting High in Hotel Rooms, joking that she was “a woman of mystery,” since no one could figure out what the song was about! It was indeed about hotel rooms, and about life on the road and persistence: “I’ll travel far and travel light/I can play the blues all night. I’m trying/Lord knows/ I’ll keep on drivin’.” My Mountain, played clawhammer style on the banjo, is something of a purpose statement for Vane: “I come to you with open hands/I learn your hands and I listen/you think know what I’m missing/but you haven’t seen my mountain.”

Another new song, You Ain’t’ Special, is Vane’s upcoming single. It is a fun, straight-forward country song (“You ain’t special/like your mama said you was”) with less echoes of the blues than her earlier songs.  You can imagine, say, Miranda Lambert doing a great version. 

Annapolis-based singer/songwriter Skribe did a short, compelling set to open the show, offering up four new, unreleased songs. Landlines and Love Letters was the highlight of his short set, recounting his recent, unsuccessful attempts at “the art of pursuit.”   

The show in Easton was the second of a run that will take Vane across the country between now and September. (Dates are available at https://www.cristinavane.com/.)  Keep an eye out for her.

Mark Pelavin, the founder of Hambleton Cove Consulting, is a writer, consultant and music lover living, very happily, in St. Michaels.

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

Engaging Street Mural to Enhance Safety Measures on Love Point Road in Stevensville

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Engaging Street Mural to Enhance Safety Measures on Love Point Road in Stevensville

A vibrant and engaging street mural is set to grace Love Point Road in Stevensville, serving not only as a captivating artistic expression but also as a tool to enhance traffic safety in downtown Stevensville. Spanning approximately 125 feet from the stop sign on Love Point Road (in front of Peace of Cake) towards Route 18, this mural promises to infuse color into the community while addressing traffic concerns.

Scheduled to commence on Monday, May 6, and continue until May 17, 2024, this initiative will entail a partial road closure with no-thru traffic along the eastbound lane of Love Point Road, from Route 18 to East Main Street. The closure will be effective Monday through Friday, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The completed work each day will be dry and ready for traffic by 4:00 PM, pending favorable weather conditions. Work will not be done on days when it is raining.

Businesses on this stretch of road will be open for businesses and the businesses and residences will be accessible by the westbound lane of Love Point Road.

The project is strategically planned for completion just in time for the Annual Kent Island Days, slated for Saturday, May 18, 2024. Its realization is made possible through the support of a Safety Grant from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, highlighting a collaborative effort to enhance community well-being.

“We recognize the importance of this project in not only enriching our streetscape but also in prioritizing safety measures for our residents and visitors,” said Heather Tinelli, Director of Economic and Tourism Development “We extend our sincere appreciation for the community’s patience and understanding throughout this endeavor.”

For further information or concerns regarding the project, please contact Heather Tinelli, Director of Queen Anne’s County Economic and Tourism Development, at (410) 604-2100 or [email protected].

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