Royalty has come to the Nation’s Capital just in time for Independence Day. King Tut makes his first visit to the United States in 25 years with what is described as a “cinematic immersive” Smithsonian exhibition. But what’s a quarter-century in the short life and 3,300-year afterlife of the legendary child pharaoh? Beyond King Tut: An Immersive Experience celebrates the centennial anniversary of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt’s fabled Valley of the Kings. 

Instead of the don’t-touch artifacts in standard museum displays of mummy paraphernalia, this National Geographic show deploys replicas and high-definition projections to take you inside Tut’s tomb. Beyond that, as the title suggests, you’ll catch glimpses of the ancient world outside – from the Great Sphinx to a sunrise ascent over the Pyramids of Giza and a two-millennium time trip to the 1922 unearthing of Tut’s resting place constructed and accessorized with his quest for immortality in mind. Timed admission tickets: nationalgeographic.org/tickets/events

Re-emerge into the here-and-now literally outside on the National Mall, and depending on the time of your visit, you can stroll through the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival on your way to the Constitution Avenue side of the Mall to take in the Independence Day Parade featuring floats, marching bands, and giant balloons. Other highlights of the D.C. Fourth include a 3 p.m. Musical Celebration at the National Cathedral and, of course, fireworks starting at 9:09 p.m. bursting across the skies over the Mall. (For the best view, fireworks cruises on the Potomac depart from Washington Harbour at 7:30.) The Capitol Fourth Concert on the West Lawn of the Capitol itself is best seen on PBS since post-Jan. 6, 2021 security makes in-person attendance problematic.

Among July 4th observances on this side of the Bay, Ocean City offers free beach entertainment all through the holiday weekend with family-friendly movies, including Sing 2 on July 1st, and games at the 27th Street beachfront or near the Carousel Hotel and fireworks on the night of July 4th. Just up the coast in Delaware, Rehoboth Beach celebrates one day early with fireworks at 9:30 on Sunday, July 3rd, preceded by a concert on the beachfront bandstand. There’s even a small chance of a President and First Lady holiday sighting. 

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Get ready for the next big art event in Easton by checking out galleries all over the Midshore. Although most painters who enter the Plein Air Festival starting July 15th select vistas in Talbot County, a few go further afield to neighboring counties. Here’s a gallery sampler for the month.

In Cambridge, you might be intrigued by the Hookers, Strippers & Dyers exhibit – but it’s not what you think. Artists Betty Burbage and Elissa Crouch practice the traditional folk art of rug hooking, which also involves dying and stripping fabric into colorful strands woven into whatever patterns the artists imagine. The show runs only through July 3rd at Main Street Gallery www.mainstgallery.net. Despite its name, the gallery’s location is 518 Poplar St.

Nearby on High Street, the Dorchester Center for the Arts dorchesterarts.org brings Outside In with its July exhibit of works by self-trained “outsider” artists. Among them are Mose and Annie Tolliver and Howard Finster – whose imaginative creations have appeared in Baltimore’s Visionary Art Museum and Smithsonian’s American Art Museum in D.C. Ed Krell of Hooper’s Island, who specializes in large-scale chalk artworks, demonstrates his technique in a free Second Saturday reception, 5-7 p.m. July 9th, with music by Marianne and the Misfits, also from Hooper’s Island.  

In Chestertown, MassoniArt, massoniart.com which has expanded to a street-level gallery on Cross Street near the original second-story High Street space, splits its Summer Gallery Artists Exhibition on July 1st between the two locations. A few doors down on High, the Artists’ Gallery theartistsgalleryctown.com opens Shore Delights by Nancy Thomas with a First Friday reception on July 1st, introducing a month-long tag-sale show. 

Get in the plein-air mood at Adkins Arboretum adkinsarboretum.org near Ridgely with botanist Anna Harding’s vibrant color-pencil Wake Up . . . We Need Everybody drawings opening July 5th at the visitor’s center gallery. Then take a forested stroll through the site-specific Re-Vision installation by Howard and Mary McCoy.  

Circling back to Easton’s arts district along Harrison Street, Trippe Gallery thetrippegallery.com hosts a First Friday reception for artist David Csont, 5-8 p.m. July 1st. Next, the gallery celebrates the Plein Air Festival’s opening day with a Variations exhibit of paintings by 15 artists inspired by the same photograph taken by gallery co-founder Nanny Trippe. Among them is Nancy Tankersley, a Plein Air Easton founder.  Also on Harrison, Troika Gallery troikagallery.com continues its summerlong Raoul Middleman, A Life Well Painted show and sale of works by the late Baltimore painter and one-time Plein Air Festival celebrity artist.  

Meanwhile, around the corner on Goldsborough Street, Studio B Art Gallery studiobgallery.com hosts a Plein Air workshop starting July 11th at various Talbot County outdoor sites led by painter Jove Wang. A free reception toasts the opening of Masterstrokes: Visions of Jove Wang exhibit, 5-8 p.m. July 15th at the gallery.   

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

 

The 37th annual Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival opened its second week with “Mozart and More” – something familiar and something probably never heard before by most if not all the audience at an early evening concert at downtown Easton’s beautiful Ebenezer Theater.

In his mid-to-late 20s, from 1782 to 1785, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed six string quartets in apparent homage to Haydn, his mentor and father-figure friend, who had just published six of his own quartets. But there’s no mistaking this third piece in the series for that of anyone but Mozart.

As played by a stellar foursome – Chesapeake Music’s co-artistic directors, cellist Marcy Rosen and violinist Catherine Cho, along with violist Maiya Papach and violinist Jennifer Liu – Mozart’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428 got what this masterpiece deserves: a spirited and finely honed performance.

An energetic opening movement is marked by the deployment of nine notes of the 12 in the chromatic scale. Arranged with oddly spaced intervals, it somehow delights in the form of a sonata jumping unexpectedly to a new key, B-flat major, and teases with a few others while still managing a crisp landing. In the more somber second-movement andante, Rosen lays down a meditative undercurrent to Cho and Liu’s duel violin entreaties echoed by Papach on viola.

As if awakened from a dream, the more assertive third-movement minuet comes closest to a salute to Haydn with its witty and playful opening before resolving into a distinctly Mozart tableau of artfully rendered expressions of sadness and consolation. The complex allegro finale seems to pose a question with teasing fillips that are answered with rambunctious conviction before evolving into a pleasing upper-string melody punctuated with finality by four triumphant chords.

The second half of the one-hour-and-change concert without intermission featured J. Lawrie Bloom in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet in f-sharp minor, Opus 10, performed with the same quartet as on the Mozart piece. Bloom, now retired, co-founded the Chesapeake chamber festival, now in its 37th year, with Rosen. The performance marked the first time that Bloom, for many years bass clarinetist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, has performed this quintet, which he says is both “magnificent” and “massively overlooked” – perhaps in part due to racial bias as it was written by an Anglo-African composer who died at 35 in 1912.

Seated in the center, flanked by the two violinists to his right with the cellist and violist to his left, Bloom is quiet at first as the Rosen plucks the cello forcefully in a percussive manner accompanied by syncopated viola and pizzicato violins, announcing that this is a true ensemble quintet and not just a vehicle for solo clarinet virtuoso moments. Not until its recapitulation does the clarinet play the principal theme of the first movement, resembling jazz in its phrasing.

The second-movement Larghetto is also introduced by strings, principally by violinists Cho and Liu, in a pastoral theme suggesting a folk melody. The theme is repeated with tender, almost harp-like upper strings of the cello, and the soaring pianissimo of the first violin. A gently emotive cadenza passage led by Bloom’s bass clarinet brings the movement to sweet and satisfying repose. A double-time scherzo movement awakens the audience from the preceding lullaby effects with a rhythmic buoyancy and an affable clarinet melody before the strings grow restive again like an antsy brood before settling down to accompany Bloom’s birdsong reeds.

The finale, aptly characterized as an allegro agitato, opens with a boldly wandering exploration flowing in a rapidly swirling stream from F sharp minor to G minor and back again. A brief interlude recollects the tender theme of the Larghetto until the vivace, now in F sharp major, whips up a bit more frenzy, perhaps influenced by Dvorak – greatly admired by Coleridge-Taylor – before emerging from the musical forest with a peaceful coda pulling it all together.

The festival continues Friday, June 17, with a performance by Trio Colores, the Swiss-based percussion ensemble that won the Chesapeake Chamber Music International Competition in April. The concert begins with the Trio in b minor for Oboe, Clarinet, and Piano by Edouard Destenay. Saturday night’s “Festival Finale” program opens with Mozart’s Piano Trio in E Major, K. 542, followed by living American composer John Harbison’s “Six American Painters” performed by oboist Peggy Pearson with violinist Cho, violist Papach and cellist Rosen. Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet in f-sharp minor, Opus 67, featuring pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute concludes the festival. Except in case of an encore.

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

CHESAPEAKE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL

“Mozart and More” concert, Thursday, June 16. Mozart’s String Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 428 and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet in E-sharp minor, Opus 10. Upcoming concerts: Friday, June 17 and Saturday, June 18, Ebenezer Theater, Easton. Tickets: chesapeakemusic.org

This year’s two-week classical series should take nothing away from musicians who performed in the 2021 Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, which also marked the debut of the Ebenezer Theater as an exquisitely tasteful and tune-worthy concert hall.

Just as we began to think COVID-19 might become a past-tense pandemic, its resurgence last summer – the first of several – forced such precautions as masking and spaced concert seating that cut the potential in-person audience in half. But now, it’s likely that some or many of the concerts will draw capacity or near-capacity attendance. Chesapeake Music, the resident company of the Joanne and Paul Prager Family Center for the Arts, of which Ebenezer is the crown jewel, has lined up a stellar cast of musicians performing a diverse and challenging program spanning centuries, including these early decades of the 21st.

“Our festival theme is ‘Artful Dialogues,’ which allows the artists and audiences to connect through sound, song, and musical storytelling,” says Chesapeake Music’s co-artistic director Catherine Cho. “I feel that having a home at the Ebenezer Theater has inspired the artists, administration, and audiences to create a circle of trust and creative flow due to the beauty of the hall aesthetically and acoustically, and in the spirit and aura it exudes. The hall draws the listener in, on stage and off, and allows our imagination to have boundless possibilities.” 

Those possibilities are enhanced by a pair of stars in the operatic and orchestral realms performing on opening weekend with the festival’s impressive roster of mainstay musicians, among them Cho (violin/viola) and co-director Marcy Rosen (cello). 

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano arrives in Easton on the heels of her concert world premiere in The Hours, an opera based on the Pulitzer-winning novel by Michael Cunningham and the Oscar-winning movie, both of the same title, inspired by a novel by Virginia Woolf who is, herself, a character in the plot. Pulitzer winner Ken Puts composed the music for The Hours, which will receive its first fully staged production by the Metropolitan Opera next season. Along with Cano, it stars Renee Fleming, winner of the National Medal of Arts and four Grammys, and Tony winner Kelli O’Hara. Meanwhile, Cano performs three Bach cantatas at the chamber festival starting June 10, a lesser-known melody by 19th-century French composer Ernest Chausson (June 11) and a set of Ravel art songs (June 12).

Cano says, of her work ethic, “I don’t think my approach changes from one piece to another. With every project, be it part of the beloved canon of a new work, my responsibility remains the same – to serve the music and text and to communicate it.”

Among the chamber musicians performing with her is Peggy Pearson, principal oboist with the Boston Philharmonic and longtime student of composer John Harbison, whose chamber piece, Six American Painters, originally written for flute, was re-scored for oboe at the request of his star student in 2003, one year after its concert debut. Six American Painters – George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Eakins, Martin Johnson Heade, Winslow Homer, Hans Hoffmann, and Richard Diebenkorn – is a highlight of the June 18 festival finale, performed along with Mozart’s Piano Trio in E-Major and Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet in F-Minor, Opus 67. Both piano pieces are played by Ileva Jokubaviciute, who performs on Chesapeake Music’s Steinway grand all through the festival, including the Mozart trio with the co-artistic directors Rosen and Cho.

Further Week 2 highlights include Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet in F-Sharp Minor, Opus 10 on June 16. It will feature J. Lawrie Bloom, retired Chesapeake Music Festival co-founder and co-artistic director, performing with Rosen, who shared both titles with him, and Cho, his artistic directing successor. Jennifer Liu (violin) and Maiya Papach (viola) round out this distinguished quintet.

The quintet is on the festival program at Bloom’s behest. “It’s a wonderful piece,” he said in a phone interview from his Oregon home, adding that “I’m not unconscious of the fact that it’s by an Anglo-African composer.” Born to a son of an African-American slave and an unmarried Englishwoman, Coleridge-Taylor remains best known for his cantatas, particularly Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. His three American tours were such a success that he was dubbed “the African Mahler.” But his legacy was cut short. In 1912, he died of pneumonia at age 37. 

“This magnificent work has been greatly overlooked,” Bloom said. So much so that the Chesapeake festival marks the first time the retired bass clarinetist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has played the Coleridge-Taylor quintet in concert. 

Bloom also performs on June 17 in Edouard Destenay’s Trio in B-Minor for Oboe, Clarinet, and Piano, Opus 17, along with Pearson and the ubiquitous Jokubaviciute. Following intermission, Trio Colores makes a triumphant return to the scene of its double victory in the April 2 Chesapeake Chamber Music Competition, winning both the $10,000 Lerman gold prize and the audience choice award. Trio Colores is a percussion ensemble based in Switzerland specializing in reinterpreting classical music on serial drums, marimbas, and something called “musique le table,” which you probably never encountered unless you attended the competition finals. Several of the pieces in the trio’s repertoire are arranged by Luca Staffelbach, who performs with his percussion partners Matthias Kessler and Fabian Ziegler. 

Additional chamber works by such masters as Brahms, Dvorak, and Haydn as performed by ensembles including flutist Tara Helen O’Connor and string players Daniel Phillips, Peter Stumpf, and Carmit Zori complete an ambitious and wide-ranging festival program.

Note: As of now, there are no mask mandates nor required proof of COVID vaccination to attend the chamber concerts. But Don Buxton, executive director of Chesapeake Music, advises ticket holders to check the festival website near the concert date for any health guideline updates. 

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

 

37th Annual Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival

Friday, June 10: “Festival Opening Extravaganza,” 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, June 11: “From Bach to Brahms,” 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, June 12: “Artful Dialogues,” 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, June 16: “Mozart and More,” 5:30 p.m.

Friday, June 17: “Chesapeake Music Competition Winners,” 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 18: “Festival Finale,” 7:30 p.m.
Free open rehearsals, Wednesdays June 8 and 15, 10 a.m. All performances at Ebenezer Theatre, 17 S. Washington St., Easton; tickets (including video recordings) chesapeakemusic.org(click on tickets) or call 410-819-0380

 

Succeeding in their effort to be the Eastern Shore’s center for arts and culture, the Academy Art Museum (AAM) is rolling out a new Summer Series program that they hope will be a yearly event. AAM has enlisted the aid of five local creative personalities to design and execute a one-day program that would provide a meaningful and unique experience to the public. Running from June through September, the series includes a compelling lecture, a video race, a pop-up art expo, a hip-hop experience, and a variety show. All events are free to the public.

The first three events are as follows:

On Friday June 3, AAM presents the compellingly named: The World Doesn’t Require You which is billed as a conversation between the author of the book, Rion Amilcar Scott, and historian Dale Green. This event will be moderated by Shore Lit Founder and George Mason University professor Kerry Folan, who explains, “I’m a big fan of Rion’s work and often teach his stories in my literature courses at GMU. When AAM offered me the opportunity to program an event this summer, I immediately thought of inviting him.

His stories are set in the Imagined town of Cross River, Maryland, and they are told from the point of view of a variety of individuals who live there. In that way, Rion explores the town and its history through the idiosyncratic and sometimes mundane lives of its citizens. Green’s archeology work is similar in some ways, and I thought their perspectives would be interesting in conversation. I hope the program resonates with a local audience of Easton residents and engages meaningfully with ideas about Maryland’s African American communities’ history, legacy, and future.”

Readings from the book and conversations about the history and future of Maryland’s African American communities will be followed by a walking tour of the Hill community, led by Professor Green. To round out the event, Washington College’s Chesapeake Heartland African American Humanities Truck will also be on-site to share a grassroots-curated exhibition celebrating African American history and culture on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Doors open at five.

This function will be the first of several Folan hopes to bring to the area. “As a writer and teacher of writing, I believe

deeply in the magical power of books to expand our understanding of the world and hope to do more such local programming. I’ve started an organization called Shore Lit, which formally launches in June with the Scott/Green event and aims to bring more frequent literary events to Easton. I’m working with AAM on several author events in the coming year.”
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Next in the series is the 24-Hour Video Race on July 29. Both amateurs and skilled filmmakers (either as a team or solo) will have the chance to make a one-to-seven-minute video that will be screened at AAM on July 29. Films will be based on a specific theme and a word that will be provided. Filmmakers will have 24 hours to create a video that includes the given prompt.

The event is designed by an award-winning filmmaker, Francisco Salazar, who said: “What drew me to the program was an opportunity to engage with the community and find a way to connect with the diverse community that the Eastern Shore has. I think it is important to give everyone a chance to tell their story, and this was a great opportunity for this.”

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On August 6, from 2-5 pm, AAM will host Exchange: A Pop-up Art Expo. Led by Brea Soul, a marketing specialist who describes herself as a multimedia storyteller, the event is an opportunity for four artists and four creative entrepreneurs to exhibit and sell artwork and creative offerings to the Eastern Shore community. The expo will also include an interactive Polaroid mural, food, and adult beverages. According to Soul, this exhibition is the fulfillment of a personal goal to bridge “gaps between women, people of color, and the art world.”

Two artists and two entrepreneurs have been selected and invitations to apply to the remaining spots are ongoing through Sunday June 12. The art category is open to all mediums and the creative entrepreneur category is open to all businesses that identify in the craft, fashion, and book industries. Applicants will be notified of selection on Thursday, June 16.

The next two events will be discussed later in the summer.

More information is available on AAM’s website. 

Val Cavalheri is a recent transplant to the Eastern Shore, having lived in Northern Virginia for the past 20 years. She’s been a writer, editor and professional photographer for various publications, including the Washington Post.

Last weekend the Spy went across to bridge to visit the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore to find five Chestertown artists who were attending the weekend event.

Now in its 45th year, this ACC event, formerly known as the Baltimore American Craft Show, was a welcome return for artists after two pandemic closures.

The Baltimore Convention Center was awash with crafts from all over the country, from giant steel fabricated rabbits to sheer silk scarves and miniature gold-leaf fantasy creations, glazed pottery and glass bowls that looked like candy and cases upon cases of jewelry.

Even among the cavalcade of visitors that would eventually account for 20,000 shoppers, we found our Chestertown artists, and even though they had little time for conversation we captured a few images as they talked with customers. It was inspiring to see them among presenters in this prestigious council flagship show.

Seasoned veterans of the national craft and art show circuit, glass artists Patti and Dave Hegland, potter and sculptor Marilee Schumann, silk textile artist Yuh Okano, and floorcloth designer Faith Wilson displayed their new creations.

“After so many pandemic shutdowns, it was great to see old friends and see what they’re up to. We all had masks on, so sometimes it took a few seconds to recognize each other,” Wilson quips.

And it was a tough weekend to have a show in Baltimore. The Preakness was running, the Orioles were playing, universities and colleges were having graduations and Saturday was sweltering. Nevertheless, craft and art shoppers were happy to get out to discover what their favorite artists have been creating.

And besides, who can pass a seven-foot steel rabbit or prowling bear without having it sent directly to home? We know who did.

To see more of these gifted Chestertown artists go to:

Marilee Schumann here.

Hegland Glass here.

Yuh Okano here.

Faith Wilson here

This whirlwind video is approximately four minutes in length.

 

 

If, and perhaps when, the Spy offers an award to a Mid-Shore nonprofit organization for innovative use of a video to document its relevance and history; it certainly would have gone to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum last year.

The Long Shore, the privately funded mini-documentary of the CBMM’s remarkable role in maritime history, broke entirely new ground in telling an institution’s powerful story in a way that is both spellbinding visually and dramatic in content. The YO Production is still gaining attention at film festivals and online as a new gold standard for peer museums to study and replicate.

And this year, that fictional award would go to the Academy Art Museum’s ten-minute feature that uses the AAM’s well-maintained scrapbook since it first opened to tell the unique story of the museum’s founding.

Produced and directed by AAM volunteer and professional video editor Matt Kresling, the ten minute video is a minor masterpiece in using the simple pages of an institution’s journal to reunite former leaders and staff in telling the remarkable tale of the Academy Art Museum’s humble beginnings to the its present position as one of the best regional arts centers in the Mid-Atlantic.

This video is approximately ten minutes in length. For more information about Academy Art Museum please go here.

 

How times fly. It seems like it was only the other day when the Oxford Community Center opened its doors after a total renovation. That was ten years ago! And now, the Spy has discovered that one of the best community arts and culture centers in Maryland will be celebrating its 40th anniversary of existence this year and 38 of those years hosting its Oxford Fine Arts Festival. Lordy.

We asked the OCC’s executive director to come by the Spy studio the other day to hear more about its year of celebrations, get a sneak preview of some of the art that will be part of the Fine Arts Festival weekend coming up, and how the Community Center has deservingly earned the hearts of so many on the Mid-Shore as they begin their fifth decade of service.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. For more information about the Oxford Fine Arts Festival please go here. For the Oxford Community Center please go here.