Jack Hutton and Friends - Always Charmers

                    Bob Livingston, Jack Hutton, Ric Giorgi, Brian Bauer, Will Wilson

Resplendent and timeless in their signature concert garb, five of the finest in the fields of ragtime, jazz, swing and beyond returned to the Gravenhurst Opera House on Friday 20 July 2012. Jack Hutton at the piano, Will Wilson on banjo and guitar, Ric Giorgi on bass, Bob Livingston on trombone and Brian Bauer, the clarinetist with the largest collection of saxophones known to Muskoka, or anywhere else, charmed an appreciative audience with mostly familiar tunes, and one that was nearly unknown.

Just as Brian Bauer collects clarinets, saxophones, weird sounds and terrible jokes, Jack Hutton gathers around him authentic players, multi-talented in all directions, and able to swing, literally and figuratively, from instrument to instrument to voice, and from style to style. Wag Bauer, an incurable punster, wants us to know that he is “cymbal-minded”. I want him and you to know just how effective are those well-timed, brassy, foot-activated clashes. Perfect punctuation.

As I relaxed and enjoyed this concert the word that came to me out of nowhere was, “Groovy”. Just what did that term from the twenties, revived in the sixties and seventies actually imply? I guess it means any number of experiences for musicians and audience.

For me, it meant: comfortable and refreshing for us refugees from a gruelling heatwave. Mellow, but a kind of mellow that keeps the listener entertained and alert for the unexpected.

Rounded tones from Bob Livingston’s masterly trombone underpinned a sparkling blend of sound. The sparkles sprang from all and any of the instruments, as the rhythms changed, with turns of a melody and travel in time. Flying fingers on piano or banjo painted with fresh colours time-honoured tunes like “Honeysuckle Rose”, “Just One Of Those Things“ and “If They Asked Me I Could Write A Book”. The clarinet in itself is a multi-lingual instrument. The bass abounds in tonalities.

Their final selection sounded rich and symphonic - as the five rounded out a delightful evening with a glorious burst of melody. Jack writes of “Tickletoe” by Lester Young:

“Only Will Wilson and Brian had ever heard this before. It was the very first time we had ever played it as a group, which is one of the things that makes this group special – constantly re-discovering gems from the past.”

The day after the concert, as this review took shape, I happened on an internet article that went on and on about “the groove”. All fascinating, but I sat up and took notice at this comment, lightly edited by me for comfortable reading:

“When a groove is established among players, the musical whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts, enabling them to experience something beyond themselves which no one of them can create alone.”

That neatly describes what happens when Jack Hutton and friends get together.

Links:

Will Wilson’s new CD: inquire at: guitarbanjoman@gmail.com 

Article on the groove:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groove_(music)

http://www.bala.net/museum/

http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

Amy Dodington's "Touch of Old"

What better way to round off “A Perfect Day” than with a recital by Amy Dodington, accompanied by Doreen Uren at the piano? The Gravenhurst Opera House, dating from 1901, is a perfect venue for a merry mixture of Elizabethan, baroque, folk songs, Broadway musicals and Edwardian parlour music.

Right at the beginning of this review, I have to admit a certain partiality for Amy’s voice and finely crafted programs. My first draft clearly registered an overall 15 on my usual scale of 10 when reporting a performance. I decided to take a deep breath, set the gush-o-meter down several notches and make a new start in the morning, for the sake of coherence and objectivity.

The next day, instead of grabbing the pen right away, I stopped to analyze the effect on me of seeing, first on the program, a song from Purcell’s Fairy Queen that I have sung myself, at a Grade Ten Conservatory exam. It is not a cherished memory. While my accompanist struggled as if tackling a Himalayan mountain top without enough sherpas or equipment, my clenched teeth ensured that my intonation would get sharper and sharper. How I got a passing mark, I have no idea. Perhaps it was Mozart’s hymn to the Blessed Virgin that saved me.

A happier memory intervenes - a strawberry tea on the lawn of the Michelham Priory in Sussex, England, after a full performance of The Fairy Queen. I remember the strawberries and cream better than the music.

Now I come happily back to the Gravenhurst Opera House on the evening of 14 July 2012, when I at long last heard the Purcell aria as I would have liked to sing it - in fact, as I had not yet heard it sung to my satisfaction. “A Touch of Old” opened with Purcell’s triumphal flourish dedicated to the first Queen Elizabeth of Britain. The piano introduction flowed easily in the hands of Doreen Uren, wafting us lightly into a land of enchantment, where pleased cupids clapped their wings to the rhythm of a voice drenched in magic - Amy Dodington’s. She had a lot of fun with those cupids.

A cluster of art songs followed, Brahms expanding on the elusiveness of poetic inspiration, Reynaldo Hahn’s inspired setting of a poem by Verlaine, Barber’s ditty on The Monk and His Cat and Schubert’s setting of Gretchen’s spinning wheel song from Goethe’s monumental “Faust”.

Verlaine’s “L’Heure exquise” has encapsulated the essence of French Romantic poetry for me and my husband, who kept it on the wall above his desk. This was my first hearing of its evocative musical setting by Reynaldo Hahn. Before attempting any commentary, I went to youtube to listen to several singers' interpretations, and was amazed at how many of the greatest and the best of them fall short of evoking the scene painted by the poet's words. In general the singer was content with intoning the notes in a mellifluous voice.

What about the mystery and the beauty of moonlit woods, where the profound mirror of a pond reflects the silhouette of a black willow and a vast and tender tranquility from the heavens enfolds the scene? Amy Dodington’s voice has a visionary quality, breathing in magic and breathing it out again in “L’Heure exquise”. She seems to be experiencing this poem from within, and inviting the listener into Verlaine's woods under his moon.

Here I would like to highlight another of Amy’s outstanding performances: Gretchen am Spinnrade, an outpouring of enraptured love accompanied by the relentless rhythms of the spinning wheel. In this homely setting for unquenchable passion, Gretchen is on her way to ruin and madness, the victim of Mephisto’s wiles, with Faust as the engine of her undoing.

Glazounov’s “Oriental Romance”, the Irish folk song “She Moved Through the Fair” and the Scottish, “There’s Nae Luck About the House” completed the first part of our travel through space and time. Both Amy and her sister Victoria Banks are gifted unaccompanied singers of Irish songs. I could listen to them all night.

The second part of the program featured tuneful Broadway melodies, including “Edelweiss”, “If I Loved You” and a mischievous “Once in Love with Amy”. Then a costume change was in order from the diva dress to an heirloom outfit dating back to the parlour songs of the early 1900’s. Amy’s flexible voice revives the pathos, the joy and the courage of these nearly forgotten gems. She has unearthed a whole collection, like “When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day”. Her three encores were also of that charming vintage.

Links:

Amy sings Margaret (or Gretchen) at the Spinning Wheel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO83WErmCPU&feature=channel&list=UL

Amy sings: If I loved you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_mWT-jlQ7U&feature=channel&list=UL

Amy’s website: http://www.amydodington.com/

Gravenhurst Opera House: http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com

NORTH SEA GAS

A Scottish National, and Planetary, Treasure 

The three multi-talented members of North Sea Gas brought to the Gravenhurst Opera House an exhilerating, toe-tapping, heart-warming experience of authentic Scottish folk music on the evening of 24 September 2011.

The stage was set with an impressive array of instruments. We counted two guitars, two mandola, a bouzouki, a bodhran, at least one banjo, and last, but not least, a fiddle. The harmonica was less easy to spot. All these were picked up and passed glibly from hand to hand by a trio of outstanding musicians: Dave Gilfillan, Ronnie MacDonald and Grant Simpson.

These professionals drew us into the informal ambiance of a céilidh, inviting us to sing along in choruses and to add our clapping to the percussion. Some of us could not restrain the occasional whoop during a rollicking dance tune.

Grant Simpson’s fiddle wove the music into a rich tapestry of charm. Masterfully blended vocal harmonies, with and without accompaniment, held me spellbound. Dave Gilfillan’s arrangements are tasteful, colourful and compelling, ranging from unison to vibrant harmonies.

Here is a live performance from youtube: Broom o' the Cowdenknowes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlVBFeyrWPc&feature=related
Lyrics available at:
http://chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics/broom-cowdenknowes.html

North Sea Gas attracts the Scottish diaspora wherever they perform, and adds more fans as they roll along, with a repertoire of old and new, tragical and comic songs. This bardic flow of energy brings to life brave history from the days of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and calls attention to current issues, like the present plight of the Travelling People.

Scotland’s gypsies, tinkers and anyone else accustomed to the nomadic life are now hemmed in by laws that oblige them to live in towns all winter long, just waiting for the broom to bloom yellow and announce the spring when they can go on the road again. As Dave Gilfillan wryly states, “There are only three of us left now.”

For thirty years this band has toured the British Isles, Austria, Canada, the United States, Turkey, Germany and Estonia. They recorded for Chinese television in 2008 with an estimated audience of 800 million. Regular performers at the Ediburgh Festival “Fringe”, they have received Gold and Silver disc awards and recorded 14 albums.

The North Sea Gas version of the story of Willie aka William Taylor prompted me to go googling. That “brisk young sailor” cropped up  all over the British Isles and in North America, in many variants of the ballad. He really got around, this bridegroom. The basic story is that he was nabbed by a press gang at the church door just in time to stop his wedding. His bride wasn’t about to let him go that easily. (Did she suspect that the press gang was orchestrated by Willie himself?) Dressed as a man, she went after him, found him engaged to another woman and promptly shot him dead. According to the ending of the North Sea Gas variant, the captain of Willie’s ship appointed this enterprising lady as commander of another vessel in the same fleet.

I would recommend that anyone within range of a concert by North Sea Gas be sure to reserve seats, and buy CDs afterward, as they are easily available after a concert, but less so from a distance.

Apologies for taking more than a week to funnel all the fun and bardic pageantry of the evening of Saturday 24 September into some semblance of a review. This was one of those performances where I just sat back and had a great time, without trying to nail down any details. That came later, as I listened, and danced, to North Sea Gas’s latest CD, “Tak a Dram Before Ye Go” and read the lyrics and comments on the accompanying literature.

Searching on youtube I was delighted to hear the North Sea Gas take on some of the favourites of our local Muldrew Lake Sing Song:

Loch Lomond
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSYlhpdb0eg&feature=related

and Will Ye No Come Back Again?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZvmUaTU81s&feature=relate

and others new to me:
A comic song from their youtube collection:
I Wish They’d Do It Now
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39uoY_CLOcA&feature=related

Cam Ye O'er Frae France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5yECczRsIk&feature=related

Caledonia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvFcBm3AEFM&feature=related

More information is available at the group’s website: http://www.northseagas.co.uk.

And now back to
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

VALDY - A MAN WITH A THOUSAND FRIENDS

Valdy

Folk minstrel Valdy returned to a favourite theatre, the Gravenhurst Opera House, on Monday evening 12 September as a freshly minted Member of the Order of Canada. We were honoured and delighted to hear his flexible voice and inimitable guitar celebrating herons, Salt Spring Island Buddhist monks, life on the road and - after intermission - the birthday of Nancy in the audience, who sang along, mystified but enthusiastic. In addition to being a magician disguised as a magnificent musician, Valdy has the gift of friendship.

Nancy and I were blown away by Valdy’s guitar gifts, so much so that it has taken me a couple of days to find a few words to capture the experience. I’m going to have to fumble for them, beginning with impressions of Canadian folk singers heard at the Bohemian Embassy Coffee House on Toronto’s Gerard Street in the sixities.

We had a few headliners like Ian and Sylvia Tyson who could both sing and play the guitar very well indeed. Most performers did better on guitar than on singing, and that was OK. The guitar kept them in tune, basically. The better they played the accompaniment, the less it mattered that the tunes were mainly of the one-note variety because the harmonies carried the song.

Sundays were amateur nights, where a friend of mine found out the hard way that you couldn’t get away with just strumming your guitar; you had to be pretty handy with the strings. Her début as amateur performer at the Bohemian Embassy did not go over well with the blasé audience. She vowed never to bring her guitar again, a difficult resolve for an avid collector of folk music since childhood. But she couldn’t stay away, just left the guitar at home. Folk music was stretching its muscles, at an exciting time to live in.

One evening my friend felt like singing a favourite Irish traditional song and found out something surprising. The MC couldn’t believe her when she apologized for having no accompaniment. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets at the very idea of anyone simply singing. She didn’t even apologize for being a soprano. She was too far gone to turn back. The MC announced in hushed tones that the next number would be unaccompanied. Into the shocked hush that followed she poured “The Lover’s Curse”. A pin drop silence, then warm applause. This old, old song, fiercely anti-war, fitted in with the Sixties’ crucible of new music of the people. For a brief moment, the room reverted to the most basic instrument - the human voice.

Returning to our own exciting times, on Monday 12 September 2011 at the Gravenhurst Opera House, neither Nancy nor I could think of anyone we’d ever heard who could be so at one with a guitar and make it play in surprising keys, and whose voice can float or growl, who is also a poet with a gamut from pathos to unfettered fun. It would appear that Canada had to wait until the seventies before a minstrel came on the scene who had the gift of melody in his compositions, knew exactly what he wanted to do with his voice and made an orchestra out of his guitar. That was Valdy. And still is.

I may be wrong, but my honest impression of Valdy, gathered from hearing him in person for the first time the other night, is that nobody else can play guitar like that, with a voice so at one with the instrument that there were moments when I could have sworn the guitar was singing too. He delights in establishing rhythm patterns in the accompaniment that convey the movement of an 18-wheeler, a train on track, Rick Hanson’s globe-circling wheelchair or a tall dark stranger shambling into town.

As far as I am concerned, this is an artist who could pick up the Muskoka telephone book and make a ballad out of it that would have hearts beating in tune with an earthy sentiment of local and universal significance. There could be some sharp social commentary to hit a nerve and tickle a chuckle as well.

Now that I have managed, more or less, to describe the vibes of this concert, I’ll give the pen to Valdy himself, as found on his richly informative and entertaining website.

http://www.valdy.com

“Valdy, born Valdemar Horsdal in Ottawa, Canada has been part of the fabric of Canadian pop and folk music for over 34 years. A man with a thousand friends, from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island to Texas to New Zealand, he's a singer, guitarist and songwriter who catches the small but telling moments that make up life.

"Remembered for Play Me a Rock and Roll Song, his bitter-sweet memory of finding himself, a relaxed and amiable story-teller, facing a rambunctious audience at the Aldergrove Rock Festival circa 1968, Valdy has sold almost half a million copies of his 13 albums, has two Juno Awards (Folk Singer of the Year and Folk Entertainer of the Year), a total of seven Juno nominations and four Gold albums to his credit.

“There is not enough music in the world. ... Play for the kids, you adults. Play for the adults, you kids."
 
We loved Valdy at the Gravenhurst Opera House as they will on his tour to Kinkardine, Toronto, Brampton, Port Hope, Goderich in Ontario and Amherst, Shelbourne, Annapolis Royal and Middle Musquodoboit in Nova Scotia, Riverview, Ford Mills, St. Andrew's in New Brunswick, Okanagan Valley, Sicamous in BC, and back to Ontario: Newburgh,Toronto, London, Alliston and the Holiday Train, Montreal to Vancouver, Nov. 26 to Dec. 17. And other places too numerous to list here. This shortened list of engagements gives a general idea of the energy generated by this outstanding Canadian troubadour.

Here he is on Youtube singing, “Play me a rock and roll song”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtNSljYgDe8

And now back to
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

LORNE ELLIOTT'S UPSIDE OF THE DOWNSIDE

JACK WOULD HAVE ENJOYED THIS SHOW. WE DID.


Writer, composer, actor, musician Lorne Elliott has been meandering all over Canada and gathering comic gems about us for nearly 30 years. His performance on the historic stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House Tuesday 23 August 2011 happened one day after the death of a former schoolmate of his in Hudson, Quebec.

Like many, if not all, of the audience at the Opera House that evening, and millions across Canada, I was mourning the rapid decline and sudden passing of Jack Layton, leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and an inspiration within and beyond his political affiliation with the NDP. It seemed somehow quite appropriate to carry on with life as usual, and attend a show that I am sure Jack would have enjoyed.

In fact, as we learned with the last sentence from the stage, that whole evening was dedicated to the late Mr. Layton. “This one’s for you,  Jack!” Subtly, Lorne Elliott, a consummate master of searching and gentlemanly humour, had been working up to that quiet ending all evening as he tickled us into gales of laughter.

An evening with this quintessential Canadian comedian is a whirlwind journey “Madly Off in All Directions”, like his former Saturday afternoon broadcasts on CBC Radio. Eager to catch his current show on stage, I had no idea how much more fun it would be to see that rubbery face in action, and the trademark shocked hairdo and baggy trousers.

In fact I just barely caught this live show. Try to sneak inconspicuously into our venerable Opera House from its updated elevator entrance, just below stage right, in a colourful Ghanian print outfit.

Up on stage Lorne was mercilessly wrangling a microphone on a heavy stand, and regaling an already appreciative house with wildly graphic self-deprecations on a home renovation disaster. Next thing we knew it, we were sharing an off-shore breeze off Prince Edward Island in a home-crafted boat that was the epitome of ineptitude.

A typical effect of a stage performance by Lorne Elliott seems to be a certain infectiousness. We have just seen an example of this, as I got embroiled in excessive vocabularizations, as characterized by Lorne’s CBC icon, Rex Murphy.

Thorough enjoyment of an Elliott gig would imply that the audience is familiar with the CBC and its personalities. His contagious flippancy rubs off on his audiences, who come out of his performances feeling funny and quipping merrily. Warmed up by successively more hilarious misadventures in home renovation, landscaping and boat-building, we easily swallowed passing comments like, “Canadian - it’s a wonder we manage to breathe.”

Part of the Elliott mandate is to add the audience’s home town to his itinerary and litany. He kept us neatly skewered in Gravenhurst, and seemed to know intuitively that we are inclined to be “weird”. Funny he should notice that. Other reviewers have noticed his noticing, and reported him as an astute observer of Canadian wildlife, including the humans and super-humans like David Suzuki.

Undoubtedly noting a predominance of grey heads among us, Lorne made sure anyone the least bit hard of hearing was able to capture the rich subtleties of moose, a language he speaks fluently in his alter ego of Morris, the Moose. The guy next to me was joining quite effectively in the chorus of that song.

I idly wonder if Lorne Elliott happened to know that here in Gravenhurst we don’t need to go into the woods, with or without warning bells, but may casually meet a bear strolling around the Opera House or up a tree by the Salvation Army church. At any rate, his comments tend to hit close to home.

In the artist’s own words:  “The one-man show I'm performing now is called "THE UPSIDE OF THE DOWNTURN". ... The way the One-man show works is by not staying in one place too long. It's harder to hit a moving target.”

Here is a sample of Lorne Elliott in action, using some of the ideas that we heard in Gravenhurst. One of two clips from a show at Stephensville, Newfoundland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3EcO8dSJQY&feature=related

His own website is fun to browse and most informative.
http://www.lorne-elliott.com

Off and on during the writing of this review I was watching CBC television’s coverage of Jack Layton’s lying in state at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, and interviews with his close friends and associates. Jian Ghomeshi, a personal friend of Jack and his family, made a shiver go down my spine as he reported NDP Caucus Members vowing “not to go madly off in all directions” but to work together toward their late leader’s visions and goals for Canada.

I didn’t happen to vote NDP in the recent election, and I’m not a member of any party, but I am so sad to see a great leader leave us just after bringing Quebec into the federal fold and taking his place as the first NDP leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. This one is for you, Jack, for Olivia and your family, and for all of us who have appreciated your decency, responsibility, music and fun in politics and in our lives.

And now back to
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/

Dragonfly Theatre Presents "Beyond a Joke"

“Just think. If there were no television and no church, none of this would have happened.”

“This” is an escalating series of pseudo disasters visiting the characters of the British farce, “Beyond a Joke”. Popular playwright Derek Benfield is not Shakespeare, but knows how to whip up a light cocktail of summer theatre fun set in the décor of an English country house and garden. Ladders, wheelbarrows and rubber boots lend a rustic air to the action, peppered by dialogue that gathers momentum and wit as it moves along.

As one of the audience on opening night, I can assure you that the set is pleasant and expansive, and the acting and direction excellent, ably overcoming Benfield’s rather stodgy first act and gathering glib momentum in the second. As characters are added  the tempo accelerates.

The macabre theme is, as the title forebodes, not the least funny in itself. And that’s the whole point of the exercise. “After all,” says a central character, “It can happen to anyone.”

Beyond this very sketchy review I cannot go, without letting too many bodies, I mean cats, out of bags, closets or wheelbarrows. The lily pond is almost like a character in the play, gathering sinister overtones as it is pointed at from the stage, off in the invisible distance. As for the summer house ...

I hope I have intrigued anyone who has not seen the play yet, sufficiently to consider investing in a summer evening with the inimitable Dragonfly Theatre Company in the Trillium Court at the Gravenhurst Opera House.

There is still time to join the audience. “Beyond a Joke” completes its run on 13th August.  Dinner is served.

AMY DODINGTON’S “OLD TIMES’ SAKE”

A Diva’s Green Travelogue in Time and Space

The Gravenhurst Opera House felt rather like a Victorian parlor on Friday evening, 22 July, 2011, lending its warm acoustics to the sunny voice and presence of Amy Dodington, soprano. Her program, “Old Times’ Sake”, is a delightful, eclectic, array of gems from opera, music hall, classics, traditional folk music, operetta, musical comedy and parlor songs, encompassing not only hundreds, but thousands of years.

 The program began with the lute of the legendary Orpheus,  and proceeded smoothly and surely through different styles and periods. The magic carpet comes to mind as a perfect vehicle for all this traveling in time. Lift-offs were impeccable, and landings airy on a variety of musical terrains. Amy Dodington’s flexible voice is equally at home in the lyric, dramatic, and - perhaps even more equally - the coloratura repertoire. This much was evident in the first half of the program. Then in the second half, she revealed an affinity with the Celtic tradition as if she’d been born to sing the Irish “My Lagan Love” and the Welsh, “David of the White Rock”. Without a doubt in my mind, she was.

Amy Dodington’s gifts extend beyond her musicianship to the knack of drawing an audience into the charmed world of a carefully crafted program inspired from the heart, where “pin drop” after “pin drop” silences descend between the final note of a song and the applause. I’ve never heard so many such hushed moments in any one concert by anybody.

The more than 100-year-old stage of the Gravenhurst Opera House lent itself to dressing like the diva that Amy Dodington is for the first half of a concert, then stepping out in costume of the early 1900s in the second half. In a few well chosen phrases she shared a family background of her father’s classical records and a tuneful mother with a lovely voice - the latter now silenced forever. When Nora Dodington passed on in 2009 at the age of 65, the Cellar Singers dedicated their performance of the Bach B Minor Mass to her. The second part of her daughter’s concert begins with Dvořák’s “Songs My Mother Taught Me”, beautifully shaped and textured.

Back to Amy Dodington’s musicianship, she delivers each song from the inside out; she is the song, while cloaked in its vintage and style. We may have heard “I Could Have Danced All Night” from “My Fair Lady” adorably sung by a galaxy of great sopranos from Julie Andrews to Audra McDonald. Amy from Port Carling also makes it hers. I suspect that she has more than one feeling for interpreting any song afresh every performance.

The accompanist for this concert was the multi-talented Geoffrey Conquer, who also treated us to four glittering solos that reflected his own personal assimilation of the Russian schools of piano. He has studied with internationally renowned masters like Marina Mdivani, a pupil of the great Emil Gilels. Keep an eye and ear open for the name Geoffrey Conquer.

Thankfully, this review is not an adjudication, but merely an appreciation intended to re-create at least in part a delightful experience. Still, I have to give excellent  German and Italian pronunciation its due recognition. When it is as authentic as Amy Dodington’s it could easily go unrecognized, seamless with the song. German can be a lovely language when lovingly pronounced. In this concert it was easy for the fussiest germanophile to stay entirely enchanted by Wolf’s setting of Goethe’s exquisite poem, “Anakreons Grab”.

I wish I could go on about each tasty morsel of the whole program, “Old Times’ Sake”, and gush about that gorgeous gown the colour of ruby red wine, but rather than get completely carried away, I have one more thing to say before ending this review. Pause for me to get up on a soap box.

More than 20 years ago I put together a list of songs about green growing things like trees, the water and sun that nourish them and the creatures that live in them. Only recently did I begin a blog to suggest to artists that they include “green” pieces in their programs. Something to that effect must be capturing the attention of many who aspire to keeping our planet green.

Amy Dodington begins with a song about Orpheus playing his lute to the trees, the mountains, plants, flowers, the sun, showers, the sea. “Anakreons Grab” depicts a poet’s last resting place, sweet with the scent of roses and the sound of turtle doves, planted with laurels and green bushes and under the care of the gods. The second-last piece is Oscar Rasbach’s “Trees”. The concert ends with a song by "Annie Laurie" composer, Alicia Scott, evoking the sweet perfume of jasmine.

When a graduate from Zoology, Anthropology and Environmental Sciences puts together a program called “Old Times’ Sake”, no wonder it’s green. Thank you, Amy, for a refreshing, reflective evening sparkling with your unique sense of humour.


http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com/