The Academy, Worthington, MA
July 13, 2025
by Michael J. Moran
The opening concert of this beloved summer festival’s 57th season featured pianists Rorianne Schrade (after whose parents and their five children, all having first names which start with R, the festival is named) and Lynelle and Christopher James (children of Rorianne’s sister Robelyn Schrade-James and David James, both deceased), joined by family friends pianist Clifton (Jerry) Noble and violinist Alexis Walls.
The program honored the 150th anniversary years of African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and French composer Maurice Ravel. It opened with a graceful account by Rorianne and Lynelle of the charming “Andante” from Coleridge-Taylor’s “Three-Fours” suite. This was followed, in total contrast, by the tempestuous “Wild Hunt,” the eighth of Franz Liszt’s twelve 1852 “Transcendental Etudes,” played with rip-roaring panache by Christopher.
Calling that “a tough act to follow,” Rorianne met the challenge with a similarly dramatic reading of Ravel’s 1920 orchestral showpiece “La Valse” (“The Waltz”) in his own fiendishly difficult transcription for solo piano, building to a tumultuous climax with laser-focused power.
Shifting gears again, Lynelle welcomed her childhood fellow music student Alexis Walls to the stage for a glowing rendition of Ravel’s jazz-inspired 1927 second sonata for violin and piano, with a jaunty opening “Allegretto,” a soulful “Blues,” and a furious “Perpetuum mobile” finale.
Next, Lynelle took on what is generally considered Ravel’s most technically demanding piano score, his three-part 1908 suite “Gaspard de la Nuit” (“Treasurer of the Night”), giving cogent interpretation of its first and third movements. Based on characters in poems by Aloysius Bertrand, Lynelle’s fluid “Ondine” painted a shimmering portrait of the water sprite, and her careful balancing of slow and faster passages brought the nocturnal goblin “Scarbo” to vivid life.
The program closed on a brighter note when Jerry Noble joined Rorianne in a bravura take on Australian-American composer Percy Grainger’s twenty-minute “Fantasy” for two pianos on George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” This kaleidoscopic arrangement re-sequences selections from the 1935 opera for dramatic impact, with “Summertime” and “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” providing an emotional climax near the end. Both pianists rendered Gershwin’s inspired melodies and Grainger’s sumptuous enhancements with virtuosic exhilaration.
Remaining Sevenars concerts, next presenting the acclaimed Sullivan String Quartet, are scheduled for Sundays, July 20-August 17.
