Supporting the Arts in Western Massachusetts and Beyond

February 5, 2025

REVIEW: Hartford Stage: “Two Trains Running”

Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT
January 23 – February 16, 2025
by Shera Cohen

The trains in “Two Trains Running” are never seen, only sometimes heard. The play’s title is symbolic, hinting at Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken”. Life is full of choices; most neither good nor bad, they just are.

The simple diner of late-1960’s Pittsburgh serves as the neighborhood home for its owner, its one and only employee, and five regulars. Each character has known the others for many years, seeks their opinions, while heeding few. Into this mix, comes a stranger; a younger man recently released from the penitentiary.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson
All of the actors are Black, as playwright August Wilson’s work focuses on the black experience in different eras and locations in America. While not hammered into the thoughts of audiences, the subject of Civil Rights is ever present. Delving into the plot, reminds those of us watching the play and others who know history, that 1969 marked the beginning of overt discussions, divisions, and rallies. To participate or not; these are choices offered. Serious topic? Yet, there is so much humor; it’s laugh-out-loud funny.

Director Gilbert McCauley places his characters purposefully as duos, or teachers to all present. Dialogue is natural, segueing from one to another. Without being static, McCauley has created a special place onstage for each character; rarely does one cross to another. 

For this first play of the HS 2025 season, Artistic Director Melia Bensussen has selected a marvelous cast.

Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. portrays the lynchpin of the group, Memphis. As the diner’s owner, his story is the most important. The patrons react to Memphis’ pie-in-the-sky dreams, because none have any of their own.

Rafael Jordan exudes a breath of fresh air. As newcomer Sterling, he enters the mix as unassuming, optimistic, and smart all at the same time. While nearly all actors are seated, Sterling is all over the place.

The one female in the cast is Taji Senior as Risa, waitress and the diner’s Jill of all trades. Risa’s backstory remains hidden until Act II. Senior’s no-nonsense sober  woman holds her own as confidant, friend, or caretaker.

Lawrence E. Moten III’s set draws audience members into the diner, almost seated on one of the empty stools. However, if the raked stage and windows with slanted borders are designed to look realistic for sight lines, it doesn’t succeed as planned. Yes, the audience wants to see every inch of staging, but not at the expense of realism.

“Two Trains Running” is a striking important play. The pace brings it in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. Omitting entire sections of dialog is recommended. Cutting is often done to Shakespeare’s masterpieces. It’s doubtful that August Wilson would mind.

REVIEW: Springfield Symphony Orchestra, "Gershwin, Berlin & Friends"

Symphony Hall, Springfield, MA
February 1, 2025
by Daniel Monte

On a blustery winter evening, the Springfield Symphony Orchestra delivered a delightful concert of jazz standards from the Great American Songbook to warm the hearts of audience members at Symphony Hall. Performer and conductor Byron Stripling led the orchestra, played trumpet, and sang several numbers as well. He made for a very humorous host, asking at one point for composer George Gershwin to stand up and be recognized. 

Grammy award winner Carmen Bradford filled in on short notice for Sydney McSweeney as lead vocalist. Bradford is known for her years of work with the Count Basie Orchestra. As one would imagine, she is completely at home in the Great American Songbook and sang such standards as Gershwin's "I've Got Rhythm," "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Our Love is Here to Stay," and Berlin's "Tea for Two."

Bradford's energy and joy were palpable as she delivered her renditions of these classic tunes. On "I've Got Rhythm," her voice echoed a very Ella Fitzgerald inspired scat solo. A scat solo, for those not versed in jazz speak, is when a vocalist improvises using syllables or parts of words imitating another instrument. Ella Fitzgerald is considered one of the greatest scat singers in history. And, Bradford's talents were obvious.

After one of the songs, the conductor asked Bradford if she ever met Ella Fitzgerald. Sure enough, she had, multiple times. On one occasion, when she had been the opening act for Fitzgerald, they met backstage. A bit of a backstory is that Bradford found her pacing nervously back and forth before the show. When she asked if she was okay, or if she needed anything, Fitzgerald said, "I just hope they like me." The younger singer was amazed to find that one of her idols, an icon like Ella Fitzgerald, still got nervous before going onstage. 
 
Another highlight of the evening was the spectacular pianist, Bobby Floyd. On Gershwin's "Lady Be Good," his piano solo seemed to encompass just about every musical genre. At one point the audience began to hoot and holler and then started clapping along. His solo piano arrangement of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" was completely fresh and a true delight.

Floyd's background as a gospel pianist was well on display when he and the vocalist "took it to church," so to speak, delivering a soulful rendition of the classic, "He looked Beyond My Faults." In 1984, Floyd was the organist for Ray Charles. Jim Rupp, who has toured with Woody Herman and Glenn Miller, played drum set. The SSO was in top form as well providing lush arrangements to accompany. This was a wonderful concert performed by some true jazz greats. 

January 28, 2025

REVIEW: Springfield Symphony Orchestra, "New Musical World"

Symphony Hall, Springfield, MA
January 18, 2025
by Michael J. Moran

The SSO’s first concert of 2025 featured not only the SSO premieres of three pieces by African-American composers, along with a repertory favorite, but impressive SSO debuts by violinist Melissa White and conductor Courtney Lewis, who “saved the day,” according to the SSO’s CEO Paul Lambert, by stepping in for Jeri Lynne Johnson, forced by illness to cancel three days earlier. Remarkably, the program was unchanged.

The performance opened with a jaunty version of William Grant Still’s 1944 “Festive Overture,” the unanimous winner among 39 entries to a national overture contest by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Its heroic opening fanfare, playful xylophone and trumpet solos, and joyful closing march suggested why. Lewis, the Irish-born Music Director of the Jacksonville (FL) Symphony, and SSO performed with a warm rapport that sounded as if they’d been playing together for years.    

Next came James Lee III’s 2019 “Amer’ican,” a sometimes astringent but always exciting piece, which Lee calls a “21st century response to Dvořák's charge to American composers to incorporate the music of Native and Negro American melodies” in their work. It briefly quotes both Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” which closed the concert, and the Negro spiritual “Here’s One.” Lewis and the orchestra presented a gripping rendition.

White, Lewis, SSO
Melissa White was a riveting soloist in Florence Price’s one-movement 1952 second violin concerto, which was lost until 2009 and never performed publicly until 2018. White’s tone was sleek and elegant, richly conveying the lush beauty of the concerto’s emotional depths and easily meeting the technical challenges of several fast passages. Lewis and the SSO were cogent collaborators.

Composer Antonin Dvorak wrote his popular ninth symphony, drawing on the same sources Lee quoted above, while he was founding director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. Lewis led a powerful reading, from a dramatic “Adagio-Allegro molto,” a magical, dreamy “Largo,” with a mellifluous English horn solo by Grace Shryock, and a boisterous “Molto vivace,” to a thrilling “Allegro con fuoco” finale. Adrian Wyard’s visual projections of American wilderness scenes above the stage gracefully enhanced Dvorak’s music.      

A rapturous audience reception of praise filled Symphony Hall at the concert ended. SSO’s next concert, “Gershwin, Berlin & Friends,” will take place on February 1, 2025.

January 12, 2025

Review: Majestic Theater, “Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help”

Majestic Theater, West Springfield, MA
through February 16, 2025
by Lisa Covi

A light adult comedy warmed the winter opening night of “Incident at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.” Priming the audience with the setting's early 1970's music, this play presents a devoted and generous Irish Catholic family faced with the ironies and practical dilemmas of changing social mores. The cast's dynamic chemistry evokes both giggles and belly laughs, depicting a family full of contrasting characters, plus their local parish staff.
 
The story features two pairs of sisters (mothers and daughters) in an Irish Catholic lower middle-class family struggling with economic pressure, opportunities for change, and traditional roles in a close-knit neighborhood where they live and worship and judge each other according to the strictures of the church.
 
Photo by Kait Rankins
Hip Aunt Terri, played by Cate Damon (who has also portrayed the role of mother “Jo” in a previous production) mentors college-aged niece Linda (Jenna Burns), doubling roles as narrator and interpreter of the title incident that happens over the course of one day.
 
Burns' character valiantly cajoles the audience with wry observations and idiosyncratic perspective. She convincingly portrays a young woman wrestling with the promises and perils of asserting women's rights in her male-dominated world. At the same time, her story pokes fun at the clash between moral naivete and the illusion of religious social control.
 
Maggie Hamel, as Linda's younger sister, both motivates "the incident" but tries to inhibit the feared outcome with pluck and innocence that endears the audience to her.
 
Mother Jo (Sandra Blaney) is the put-upon glue of the quartet, struggling to nurture the family while keeping a cheerful but pragmatic outlook.
 
Rounding out the inhabitants of the O'Shea's burnt orange kitchen is Father Mike (John Baker) who makes pronouncements blind to the drama unfolding among the women.

The performances are superb, and production values support the effective delivery. Even though the plot follows somewhat predictable paths, deeper themes echo the way people struggle between religious authority, social control, and living with compassion and generosity.

Each female character shows a wondrous strength that imitates the power of the miraculous symbol that names their parish community of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Their domestic bonds provide the resources for these women to take charge of their destinies.

Katie Forgette's script (premiered in 2019) cleverly provides twists for pacing and propelling the plot. She includes unreliable narrators and a role where a single delightful actor masters four diverse personalities (and genders). The action flies with a running time of two hours, including a short intermission.

January 7, 2025

REVIEW: South Windsor Cultural Arts, " Sam DeCaprio, Cello; Anna Han, Piano"

Evergreen Crossings, South Windsor, CT
January 5, 2025
by Michael J. Moran

A capacity South Windsor audience was graced with a sensational debut concert as a duo by Connecticut-born cellist Samuel DeCaprio, a globe-trotting performer and Juilliard School graduate based in NYC, and Arizona native Anna Han, a prize-winning pianist and Juilliard alumna based in Berlin, Germany.

The concert opened with an exuberant account of Beethoven’s 1798 Twelve Variations on “A Girl or Little Wife” from Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute.” The aria by the comic bird-catcher Papageno is cleverly reinvented, from the disjointed first variation for piano alone to the frisky whirlwind finale. The duo’s enjoyment of its technical and interpretive challenges was palpable.  

Next came an affectionate performance of Robert Schumann’s 1849 “Fantasy Pieces.” The three short works have titles which indicate their tempo markings. The first, marked “Tender and with expression,” was given a lush reading; the second, marked “Lively, light,” had an animated edge; the third, marked “Quick and with fire,” was almost manic in its impassioned energy.

The powerful centerpiece of the program was Turkish composer-pianist Fazil Say’s 2012 “Four Cities.” Each movement is named after a city in Turkey with personal memories for Say. The quiet “Sivas,” in which the cello sometimes sounds like a duduk (an Armenian woodwind), was wistful and haunting. The fast “Hopa,” about a wedding celebration, was raucous and percussive. The intense “Ankara,” which quotes a World War I protest song, was dark and ominous. The lively “Bodrum” evoked a pub with a jazzy swing rhythm. The nimble and virtuosic duo stretched the limits of both their instruments to dazzling effect.

Anton Webern’s 1899 Two Pieces for Cello and Piano are the 16-year-old’s first known work, long pre-dating his fame as an atonal composer. DeCaprio and Han beautifully captured its straightforward romanticism. The concert closed with a vibrant rendition of Cesar Franck’s 1886 Sonata in A Major, originally for violin and piano, in a transcription by Jules Delsart for cello and piano. The duo was aptly yearning in the first movement, turbulent in the second, reflective in the third, and joyful in the finale.  

Both varied their tones from delicate to forceful and smooth to gutsy when needed and meshed like seasoned partners throughout the program. Their helpful spoken comments about the music further enhanced its impact.
 
SWCA will next present pianist Ilya Yakushev on February 16.

January 6, 2025

REVIEW: Berkshire Bach Society, "Bach at New Year’s"

Academy of Music, Northampton, MA
December 30, 2024
by Michael J. Moran

The Berkshire Bach Ensemble brought their customary flair and polish to Johann Sebastian Bach’s six “Brandenburg” concertos on the opening night of their annual three-day New Year’s concert series, with repeat performances in Great Barrington, MA and Troy, NY.

The program was led by Eugene Drucker, Artistic Director of the ensemble (and a founding violinist of the Emerson String Quartet), whose twenty-two members this year ranged from veterans of several decades to six debuting players.

Kenneth Weisse
Bach wrote these concertos separately over five years but published them together in 1721 to fulfill an overdue commission for the Margrave (Governor) of Brandenburg. Each is written for a different combination of instruments and features multiple soloists. Usually sequenced for dramatic effect when played as a set, the first, fifth, and third concertos preceded an intermission, and the fourth, sixth, and second closed the concert.

First-time ensemble member Yevgeny Kutik was a fiery violin soloist in the large-scale first concerto. The fifth concerto featured virtuosic solo turns by three ensemble veterans: expressive violinist Laura Lutzke; elegant flutist Judith Mendenhall; and protean harpsichordist Kenneth Weiss, who dispatched the taxing first movement solo cadenza with dexterous aplomb. The third concerto, for strings alone, offered an expanded slow movement and lustrous solos from veteran violinists Drucker, Lutzke, and Brunilda Myftaraj.  

Weiss returned to close the intermission with an entrancing take on the beautiful slow aria that opens and closes Bach’s hour-long “Goldberg” Variations for solo keyboard. 

The fourth concerto opened the program’s second half with sprightly solo performances by violinist Drucker and flutists Mendenhall and Berkshire Bach veteran Alison Hale. The sixth concerto, scored for strings without violin and harpsichord, showcased graceful solos by veteran ensemble violists Liuh-Wen Ting and Ronald Gorevic, principal viola of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. The second concerto, with standout solos by two more ensemble veterans, oboist Keve Wilson and trumpeter Maximilian Morel, ended the evening in a burst of joy.

The packed house loved every minute of this two-and-a-half-hour show in the warm Academy with exceptional acoustics. Kudos also go to double bassist Peter Weitzner for his resonant support throughout the concert and to Berkshire Bach Executive Director Terrill McDade for a model program book.
 
The Berkshire Bach Society next concert will be on February 8, 2025.

January 2, 2025

Review: The Bushnell, "Six, The Musical"

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT
www.bushnell.org
through Jan. 5, 2025
by Suzanne Wells

What do you get when you mix historical female role models with modern-day rock icons? “Six, The Musical” by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. Based on the six wives of Henry VIII, the show reveals each of their lives through the musical influences of rockstars like Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Ariana Grande, to name a few. This all-female cast and band put on a rockin’ concert, conveying each woman’s strengths, weaknesses, and ultimate outcomes.

The atmosphere is a contrast between medieval and current times. The stage, designed by Emma Bailey, is set as a dark castle. The lighting, designed by Tim Deiling, and the scented fog contribute to the overall environment, making the audience feel as if they are attending a court banquet. Yet the modernized Tudor-era ball gowns, created by Gabriella Slade, incorporate a blinged-out, metallicized style found at any contemporary rock concert.
 
The choreography of modern dance moves conveys a myriad of emotions—joy, strength, lust, revulsion, horror—all the raunchy debauchery associated with the 16th century. The use of modern-day rituals and references makes these historical figures very relatable and adds a little levity to the storyline.

Each wife presents her story through a clever, witty solo drawing parallels between the past and present. While every song sweeps the audience into the excitement and emotion of the production, Kelly Denice Taylor’s voice while performing the power ballad “Heart of Stone” clearly moves the soul. “Get Down” performed by Danielle Mendoza is a feel-good, toe-tapping good time. And “All You Wanna Do” sung by Alizé Cruz creates a flirtatious vibe, revealing the destructive nature of repetitive patterns. The performers' vocal abilities are truly impressive, and their energy is infectious.

Whether a history buff, a music lover, or just looking for a fun night out, “Six” has something for everyone. This must-see show inspires strength, solidarity, respect, and equality; a unique and empowering musical.