REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, "Family and Friends"

The Academy, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

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.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, "Junwen Liang"

The Academy, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

August 4, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

Junwen Liang

In advance publicity for this concert, Sevenars called 29-year-old Chinese pianist Junwen Liang their 2024 “young artist to watch,” a prophecy that was richly fulfilled in his varied program of challenging repertoire by five diverse composers.

Perhaps his boldest stroke was starting with the program’s centerpiece, Franz Schubert’s 35-minute Sonata in C minor, D. 958, as the entire first half of the concert. This is the darkest of the composer’s last three piano sonatas, all written months before his death at age 31 in 1828, and now considered among his greatest masterpieces. Liang launched with swagger into a dramatic opening “Allegro;” his “Adagio” was calm but suffused with the sorrow that haunts much of Schubert’s music; the “Menuetto” was somber and graceful; the “Allegro” finale, relentless.    

The program’s second half began with sensitive readings of Claude Debussy’s 1907 “Images,” Book 2. A shimmering “Cloches a travers les feuilles” (“Bells through the leaves”) was exquisitely shaped; a probing “Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut” (“And the moon descends on the temple that was”) evoked the sound Debussy loved of the Indonesian gamelan; a nimble “Poissons d’or” (“Golden fish”) sparkled playfully. Liang extended the impressionistic mood with a rhapsodic account of Chinese-Australian composer Wanghua Chu’s 2003 “Jasmine Flower Fantasia,” inspired by a Chinese folk tune. 

 

Shifting into a more virtuosic gear, Liang next offered a joyfully swinging take on Ukrainian-Australian composer Catherine Likhuta’s jazzlike 2001 “Rondo,” which recalled the infectious jazz-based style of her fellow Ukrainian Nikolai Kapustin. But it was Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 12 which brought out the full-blown musical showman in Liang. As he unerringly found his groove through the piece’s contrasting moods and abrupt tempo changes, it was hard to imagine that even the legendary Liszt could have wowed his audiences with greater technical finesse on his European concert tours.

Nor could Liszt have been more dazzling than Liang was in performing as his encore what has been called Frederic Chopin’s most difficult work, his Etude, Op. 25, No. 6. With an engaging stage presence, helpful spoken introductions to the music, and confident programming skills, Junwen Liang is ready for a major career.

Sevenars continues on Sundays at 4 pm through August 18th.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, "Opening Family & Friends Concert"

The Academy, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

July 14, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

Davis James, 1947-2025

The opening concert of this beloved summer festival’s 56th season was dedicated “in loving tribute to David Frank James,” who died two months ago. Husband of the late Robelyn Schrade-James (after whose parents and their five children, all having first names that start with R, the festival is named), David was a frequent Sevenars pianist. Today’s program honored his memory and celebrated his legacy.

After a brief, heartfelt eulogy, David’s daughter, pianist Lynelle James, played a charming “Two Little Birds,” by Frank Hutchens, which David, a fellow New Zealander, had brought to Carnegie Hall in his debut there. Family friend and regular Sevenars guest pianist Clifton J. (Jerry) Noble then introduced and premiered an affecting “Elegy for David” that he wrote for this occasion, based on the letters of David’s name and performed with noble gravitas.

Host and pianist Rorianne Schrade next offered a jubilant “Etude-Tableau” in E-flat Major, Op. 33/7, a rare work of pure joy by Sergei Rachmaninoff, which she first heard David play. After echoing his sister’s earlier sentiments, David’s son Christopher, primarily a cellist, nonetheless delivered a rip-roaring solo piano rendition of Franz Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz No. 1,” a concert favorite of his father.

Lynelle then joined her aunt Rorianne (sitting in for the originally scheduled David) in a vividly expressive reading of Johannes Brahms’s two-piano arrangement of his “Variations on a Theme by Haydn.”

 

Noble next partnered Rorianne in an exuberantly jazzy take on George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” in its original two-piano version in this 100th anniversary year of its debut. Lynelle rejoined Rorianne for a colorfully virtuosic "Jupiter" from Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite “The Planets” in a seldom-heard arrangement by the composer for two pianos during this 150th anniversary year of his birth.

 

The program’s closing surprise was inspired by Rorianne’s memory of her late mother, Rolande Young-Schrade, lamenting how hard it was to gather her musical family in one room. So after Rorianne began playing her own arrangement of the lively “Dargason” from Holst’s “St. Paul’s Suite,” other members of the extended Schrade-James family entered one by one to join her, from Lynelle and Noble to Rorianne’s husband Jeff and Lynelle’s toddler son Robie, as she held him and shook his rattle. It was magical, and David would have loved it.

Remaining Sevenars concerts, next presenting renowned local violist-violinist Ron Gorevic, are scheduled for Sundays July 21-August 18 at 4 pm.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, "Rorianne Schrade"

The Academy, Worthington, MA 

www.sevenars.org

August 20, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

Never one to shrink from a challenge, founding family member and festival executive director
Rorianne Schrade closed the 2023 Sevenars season with a 150th birthday tribute to the great Russian composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff. Only slightly diminished by a four-day cold, she not only tackled some of the most “demanding writing in the piano literature” but wrote her own touchingly personal program notes. 

She opened with four transcriptions by Rachmaninoff of works by other composers. In “Preludio,” based on the prelude from Johann Sebastian Bach’s third partita for solo violin, Schrade emphasized the “harmonic hints of Romanticism” heard in it by Rachmaninoff. In “Wohin?” (“Where?”) from Franz Schubert’s song cycle “Die Schone Mullerin” (“The Fair Maiden of the Mill”), she found a mix of “pastoral beauty and tragedy” that’s not uncommon in Rachmaninoff’s own music.

 

Mischievous joy pervaded Schrade’s take on his lively arrangement of the “Scherzo” from Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music for Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” as it did her raucous “Hopak” by Modeste Mussorgsky in Rachmaninoff’s boisterous setting.

 

After a tender reading of the gentle fifth “Musical Moment” in memory of her mother, Schrade launched without pause into Rachmaninoff’s daunting 1931 revision of his 1913 first piano sonata. Her powerful yet lucid playing let every note ring out clearly among the fistfuls of them in the opening “Allegro agitato” and the closing “Allegro molto,” while leaving plenty of space for the quiet beauty of the central “Lento” to resonate. This triumphant performance was a fitting rebuke to the teacher who advised her to leave this sonata “for the big boys.”

 

The program’s second half focused on “music of reverie,” in which Schrade considers Rachmaninoff “unparalleled.” Two songs – imaginative transcriptions by Hungarian pianist Zoltan Kocsis of “Vocalise” and by Rachmaninoff of “Lilacs” –ached with nostalgia. Two of his Op. 33 “Etudes-Tableaux” - #7 in E-flat Major and #3 in C minor – were cogently heroic. Two waltzes – resourceful transcriptions by Rachmaninoff of Fritz Kreisler’s “Liebesleid” (“Love’s Sorrow”) and by pianist Vladimir Leyetchkiss of the waltz from Rachmaninoff’s second suite for two pianos – exuded profound yearning.

 

This high point of the season will be hard to top, even at the special post-season concert on September 9 at 2 pm honoring longtime Sevenars jazz clarinetist Bob Sparkman.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, "MOSSO Horn Trio"

The Academy, Worthington, MA 

www.sevenars.org

July 23, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

Compared with piano trios (for violin, cello, and piano), horn trios (for French horn, violin, and piano) are far less common in the classical music repertoire. So the third concert in Sevenars’ 2023 season was a rare treat for horn lovers, with no fewer than four horn trios on the program. 

The performers were: Beth Welty, assistant principal second violinist of the Springfield
Symphony Orchestra; Sarah Sutherland, a horn player in the SSO; and Boston-based pianist Elizabeth Skavish. Welty and Sutherland are also members of the nonprofit MOSSO (Musicians of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra), which collaborates with other area musicians. 

The program opened with an elegant reading of French composer-hornist Frederic Duvernoy’s 1820 first horn trio, with a graceful “Adagio-Cantabile” and a lively “Allegretto.” A buoyant account followed of Norwegian composer-percussionist Trygve Madsen’s light-hearted 2004 trio, with a sprightly “Allegro moderato,” a soft, jazzy “Andante con moto,” and a sparkling “Allegretto.” 

Next up was the world premiere of MOSSO’s first commission, a colorful “Triptych” by Los Angeles-based film composer-arranger (and Welty’s nephew) Max Mueller. The trio’s obvious relish of the piece’s melodic charm and catchy rhythms was contagious, making Welty’s promise of more Mueller music on an SSO program next April an enticing one for the delighted audience. 

After an intermission with trademark Sevenars free homemade refreshments came a powerful rendition of what Welty called the “granddaddy” of the horn trio genre, and by far its best-known example, the 1865 horn trio by Johannes Brahms. Welty’s warm, lyrical violin, Sutherland’s lush, clarion horn, and Skavish’s versatile pianism were on full display in all four movements. 

The opening “Andante” was almost reverential, suggesting Brahms’ childhood affection for the natural horn; the “Scherzo (Allegro)” was challengingly virtuosic; the “Adagio mesto” was heartfelt, perhaps reflecting Brahms’ grief at his mother’s recent death; and the closing “Allegro con brio” was an exuberant romp.   

 

Spoken introductions offered helpful background on the music and a sense of the musicians’ distinctive personalities, including Sutherland’s enlightening comments about the work involved in maintaining a valve horn (the natural horn's modern successor), even while performing. 

Remaining Sevenars concerts, including the return of Ukrainian-born pianist Liana Paniyeva on July 30, continue on Sundays at 4 pm through August 20.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, "Opening Family Concert"

The Academy, Worthington, MA 

www.sevenars.org

July 9, 2023 

by Michael J. Moran 

Stormy Berkshire weather couldn’t dampen the high spirits of the hardy New Englanders who
lent a festive air to the opening concert of this beloved summer festival’s 55th season. The program featured members of the founding Schrade-James family and showcased their eclectic musical tastes in the intimate acoustics of the Academy in Worthington, MA

Host and pianist Rorianne Schrade (after whose parents and their five children, all having first names that start with R, the festival is named) began by playing her own transcriptions for solo piano of two pieces by American master Ned Rorem, who died last year at age 99. His 1955 chorus “Sing My Soul” was elegantly serene, while the “Overture” from his 1949 two-piano “Dance Suite” was playfully invigorating.  

 

Rorianne’s nephew, cellist Christopher James, was then accompanied by his father, pianist David James, in an uncredited transcription of French composer Edouard Lalo’s 1877 “Cello Concerto in D minor.” Christopher’s lyrical cello was offset by David’s heroic heft in the orchestral role. Both deftly navigated the imaginatively tricky rhythms of all three movements. 

Christopher’s sister, pianist Lynelle James, next joined Rorianne in a jubilant reading of French composer Darius Milhaud’s 1937 two-piano suite “Scaramouche,” with an energetic “Vif,” a dreamy “Modere,” and a rollicking “Brasileira.”

 

Lynelle then played US premieres of two pieces from Danish-German composer Soren Sieg’s album “Amazing Africa,” each with the earworm quality of a pop hit: a tranquil “Kinyongo;” and a livelier “Circus Queen.” David’s masterful accounts of two preludes (#’s 5 and 12) from Russian composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff’s 1910 Opus 32 set seemed to float on air.  

 

For French composer Claude Debussy’s technically demanding 1915 “Sonata for Cello and Piano,” Christopher shaded his tone between mellow and gritty, with pizzicato flurries in the second of its three short movements; Lynelle was a nimble partner. The concert closed with Rorianne’s transcription for two pianos of “Alla Marcia” from Finnish master Jean Sibelius’s 1893 “Karelia Suite,” played to a turn by herself and Lynelle.

 

Spoken introductions offered helpful background information on the music, often including family-related anecdotes, like David’s recollection of the late patriarch Robert Schrade’s legendary pianism. 

Remaining Sevenars concerts, the next two presenting Springfield Symphony Orchestra musicians, are scheduled for Sundays July 16-August 20 at 4 pm.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, "Liana Paniyeva"

The Academy, Worthington, MA 

www.sevenars.org

July 31, 2022 

by Michael J. Moran 

After studying, performing, and teaching in the United States for several years, Ukrainian-born Boston-based pianist Liana Paniyeva made a sensational Sevenars debut in a wide-ranging program of challenging and mostly unfamiliar repertoire. 

Liana Paniyeva

She opened with two of the sunniest preludes by Russian master composer/pianist Sergei
Rachmaninoff: a lush Op. 23/4 in D major; and a luminous Op. 23/6 in E-flat major. Then came a volatile “Fairy Tale,” Op. 20/1, by Rachmaninoff’s inventive but lesser-known fellow Russian composer/pianist and lifelong friend Nicolai Medtner. This was followed with two lovely miniatures by Ukrainian composers: a Chopinesque “Dream,” Op. 12, by “the father of Ukrainian classical music,” Mykola Lysenko; and a charming Etude, Op. 8/8, by Viktor Kosenko, which recalled early Scriabin.

Paniyeva’s next group began with two virtuosic Franz Liszt arrangements of songs by Franz Schubert: a haunted, flowing “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel;” and a pensive, caressing “Serenade.” It culminated in a dramatic fourth Ballade by Frederic Chopin, which epitomized the depth of keyboard sound, poetic sensibility, and talent for building climaxes that she had demonstrated in all the previous selections.

The first piano sonata by Robert Schumann was an unconventional choice to close her program, but this 1836 rarity gave Paniyeva a chance to champion a work she clearly believes in. Her total commitment found the unity in its sprawling structure, from a mercurial opening “Un poco adagio-Allegro vivace,” a ravishing slow “Aria,” based on an early song, and a lively “Scherzo: Allegrissimo,” with a surprise polonaise-like trio section, to a wildly discursive “Allegro un poco maestoso” finale, in which she wisely played down the “maestoso” (“majestic”) marking. 

With technical mastery to spare, a deep feeling for the grand Romantic tradition of piano playing, and a modest, all-business stage manner that focuses on the music rather than personal display, Liana Paniyeva has all the makings of a major solo career. 

Still to come at Sevenars are two more concerts: pianist Judith Lynn Stillman, flutist Rachel Braude, and violinist Charles Dimmick in music of mostly women composers (August 7); and the Bob Sparkman Trio, with clarinetist Sparkman and power couple pianist Jerry and bassist Kara Noble in their 20th Sevenars “glorious jazz collaboration” (August 14). 

Attachments area

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, Family and Friends

The Academy, Worthington, MA 

www.sevenars.org

July 10, 2022 

by Michael J. Moran 

The 54th season of this beloved summer festival opened with its traditional showcase of musical talent in the founding Schrade-James family, along with premieres of compositions by two multi-talented friends of the festival, in the intimate acoustic of the Academy in Worthington. 

The festive spirit of the occasion was dimmed by the passing a week earlier of Randolph Schrade, a brother of Sevenars Executive Director and pianist Rorianne Schrade, who dedicated her loving performance of the tender “Prelude in E Flat” by Alexander Scriabin (a favorite composer of both) to his memory. She dedicated an equally affecting lullaby by Ukrainian composer Viktor Kosenko to her new grandnephew and a flamboyant Horowitz-enhanced “Wedding March” by Felix Mendelssohn to her husband. 

Rorianne’s brother-in-law, pianist David James, back from a three-year Covid-forced absence in his native New Zealand, followed with a vivid “Dedication” by Robert Schumann, arranged by Franz Liszt, and a flowing Liszt “Valse-Impromptu.” David’s son Christopher James next played two Liszt piano etudes: a lush “A Sigh;” and a Herculean “Wild Hunt.”

Playing cello, Christopher then partnered his sister, pianist Lynette James, in transcriptions by Friedrich Kummer of three Franz Schubert songs – a lilting “Serenade;” a fleet “The Trout;” and a lively “To Be Sung on the Water” – and a youthfully exuberant “Polonaise Brillante” by Frederic Chopin. 

Music educator/performer Anita Anderson Cooper was next accompanied by cellist James (her former student) and pianist Clifton “Jerry” Noble in her “Four Songs on Poems by Gloria House/Aneb Kgositile.” Cooper’s warm soprano voice and evocative musical settings, along with sensitive instrumental support, movingly conveyed the African-American writer’s eloquent words. 

The protean Noble, joined by Rorianne, ended the program with his two-piano suite, “Canival of R-nimals,” composed for Sevenars and honoring its namesakes - parents and five children, whose first names all begin with R. While channeling both Saint-Saens’ charming “Carnival of the Animals” and Ogden Nash’s droll companion verses, Noble put a virtuosically Schrade-y spin on his wide-ranging score (which includes scurrying “Rats,” rippling “Rays,” and plodding “Rhinoceri”), and his wife Kara read his self-penned “doggerel” with tongue firmly in cheek. 

Remaining Sevenars concerts, featuring such visiting artists as pianists Jiayan Sun and Liana Paniyeva are scheduled for Sundays July 17-August 14 at 4pm. 

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, Jiayan Sun

Sevenars Music Festival, The Academy, Worthington, MA 

www.sevenars.org

July 11 - August 15, 2021

by Michael J. Moran

After the Covid-19 pandemic cancelled their 2020 season, this beloved family-based music festival has resumed its full schedule in 2021 of six live Sunday afternoon concerts in the comfortably rustic Academy at Worthington in the heart of the Berkshires. They are recommending that patrons maintain a three-foot distance between parties and that unvaccinated patrons wear masks in the hall.

Jiayan Sun

On July 25 rising Chinese-born pianist Jiayan Sun played Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas. Now a music faculty member at Smith College, Sun said in a pre-concert Zoom interview that he enjoys playing them together not only because they comprise Beethoven’s “final statements in the genre” but because the “intimate experience” of performing them while he was a Juilliard student on a fortepiano made for the composer had given Sun “a deeper understanding” of “Beethoven’s sound world” at this late stage of his life. 

The sonatas Opus 109 and 110 have similar structures, with two short movements leading into a longer climactic finale. Sun’s approach to each was flexible in the volatile opening movements, turbulent in the fleet “Prestissimo” and “Allegro molto” second movements and striving for maximum contrast within both groundbreaking finales (a theme and variations in Opus 109, and two versions of an “Arioso” and “Fugue” in Opus 110). Omitting an intermission, Sun tackled the dramatic first movement of Opus 111 with a vengeance, then the extended, visionary “Arietta” finale with energy and nuance.

Most striking about the pianist’s take on this trilogy is that it’s a young man’s view (Sun is 31) of Beethoven’s late work, emphasizing its boldness and innovation. His technical control was flawless, and his emotional grasp of the music compelling. It will be interesting to hear how his interpretation may evolve ten or twenty years from now, perhaps into more reflective, even spiritual terrain.  

No Sevenars concert would be complete without the assortment of homemade refreshments normally served at intermission but here offered as a festive post-show opportunity for enthusiastic concertgoers to thank their gracious host, pianist Rorianne Schrade of the founding Sevenars family, and to complement their charismatic soloist.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, George Bowerman

The Academy, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

July 14 - August 18, 2019

by Michael J. Moran

George Bowerman

Three years after his triumphant debut at this family-based music festival as a “Young Artist to Watch,” Springfield-born pianist George Bowerman made a stunning return visit as a “Young Artist to Watch, Version 2.0,” as fellow pianist Rorianne Schrade, a daughter of Sevenars founders Robert and Rolande Schrade, introduced him on August 4. His adventurous program solidified Bowerman’s continuing growth into a mature professional artist.

It opened with a seldom played work by a rarely heard composer. Bowerman helpfully prefaced each piece with an articulate spoken introduction, and his dramatic performance of the Fantasy in F-sharp minor by Johann Sebastian Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel depicted exactly the musical journey that he had prepared the appreciative full house to listen for.  

Next came a brilliant account of Cesar Franck’s demanding Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, whose three sections are played without pause. From the solemn Prelude, through the plaintive Chorale and the exuberant Fugue, Bowerman varied the weight of his tone to build a mounting tension that was only resolved in the thunderous final chords.

Intermission was followed by the last of Brahms’ four Ballades, written at age 21, when he had just met his lifelong soulmate Clara Schumann. Bowerman related the tempo marking “with the most intimate feeling” in the middle section to the young composer’s affection for Clara, making the “adagio” pace at which he took the other sections, which Brahms had marked “andante con moto,” powerfully convincing.

Bowerman described the pleasure of working with Berkshire-based composer Stephen Dankner to prepare for today’s world premiere of his Four Preludes. Influences as diverse as Gershwin, Bartok, and Messiaen could be heard in these slightly jazzy, mildly dissonant, and altogether delightful pieces. Bowerman was in total command of their technical challenges and the emotional depths of the lengthy finale. The composer signaled his pleasure in return from the audience.

The formal program closed with a free-wheeling rendition of Chopin’s mercurial Polonaise-Fantaisie. A standing ovation was rewarded with an affectionate version of Chopin’s fleeting seventh prelude, Op. 28.

At age 29, Bowerman seems to have it all: dazzling keyboard technique; profound interpretive skill; charismatic and communicative stage presence. His devoted Sevenars following will not want to wait three more years for “Young Artist to Watch: Version 3.0.”

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, Opening Concert

The Academy, South Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

July 14 - August 18, 2019

by Michael J. Moran

The Academy at night

This family-based music festival, founded by Robert and Rolande Schrade and named after  the first letter of their names and those of their five children, opened its 51st anniversary season on “Bastille Day” with an exhilarating program of French music performed (mostly) by members of the extended Schrade-James family.

It opened with two pieces from Debussy’s first book of “Images” played by Lynelle James, daughter of pianists David James and the late Robelyn Schrade-James and a granddaughter of the founders. Her “Reflets dans L’Eau” (Reflections in the Water) was lithe and sensuous, while “Mouvement” (Movement) had quicksilver energy. Lynelle’s father, David, next played Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” from his “Suite Berganasque,” with gentle simplicity. He then brought vigor and clarity to Ravel’s compact three-movement “Sonatine.”

Lynelle’s aunt Rorianne Schrade, youngest daughter of the founders, followed with an alternately dreamy and dramatic account of Chopin’s Impromptu in F-sharp Major. The first half of the program ended with Lynelle and her brother Christopher James offering a fluid, engaging performance of an arrangement for cello and piano of the closing “Allegretto poco mosso” movement from Cesar Franck’s violin sonata in A Major.

The program’s second half was devoted to a delightful rendition of the “Carnival of the Animals” by Camille Saint-Saens in a version for two pianos, played by Lynelle and Rorianne. Each of the piece’s fourteen short movements depicts a different animal, except the eleventh, which depicts pianists. These players performed this and the other movements with humor and the mood best suited to each selection: majesty for the opening “Royal March of the Lion”; torpor for the ultra-slow “Tortoises”; and tender grace for the familiar “Swan.”

A special pleasure of this presentation was the hilarious narration by Ogden Nash, elegantly delivered by New York-based radio personality Magee Hickey, fresh from covering the city’s blackout for WPIX the night before. She even managed to keep a straight face when reading Nash’s clever rhyming of “boomerang” with “tasty kangaroo meringue.”

The joyous atmosphere of this musical family gathering was an auspicious launch to this beloved festival’s second half-century.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, Lynelle James

Sevenars Music Festival, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

August 5, 2018

by Michael J. Moran

For the second week in a row, the family member featured in concert at Sevenars was Lynelle James, last week as a member of the Piazzolla Trio, this week as piano soloist. This family-based music festival, founded by Robert and Rolande Schrade and named after the first letter of their names and those of their five children, celebrates its 50th anniversary season this summer.

Lynelle is the daughter of pianists David James and the late Robelyn Schrade-James and a granddaughter of the founders. The repertoire on her program was typically adventurous for this venue, all demanding the utmost technical facility and interpretive depth, requirements that she met with room to spare.

Lynelle James

She opened with a sparkling account of Mozart’s Sonata, K. 332, which dates from his early maturity around 1783, and which James noted in spoken comments reflects the drama of his operas and was a favorite of her mother. The “Allegro” first movement exuded classical poise, while the central “Adagio” conveyed a luminous stillness, and the closing “Allegro Assai” was a joyful romp. Concluding the concert’s first half, by contrast, was Liszt’s colorful Mephisto Waltz No. 1, which James rendered with unfailingly virtuosic flair. 

The program’s second half began with several fascinating short pieces by the concert’s least-known composer, Nikolai Roslavets, a twentieth-century Russian modernist whose music can sound, as pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, quoted by James, put it, “like Scriabin on acid” (both pianists have recorded Roslavets). Her playing of four miniatures, recently recovered from long obscurity, reveled in the composer’s quirky originality.

James closed her program with a bracing performance of Chopin’s masterful and challenging third piano sonata. She effortlessly captured the full range of its powerful emotions, from a warm opening “Allegro Maestoso,” to a mercurial “Scherzo,” a radiant “Largo,” and a thundering “Presto Ma Non Tanto” finale.

Nurtured in the bosom of a loving musical family, whose tradition of excellence is entertainingly chronicled on the walls of the Sevenars concert hall, this distinguished third-generation musician seems clearly destined for a major career.

REVIEW: Sevenars Music Festival, The Piazzolla Trio

Sevenars Music Festival, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

July 29, 2018

by Michael J. Moran

The Piazzolla Trio

This family-based music festival, founded by Robert and Rolande Schrade and named after the first letter of their names and those of their five children, celebrates its 50th anniversary season this summer. Most programs feature at least one family member, and in this season’s fourth concert that was pianist Lynelle James, a granddaughter of the founders, along with her colleagues in the Piazzolla Trio, Israeli-American violinist Anat Malkin Almani and founding Albanian-American cellist Gjilberta Lucaj.

They led off with an elegant account of Mozart’s B-flat Trio, K. 502, written at the height of his thirty-year-old maturity in 1786. All three were lively in the opening “Allegro,” flowing in the serene “Larghetto,” and fleet in the closing “Allegretto” movement. Following in stark contrast and closing the concert’s first half was Rachmaninoff’s early Trio Elegiaque No. 1, written in 1892, when he was still a nineteen-year-old student. The trio’s intense performance of this 15-minute single-movement piece found more passion and depth in it than either of the readily available recordings.

The program’s second half, including a brief encore, consisted entirely, and unsurprisingly, of music by the trio’s namesake, and it was a rare treat to hear it in such a concentrated dose. As Lucaj told the audience, Astor Piazzolla’s legendary French music teacher, Nadia Boulanger, identified and nurtured his gift to create a new form of classical music based on the tango rhythms of his native Argentina.

This gift was immediately apparent in the trio’s luscious rendition of the seductive “Oblivion,” one of Piazzolla’s most popular tangos. The lesser-known tango “Muerte del Angel” (The Angel’s Death) begins with an inventive three-voice fugue, which was grippingly executed by the trio.

The major work they presented was the composer’s colorful “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires,” which in their three-part structures replicate the design of Vivaldi’s famous “Four Seasons” cycle of three-movement concertos two centuries earlier. The sound effects cleverly reflect the weather of each season, which the trio depicted with technical prowess and interpretive finesse.

The free home-baked treats during Sevenars intermissions further deepen the joy of music-making in this exquisitely intimate environment.

Jerry Noble and Friends

Sevenars Music Festival, The Academy, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

July 9-August 13, 2017

by Michael J. Moran

Even for this notably eclectic festival, the penultimate concert of its 49th season must have pushed the musical boundaries about as far as any other program in its first half-century.

Known as Clifton J. Noble in his day job as classical music critic for the Springfield Republican newspaper, Jerry Noble is also a skilled classical and jazz pianist and composer. In keeping with the family roots of Sevenars (it was founded by Robert and Rolande Schrade and named after the first letter of their names and those of their five children), Noble was joined on stage by his wife, Kara Noble, on bass guitar, and by members of the Biswas family from India.

But the concert opened with Noble accompanying Schrade family cellist Christopher James (his late mother was Robelyn Schrade-James) in Elgar’s own arrangement for cello and piano of his concerto for cello and orchestra. Written just after World War I, its four movements have varied tempos but reflect a predominantly elegiac mood. James gave a tight and focused performance, with Noble’s eloquent keyboard enhancing the music’s poignancy and power.

Noble then introduced Indian-born cellist, composer, and educator Anup Biswas, who was joined by his son Satyajit on mridangam, an Indian drum, and his daughter Geetanjali on vocals, in a mesmerizing rendition of Indian writer and composer Rabindranath Tagore’s song “Anondo Loke” (Abode of Joy). Along with Satyajit, Jerry, and Kara (everyone is on a first-name basis at Sevenars), Anup followed that with a joyful account of his own “Celebration,” from a longer ballet score.

Jerry Noble & Bob Sparkman

In yet another total change of musical focus, Noble was joined after intermission not only by Kara but by clarinetist Bob Sparkman in a series of “duo and jazz trio improvisations.” The Jerry-Bob duo swung mightily through a Fats Waller set, featuring a vivid “Jitterbug Waltz.” The trio romped through five more selections, including a Latin-style version of Ellington’s “Perdido,” before Anup and James, now on guitar, joined them for a rollicking take on “Sweet Georgia Brown” to end this all-embracing show on a high note.

Schrade and James Family Concert

Sevenars Music Festival, The Academy, Worthington, MA

http://www.sevenars.org

July 9-August 13, 2017

by Michael J. Moran

Among local summer music festivals, Tanglewood may have the bigger name, but the music making at Sevenars is just as distinguished, the venue is a lot more intimate, and the repertoire on any one program is likely to be a good deal more eclectic. Such was certainly the case at the opening concert of the 49th season of this beloved family-based festival, founded by Robert and Rolande Schrade and named after the first letter of their names and those of their five children.

The featured performers were pianists Rorianne Schrade, her brother Randolph Schrade, their brother-in-law David James, his daughter Lynelle James, and his son, cellist Christopher James. As Rorianne quipped before the last piece, the concert could have been titled “From Summerland to Summertime,” as it opened with a tender performance by herself and David on two pianos of William Grant Still’s brief and lovely meditation “Summerland,” and closed with a rip-roaring account by herself and Lynelle of Percy Grainger’s 20-minute knuckle-buster, “Fantasy on George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.” 

The tempo picked up after “Summerland” with a virtuosic rendition by David and Christopher of Paganini’s typically challenging “Variations on a Theme from Moses in Egypt,” a rarely heard opera by Rossini. Their Tchaikovsky “Pezzo Capriccioso” was an engaging mix of liveliness and poignancy. Randolph brought clarity and emotional depth to two Brahms pieces, a “Capriccio” and an “Intermezzo.” He and Christopher played the familiar “Meditation” from Massenet’s opera “Thais” radiantly. After a sunny account by Christopher and Rorianne of Cassado’s charming “Requiebros” (“Compliments”), the first half of the concert closed with Lynelle’s powerhouse rendition of Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz No. 1.” 

In total contrast, Christopher opened the second half with a stately performance of the “Prelude” from Bach’s sixth cello suite. And David invested the theme and variations in Schubert’s B-flat Major Impromptu with drama and flair.

Sevenars intermissions offer free home-baked treats, and the musicians line up after the concert to greet, thank, and chat with audience members. Area classical fans are well-advised to include Sevenars, along with Tanglewood, on their summer “to do” list.

Kinga Augustyn & Lynelle James

Sevenars Music Festival, The Academy, Worthington, MA

www.sevenars.org

July 12-August 16, 2015

by Michael J. Moran

The Sevenars Music Festival has always been a family affair. It was started in the late 1960s by Robert and Rolande Schrade and named after the first letter of their own names and the names of their five children. Three of the children eventually joined their parents in becoming professional musicians and pianists. On five Sunday afternoons every summer, several generations of Schrades continue to present concerts by themselves and other musicians. 

Kinga Augustyn

The latest program was a stunning recital by young Polish-born violinist Kinga Augustyn and third-generation Schrade family pianist Lynelle James. It opened with an arrangement of Bartok’s “Sonatina,” originally written for solo piano on Romanian folk tunes. Augustyn’s natural tone is full and rich, but she scaled it back for the livelier dance rhythms, and even in the hectic close she never smudged a note. In total contrast, she next ascended the Mount Everest of the solo violin repertory with a virtuosic but finely nuanced account of the “Chaconne” from Bach’s second partita. These 14 minutes require the utmost concentration, but Augustyn made it all look effortless.

The rest of the program focused mostly on Polish music, but in this duo’s elegant performance, Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of Chopin’s Mazurka, Op. 33/3 had an almost Viennese lilt, as did, fittingly, Kreisler’s own “Schoen Rosmarin.” The first half closed with a lively account of Wieniawski’s lovely “Polonaise de Concert” in D.

Intermission was followed by James’s fiery solo reading of Chopin’s “Winter Wind” etude. Surprisingly lyrical pieces by Paganini and Paderewski were then followed by a sensuous account of Szymanowski’s gorgeous “Fountain of Arethusa,” which exceeded even the brilliant closing Sarasate showpiece “Zieunerweisen” in interpretive finesse. A fervent encore of the Bach/Gounod “Ave Maria” brought the concert to a moving end.

As if all this musical nourishment wasn’t enough, Sevenars intermissions offer delicious home-baked refreshments; and there are still two more concerts to come in this uniquely bucolic setting: on August 9, Jerry Noble and friends; on August 16, James family musicians (Lynelle; her father, pianist David James; and her brother, cellist Christopher James).