A “very emotional” Easter Cantata is on tap for Saturday afternoon and evening at Christ-by-the-Sea Methodist Church, according to music director Marcos Flores, who says never before has the church performed so difficult a work as the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concert No. 2.
It will be played by Rochelle Sallee, a relatively recent arrival in the area, with Flores conducting a full orchestra and choir. Liturgical dancers are part of the production as is narration. The cantata is staged twice, at 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. “It will be a spectacular day,” promises Flores.
The musical “Memphis” opens Tuesday at Riverside Theatre, in a co-production with Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre. The 2010 winner of four Tony awards including Best Musical is set in the racially divided south in the 1950s, when a white DJ with a passion for blues music falls in love with a black woman, a rising star in the nightclub scene. Not exactly “West Side Story,” but the Romeo and Juliet theme is in there somewhere, blurred by the rock ‘n roll music and dancing of Memphis’ nightclubs, recording studios and radio stations. Written by David Bryan and Joe DiPietro, “Memphis” stars Christopher Sutton as the DJ Huey Calhoun; Sutton played the “damsel” Prince Herbert in 1,200 performances of “Monte Python’s Spamalot” under the direction of Mike Nichols. Kimber Sprawl, who plays Felicia Farrell, the nightclub singer, just graduated from Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.
Next Thursday, April 9, is the final Vero concert of the season for the Atlantic Classical Orchestra and the final appearance in Vero of retiring artistic director Stewart Robertson, who announced in late January that Parkinson’s disease was making it increasingly difficult to conduct. Robertson has led the Vero- and Stuart-based orchestra for 11 seasons and this year expanded into Palm Beach Gardens.
His tenure also saw the ACO’s first recording and the development of a series of commissioned works through the Rappaport Foundation.
Thursday night’s program includes the world premiere of one of those commissions, a violin concerto by the young Chinese-American composer Zhou Tian, performed by Caroline Goulding. In commissioning a work from Zhou, ACO joins such major orchestras as the Cincinnati Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Zhou has held composition fellowships from Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festival. He is currently on the faculty of Colgate University.
Robertson will be giving his customary pre-concert lecture starting at 6:40 p.m. with the concert starting at 7:30 at St. Edward’s School. The chamber orchestra will also perform Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture” and Alexander McKenzie’s “Benedictus.” Robertson will cap off his much-lauded and greatly appreciated run here with Beethoven’s spectacularly uplifting “Symphony No. 7.”
To calm the nerves and nourish the soul after a stressful season: the fifth annual Poetry Barbecue takes place next Sunday at the Environmental Learning Center under the auspices of the Laura Riding Jackson Foundation. The gathering takes place near the relocated 1910 cracker-style house of American poet Laura Riding, who renounced poetry in 1941 and came to live in Indian River County in 1943 with her new husband, the literary critic Schuyler Jackson, whom she met following a long relationship with the poet Robert Graves. She and Jackson continued to study language and meaning. She died in Wabasso in 1991 and her house was moved to the site of the ELC off the Wabasso Causeway.
The poetry barbecue begins with a poetry reading, then moves on to a catered barbecue dinner with a bluegrass band serenade by the Hot Sauce Boys. Participating poets offer readings of their works under a tent set out on the grassy lawn. This year the roster includes three prize-winning, widely published poets: Shane Seely, who teaches composition and creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis; Patti White, founding director of Slash Pine Press and professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Alabama; and Claude Wilkinson, who was the first poet to serve as writer-in-resident at the University of Mississippi, his alma mater.
The event includes displays of the works of seven local artists, a silent auction, and beer and wine. The readings start at 4 p.m. and the barbecue begins around 5:15. It all wraps up by 6:30 p.m. with smiles on exiting pretty much guaranteed.
