Renaissance: Support for Art and Knowledge

Drama, beauty, youth, wisdom, innovation and tradition: The Delaware College of Art and Design (DCAD) has all of this, and more. At the school’s fourth annual gala –the Renaissance – to benefit the scholarship program, DCAD created a lively evening of music, art, entertainment and delicious food. Donors, students, faculty, administrators and art aficionados of all kinds had the chance to mingle and listen to music provided by a lovely quartet.

DCAD is Delaware’s only professional art and design school. As an integral part of the newly revitalized community on lower Market Street, the college is committed to providing scholarships to its students. In order to award more than $800,000 in financial aid next year, the school relies heavily on its patrons and donors. Mr. and Mrs. Iréneé duP. May honorary chairs for the gala evening, have been integral in promoting and supporting the school and all the Arts in the Brandywine Valley.

I enjoyed chatting with the college president, Stuart Baron, about the school and its programs. A painter himself, Baron has overseen the DCAD since July, most recently having been in Baton Rouge, where he spearheaded an effort to get art supplies to students, children and displaced artists who were affected by Katrina’s devastation. His passion – for art itself and for making it available to everyone who wishes to enjoy and create – mirrors and furthers the school’s mission.

DCAD used the Italian Renaissance as a theme for its gala, since it was an era when artists were heavily supported and encouraged by their patrons. Some students wandered about the first floor in togas, preparing to bring to the life the “Last Supper” tableau staged on the back wall of the gallery. Overflowing were banquet-style tables of beautifully arranged loaves of bread, cheese and fruit. Both student and teacher works were for sale during the silent auction. Guests were greeted at the doorway by costumes from OperaDelaware’s Tosca, reminding us of the close relationship design, music and historical studies have with each other, as well as the vital Arts community that has been forged along Market Street in Wilmington.

The Creation: Music Born of the Bible

The more than 50 voices of the Delaware Valley Chorale joined together to sing Franz Joseph Haydn’s masterpiece The Creation. Accompanied by a fine orchestra, under the nimble baton of Conductor and Artistic Director, David Christopher, this all-volunteer chorus (selected by audition) graced the audience with a fabulous performance of this lively setting of one of the Bible’s most beloved and well-known passages.

Christopher’s comments about the work being a hybrid of classical and baroque styles gave me a framework for listening and digesting the work. He described the work as an amalgam of Handelian choral singing and late classical music. The architecture of the piece could be heard clearly: the orchestral part, with its resounding timpani and warm strings provided the foundation, the choral writing, layered, imitative and sometimes canonic gave the work depth. The recitatives and arias were the decoration on this structure revealing the composer’s artistically musical interpretation of the text. The duets and trios brought the structure closer to the heavens with their soaring, virtuosic joy.

Bass Alex Helsabeck sang Raphael with clarity and warm, focused sound. Each phrase was planned and executed with gentle phrasing where the text required it. Helsabeck’s voice rich and full and he handles ornamented passages with grace, singing each note perfectly in pitch. In spite of the soloist’s unfortunate placement behind the orchestra, his voice was easily heard.

Joyous was tenor Dana Wilson (as Uriel) in his singing and presentation. Like Helsabeck, he projected out over the orchestra from the back with his sweet ringing tenor. Wilson brings the athleticism of his career as baseball umpire to his performance.

Melanie Sarakatsannis, soprano, provided the “icing on the cake” in the performance as Gabriel. She sang some wonderfully ornate passages with panache and a clear bright tone, projecting confidently. Her voice was well balanced with the other soloists in the duets and trios.

The real stars were the choristers. Haydn’s multi-layered piece provides many challenges in its imitative and canonic sections. Christopher has helped them grow into a group with a lush, unified quality. Each one of the singers is dedicated, and sings from a place of joy. That is exactly what they brought to the audience, too.

Matt Casarino – A 21st Century Renaissance Man

Actor, musician, beer connoisseur, bon vivant; all describe Matt Casarino. When I first met him while working on Kiss me, Kate at the Wilmington Drama League, I noticed his incredible energy.

From the audience, watching him on stage in The Music Man, that energy was almost palpable as he livened up the fictional town and the actual stage with his buoyancy.

But Matt is also a very serious and hard-working guy. He has been writing plays since 1997. His play Midnight Train to George was first runner up at this year’s Delaware Theatre Association’s 68th One Act Play Festival held on March 27, 2010 at the Everett Theatre in Middletown.

When I saw the play this past weekend at the adjudication of original works for the Eastern States Theatre Association at the Chapel Street Players, I was struck by how well the play’s dialogue was crafted. It’s the story of two women passengers on a bus…simple enough. Raye, a waitress in a diner, is bubbly and tells Kim she feels sure she has met her before. Kim denies it, but Raye persists to the point of annoyance. The words, their delivery and the flow of the dialogue seems so natural, I felt as if I were on the bus, too. I have heard so many similar conversations. As the play progresses, the tight writing makes everything move to a climax and then resolution – and all in less that thirty minutes.

Many of Matt’s plays have been published, including one in the Smith & Kraus Best 10 Minute Play series. He has had works performed all over the country – including stops in Delaware. Midnight Train to George was produced at both the Rehoboth Theatre of Arts and at City Theater Company in its 2009 series Casarino Royale in which it highlighted five of Matt’s works.
Matt’s day job is at the Wilmington Drama League, where he pretty much does everything when he is not being a musician or a playwright or keeping up his knowledge of distinguished brews.

See www.playscripts.com.
See www.mattcasarino.com.
See www.reverbnation.com/mattcasarino.