David Kim and Marian Lee play Brahms

Artistic director Xiang Gao has not only put Delaware on the map with his own violin performances, but he has brought great musicians to the UD campus. The Master Players Concert Series and the Delaware Korean American Association sponsored the February 13 piano and violin recital by David Kim, concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Marian Lee, faculty pianist at the University of Delaware and former Julliard classmate of Mr. Kim.

The two musicians are both so good that not only were they able to play the second movement of the F.A.E. Sonata Scherzo (Brahms’ contribution to a multi-composer work written as a tribute to the violinist Joseph Joachim), but they were also able to master the dynamic levels so that each phrase blossomed like a firecracker fountain then yielded to the next phrase so that it was truly a performance of two equal partners – just as Brahms would have wanted.

Dr. Lee gave a pristine performance of the Intermezzo Opus 118, No. 2 in A Major. She brought out the intricate balance of the middle voice and delicately wound the upper melody around it without crowding either line. Her clean playing made the effect of the piece dramatic in its purity.

The two violin sonatas which followed each had that magic that is made up of so many little details that master musicians can pull off without schmaltz or excess. In the Sonata in A Major, Opus 100, there were almost imperceptible hesitations before the most dramatic notes which were so smoothly coordinated that this just had to come from feeling the music rather than a learned gesture.

And the performance of the Sonata in D Minor, Opus 108 showed again how easily the balance of sound was achieved so that even with the busiest parts and an open lid on a grand piano, the piano never hid the violin, even when Mr. Kim played in the very lowest range of the violin. His tone is consistently smooth and beautiful and he found a very good collaborator in Marian Lee.

See www.davidkimviolin.com

See www.music.udel.edu

Can newspaper photography be art?

A resounding yes if Fred Comegys is holding the camera! Although he protests that he has never thought of it as art, Mr. Comegys’ photographs reveal that he is always looking for the different angle, the grittiness, the photographic statement.


And brava to Executive Director Danielle Rice for deciding to keep to her ‘let’s get local’ theme. The crowd at the opening of the exhibit was very large and many of them were young people who had never been to the Delaware Art Museum before. They filed politely through the very small gallery where curator Heather Coyle Campbell had hung what she had feared would be a very small number of photographs – but finally on Monday, February 4, she received the last of 65 pictures from Mr. Comegys.


At the opening Comegys noted that photojournalists go from one appointment to the next – Wilmington in the morning, Middletown at noon and then some. The mission is speed. The mission is to report. And, as he pointed out with some contrition, the mission is often to catch people when they are not at their best.


Mr. Comegys’ work can even catch people at their worst. His photo of The Rolling Stones at a concert gives Jagger a mean and threatening look – and his several photos of Ku Klux Klan meetings put the spotlight on individual Klansmen with disturbing clarity – one of which is labeled Rev. Dorsett preaching at a Ku Klux Klan Rally, Bear, Delaware, 1965. This is a disturbing photograph.


Yet Comegys can also paint people at their best. Ted Kennedy standing among the nuns and teachers of St. Mark’s High School looks like an angel come to earth. Did you mean that, Fred, or did it just happen?


See www.comegys.com
See www.delart.org
See www.delawareonline.com


Photos: Top, left to right: 1. U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy at St. Mark's High School, Wilmington, 1972. 2. Spiderman in the net, St. Georges Bridge, St. Georges, DE October 1971.
3. Sister Mary Francis tosses a football during recreation period, The Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, Wilmington, Delaware May 1984. Bottom right: Port Deposit, Maryland Flood, June 26, 1972.

Longwood Organ Dedication

Normally we don’t blog non-Delaware events, but since this was a DuPont event just up the road from the Delaware border, it would seem churlish not to write about one of the most affable and accomplished musicians around: Peter Richard Conte, Grand Court Organist for the Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia who played the re-dedication concert on the restored Aeolian symphonic organ before a sold-out crowd including Maestro David Amado, Nathan Hayward and Governor Pete Dupont. (Tickets sold out the day they went on sale in September 2010.)

Staff at Longwood tell me that in the weeks before the concert, Mr. Conte would come to practice after the restoration team had put away their drills late at night and stay for hours – and then would sneak in at the crack of dawn to play some more before the restorers arrived to work on the project, handing the banished musician coffee as a consolation.

But not only did Peter Richard Conte play an incredibly difficult program on Friday, February 4, having carefully prepared exploited as many of the stops and whistles as possible, but he wrote a brief erudite yet humorous introduction for every piece. He had known Firmin Swinnen, the first concert organist in residence who helped design the Aelion symphonic organ. Mr. Conte played some of his works – and made sure a computerized of an actual performance by Mr. Swinnen was featured.

The highlight of the Friday night concert was Mr. Conte’s performance of an incredibly demanding piece composed by Marcel Dupré, who had actually performed it at Longwood. Mr. Conte’s performance of Variations sur un Noël, opus 20, pour grande orgue and his registration of the piece gave it the texture and variety that it deserved.

But I salute Mr. Conte not just for his mastery of music, but for his outstanding affability. He stayed after the concert, was easily approachable and friendly to all – young and old, allowing them to enjoy the experience of knowing a true artist.

He returned in the morning for a more technical demonstration of the organ and answered all questions from young and old with eagerness, humor and respect.

Bravo, Mr. Conte and kudos to Paul Redman for taking the initiative to invest in restoring Longwood to its former elegance.