Creating 'Provocative Pairings' with a Pair of Poets

This post is from an excerpt of Out & About magazine's April 2018 issue...

Musical quintet Mélomanie prides itself on creating what they coin “provocative pairings” in their music and partnerships. This month is no different (yet very different), as they celebrate a first-time collaboration with phenomenal spoken-word duo Nnamdi Chukwuocha and Albert Mills, known as the Twin Poets and Delaware’s current Poets Laureate.

Mélomanie. Photo by Tim Bayard.

In a program entitled United Sounds of America, two performances — Saturday, April 7, at 4:00pm and Sunday, April 8, at 2:00pm — will be presented at The Delaware Contemporary, completing this mash-up of artistic genres. Guest artist Jonathan Whitney will join them on percussion.

The Twin Poets are thrilled at the prospect of this new artistic endeavor. “We’re honored to share the stage with Mélomanie,” Chukwuocha and Mills say. “Through music and spoken-word, we’ll depict the challenges, hopes and aspirations of our great nation. Throughout America’s proud history, the most significant moments have always been when we stood united, demonstrating our true strength. In response to the chaotic divisiveness spreading throughout our country and world, this performance will ‘build a wall’ of love and empowerment, highlighting the transformative power of the arts.”

“I deeply admire the work of the Twin Poets,” says Mélomanie Artistic Director Tracy Richardson. “Their words and performances articulate the human situations of our time and the human condition of any time, contemporary or ancient.”

The Twin Poets. Photo by Joe del Tufo.

Mélomanie asked the Twin Poets for the opportunity to combine their respective art forms and offer a new experience to audiences. “We’re continuing in the earliest traditions of the union of poetry and music,” says Richardson.

Richardson says audiences can expect new poetry and favorite past works from the Twin Poets as well as new and favorite music from Mélomanie. For the performance, the Twin Poets have created a poem reflective of the event title, United Sounds of America.

The ensemble and duo will perform together and separately during the program, with composer Mark Hagerty creating and arranging music to accompany the Twin Poets. Mélomanie will perform contemporary regional composer Robert Maggio’s Aegean Airs and German Baroque master Georg Philipp Telemanns’ Chaconne. 

Tickets are $25, $15 for Delaware Contemporary members and students 16 and older. Those up to age 15 are admitted free. Advance purchase is recommended at melomanie.org.

See www.melomanie.org. 

Ayreheart Makes the Lute ‘Cool’ Again in Wilmo

Ayreheart is Ronn McFarlane, lute; Willard Morris, fretless bass, violin & colascione; 

Mattias Rucht, percussion. Photo courtesy of Ayreheart.

This post is from an excerpt of Out & About magazine's April 2018 issue...

Market StreetMusic keeps its vibrant music roster going into spring with the return of Renaissance-and-modern music trio Ayreheart. The ensemble — Ronn McFarlane, lute; Willard Morris, fretless bass, violin and colascione (a kind of bass lute); and Mattias Rucht, percussion — brings the lute and related period instruments into the 21 Century with all the energy of a traditional rock band. The Friday, April 20, 7:30pm concert is the second appearance for the group in Market Street Music’s lineup.

“Ayreheart returns to Market Street Music because they are simply remarkable!” says Market Street Music Director David Schelat. “These musicians, who all have backgrounds in rock and jazz, create a level of energy that jumps off the stage and into the audience. It really is a bit like a rock concert, except the music is from the 14th to 17th Centuries.”

So, let’s back up. What’s a lute, exactly? It’s a stringed instrument (similar to a guitar, although it is plucked rather than strummed) with a long neck of frets, a round body and flat front. Descended from the Arabic oud, the lute was the most popular instrument in the Western world during the Renaissance.

The Ayreheart ensemble was founded in 2010 by Grammy-nominated lutenist McFarlane, who had long been writing and performing music for solo lute and found many of his ideas were more expansive than for just a solo instrument.

“It was a natural evolution to expand into an ensemble that could play all the parts,” says McFarlane. “There’s also an exchange of ideas and energy with an ensemble that becomes more that the sum of its parts.” 

In addition to original music, Ayreheart performs Renaissance music, “…from the time when the lute was considered the ‘Prince of Instruments,’” as McFarlane notes. “There’s a tremendous amount of music that exists from that period…that appeals to us very much.”

The last time Ayreheart played at Market Street Music, they presented an all-Renaissance music show. This time around, McFarlane says they’ll offer up a generous helping of Celtic music as well as his original music in the mix.

“I want audiences to come away happy and uplifted by our music, but also to hear the lute as an expressive instrument for modern as well as Renaissance music,” says McFarlane. “It’s exciting to break new musical ground for the lute, combining Renaissance and modern instruments, and creating a new body of music that blends elements of folk, Celtic, bluegrass and classical,” he says.

Tickets are $20 ($10 students) online at marketstreetmusicde.org and $25 at the door the evening of the show. 

See www.marketstreetmusicde.org. 

Another Grand Night with the Delaware Symphony

By Christine Facciolo
It was certainly a grand night at the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. The Grand Opera House in Wilmington was filled, one presumes, to hear Tchaikovsky’s much-loved Piano Concerto No. 1 with the young Cleveland-born pianist Orion Weiss.

The concerto was absolutely spectacular. It is a tribute to Music Director David Amado and the immensely talented musicians of the DSO that the concert came off at all — let alone as well as it did. A hefty snowstorm just two days prior forced the cancellation of several rehearsal dates not to mention delaying the soloist’s arrival in town. Amado and flutist Eileen Grycky joked about the title of the concert, “Destiny,” in light of the week’s weather events.

The concert opened, appropriately enough, with a fine rendering of the melancholy and agitation of the overture to Verdi’s opera La forza del destino.

Pianist Orion Weiss then took his place at the keyboard and showed why critics have called him one of the most sought after soloists in his generation of young American musicians.

To say that Weiss wowed in his debut with the DSO would be an understatement. His was an exceptionally thoughtful performance. There was to be sure plenty of jaw-dropping showmanship but the loud passages were well-modulated to the capabilities of the piano, the venue and the level of the orchestra. The lyrical moments between the pyrotechnics were lovingly shaped and nuanced. The finale was high-voltage and Weiss executed its bursts of virtuosity with lightning speed.

For an encore, Weiss again dazzled with a performance of the final movement of Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin.

After intermission, the DSO returned with one of the lynchpins of the 20th Century orchestra repertoire, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. Written in 1943, a year before the composer died of leukemia, it is an unusually exuberant work given the circumstances under which it was created.

As anyone familiar with the work knows, each of the five movements a different section or sections of the orchestra and each conveys a different mood or character. The first is mysterious and “folkish,” while the second is humorous but with a solemn middle section. The third is very dark, but followed by a light intermezzo which parodies the Shostakovich Seventh, which although an enormously popular work at the time, was one Bartok intensely disliked. The finale is epic and triumphant.

All of these qualities came through strongly and convincingly in this well-executed rendering. From piccolo to tuba, the musicians turned in first-rate performances, presenting further evidence that the DSO is one of the finest regional orchestras on the scene.

See www.delawaresymphony.org.