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A New Kind of Sunday Service on the Shore by Steve Parks

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Whether or not churches are packed on Easter Sunday or any time soon, people who wish to attend a religious service have a place to go—virtually—right now. Across the country, churches, parishes, synagogues, and mosques are posting live-steam or pre-recorded services, while others are going a bit more low-tech.

It only took a week for streaming services to pop up all over the mid-Shore region, usually via YouTube. As the Rev. Sue Browning, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Easton as well as UU of the Chester River in Chestertown, says, “My job as a minister is to stay in close communication with members of our fellowship, especially in times of stress.” Her two UU fellowships were closed as of March 12 due to the coronavirus crisis. “To close was a decision we made on our own,” she says, though, by order of Gov. Larry Hogan, gatherings of more than ten people were banned soon after.

“We only missed one Sunday,” says Browning, who also serves as chair of the Talbot Association of Clergy and Laity. “We were novices when it came to linking our website to YouTube,” which delayed the posting of that first service until 5:30 p.m. Although writing and delivering sermons is only a part of her job, it’s a focal point of each Sunday service. The March 22 streaming debut of UU Easton and Chestertown consisted largely of a hymn performed by Easton UU musical director Ellen Grunden–“Spirit of Life,” chosen in part because most UUs know it by heart—and Browning’s sermon, directed at calming fears at this time of anxiety and isolation.

Other local congregations have made similarly tentative steps into cyberworld. Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Parish, with churches in Easton, St. Michaels, and Cordova, has posted pre-recorded Sunday masses led by Father James Nash in the Easton cathedral. Plans for future dates, including Palm Sunday and Easter, are still up in the air, according to a parish staff member. “But we’ll definitely be doing services online,” she said. “And we expect to add daily masses soon.”

At Easton’s St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, Rev. Ed Kuhling delivered introductory remarks and a sermon that echo-chambered against a soaring stained-glass backdrop. The organ music, however, came across soothingly. Lyrics to hymns were projected on an overhead screen as well as words to responsive readings. The offertory was replaced by a projection indicating where to send checks covering annual pledges in tithes.

These streamings—bound to improve with practice—all resembled in-church services except you couldn’t be there in person. But to “attend,” you didn’t even have to dress.

Temple B’nai Israel got a jump on churches by presenting its Shabbat live stream on March 21, a Saturday, of course, following the start of Sabbath at sundown Friday. Rabbi Peter Hyman presided over what, as the temple’s Satell Center for Jewish Life on the Eastern Shore subtitle implies, is a wider geographical area.

“We should follow instructions on coronavirus. Trust what the experts tell us—politics notwithstanding,” the rabbi said in an online Talbot County Department of Health discussion.

In a Spy interview after the Saturday, March 28, service, Hyman said, “We had 300 viewings of our stream, ten times the number we usually draw in person,” for a congregation of 140 families scattered from the Ocean City area and Delaware to Kent Island. “We’re now looking at this as an opportunity to create a new normal. We will, at some point, resume regular services, but there’s every reason to continue expanding our outreach through technology.”

According to Pastor Tim Poly, his 60-member Royal Oak Community United Methodist Church expanded its audience exponentially to 1,600 globally, once it started streaming on Facebook in addition to YouTube. The church has long had an online presence, including daily devotions and bedtime Bible stories. Its latest is “Church for Kids,” noon Sundays on Zoom, a site that facilitates group interaction.

“Churches everywhere have been losing membership,” Poly says. “Because of the current necessity, we’re breaking out of our traditional four walls. We can’t not continue to do this, once things are back to what once was normal.”

But streaming isn’t the only way to get religion while churches are closed. African-American tradition lends itself to a richly aural experience. The Bethel AME Church in Chestertown and the Bethel AME in Easton, Rev. Wendell Gary presiding, offer 11 a.m. Sunday services delivered by way of conference call-ins. “We’ve set up three worship services a week,” says the Rev. Robert Brown Jr. of Chestertown. Besides the Sunday ritual, these include Monday prayer sessions and Thursday Bible studies.

A pastor’s prime-time is Sunday mornings. But life goes on all week. And especially at this time, loss of life can be inconsolable to survivors. “We had a death in the congregation,” says Browning. “It had nothing to do with coronavirus, but the disease had everything to do with how loved ones could mourn the passing. It changes everything about what we do as ministers, friends, or family. You can’t even offer hugs.” Besides spoken or written condolences, she says, “The best we can do for now is a memorial service after all this passes.”

As for weddings, she says, “I haven’t had one come up during this time, but I understand most venues and vendors have been very forgiving about postponements.”

In such cases, virtual ceremonies can’t replace the old normal.

See the guide to virtual church services here.

Steve Parks is a retired journalist now living in Easton.

The Spy Streaming Guide–What to Watch

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TV, of course, is always a home-entertainment source—at times unreliably so. But some of us who may be tech-challenged—under the age of 35 or so—probably haven’t taken full advantage of the burgeoning roster of excellent programming outside network and cable fare.

It’s time to catch up, especially now. None of us knows when next we can get out to catch a movie, concert, play, or musical at a local or out-of-town theater. If you’re already streaming savvy, skip the next part and go on to selected recommendations.

There are so many shows—miniseries, documentaries, and ongoing series running several seasons that we could not scratch the surface here. Certainly, I haven’t seen them all. I don’t think anyone has that much time on their hands—even now, as we’re mostly housebound. But all you need is a laptop or smartphone with decent sound quality. If not, then figure out how to run it through your TV. Or, easier still, invest in the modest cost of a streaming device, such as Roku, connecting to your flatscreen. That way, you can plug into such repositories as Netflix, which offers as many fine movies and other programming as HBO, for instance.

Here are three wide-ranging choices I recommend:

HILLARY, a four-part documentary available on Hulu

I know. Hillary. She’s so last election cycle. But considering she’d be president today, except for her electoral college loss to Donald Trump as she won the popular vote by nearly 3 million, there’s something very much current events about this up-close and unusually personal look at Hillary Clinton, from schoolgirl to the only woman ever nominated by a major party to be president of the United States. Never mind that she was probably the most famous woman in the United States for 30 years, she’s remained an enigma. It’s about time, some would say long past time, that we got to know her. One critic wrote that the documentary comes both too soon and too late.

Too soon, of course, because how much Hillary can you take? But it’s not just Hillary. For 20 years, we had no one in the White House besides a Bush or a Clinton. Even though an eight-year Obama hiatus, there was Hillary, first as secretary of state, then U.S. senator from New York and finally, inevitably, presidential candidate Clinton II.

The “too late” part goes almost without saying. But one of her supporters says it out loud, suggesting in this documentary astutely created by filmmaker Nanette Burstein that if “Hilary” had come out before the election, “we would’ve won.”

But the here-and-now in the documentary is hard to miss.

Of Bernie Sanders, running again for president long after his past-expiration date, Hillary said: “Honestly, Bernie just drove me crazy… Nobody likes him; nobody wants to work with him; he got nothing done. He was a career politician — he did not work until he was, like, 41 and got elected to something. It was all just baloney, and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”

OK, tell us what you really think.

Then there are the separate, never more personal, recollections of the roughest patch of any marriage of a president and first lady. (Bill: “It was awful, what I did.” Hillary: “I was so angry.”)

But their anguished looks and mannerisms say more than any words possibly could. Or any impeachment. The anguish, however, appears even greater among Clinton loyalists grieving on the night of her defeat. How is it, they ask, that Hillary paid more for her husband’s sexual indiscretions than Trump did for his?

It can’t just be about the emails. Misogyny played a more significant part than most anybody, but Hillary knows. She doesn’t use that as her excuse. “There are a thousand reasons,” she says, any one of which…

Recommended reading: “Hillary Rodham Clinton: Hard Choices,” a memoir.

THE HANDMAID’S TALE, now in season 4 on Netflix

In the Republic of Gilead, harrowingly depicted in Margaret Atwood’s novel, women of child-bearing age are consigned to the role of servile surrogate breeders. They give birth, but they are not allowed to be mothers. As instructed by Aunt Lydia, terrifyingly played in the Netflix series by Ann Dowd, this will become the young women’s new normal. Among them is Offred, played by Elisabeth Moss, with the plucky resolve of a survivor who hasn’t yet surrendered all notions of self-worth.

Over the course of three seasons, she matriculates through a curriculum that leads her from victimization to resistance. It’s a dangerous path. Those who are caught defying the reproductive order of the republic are punished in the most public and primitive way. Enemies of the state are put to death in the Old Testament way—stoning. And just in case any of the breeder witnesses to the execution miss the point, the condemned sometimes have their hands hacked off, so they have no means to deflect the rocks hurled at them.

Seasons three and four run deep into the resistance phase of this engrossing and evolving series. But all four are still available for “Handmaid’s Tale” virgins, so to speak.

Recommended reading: Atwood’s novel of the same title, of course.

THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, a miniseries on HBO pay cable or HBO Go streaming service

The year is 1940, and American hero Charles Lindbergh, the first human ever to cross the Atlantic solo in the air, is running for president against FDR. He’s a novice. No government experience whatsoever and a celebrity that cloaks his dark, anti-Semitic side. Fueled by the wealth and influence of fellow bigot Henry Ford, Lindy, in the 2004 Philip Roth re-imagining of 20th-century American history, defeats Roosevelt in a stunning upset. Taking their cue from the unbridled new president, Americans suddenly feel free to express racist and ethnic revulsion to “others,” not from their neighborhoods. It’s a slow-destabilizing rot on the soul of America as envisioned in Roth’s late masterpiece.

Here, David Simon, with his writing partner Ed Burns, creates a Newark, New Jersey, as realistic as the Baltimore they co-created in “The Wire,” widely regarded as a television masterpiece. Each member of this Jewish family reacts in starkly different ways to the new threat from within, rising on the heels of the defeat of Hitler.

Full disclosure: Simon is a colleague from my days as an editor at the Baltimore Sun, where he gathered first-hand material for his “Homicide” series on NBC and “The Wire,” and earlier as editor-in-chief of the University of Maryland daily paper, The Diamondback, a few years after me. He grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Silver Spring. So, the Newark neighborhood of Roth’s memory is not so distant from Simon’s. He brings it to chilling realism in this miniseries that runs every Monday night through April 20. You can still catch the first installment before Monday on HBO or anytime on HBO Go video on demand.

It could be Lindy’s America, just as this one has become Trump’—so far—because we’ve we let it. The parallels are unmistakable even without political finger-pointing. That would turn “Plot” into propaganda rather than drama. Simon and Burns know drama whenever they latch on to it.

Recommended reading: “The Plot Against America,” a novel by Philip Roth

Steve Parks is a former New York arts critic, writer, and editor now living in Easton.

Enjoying the Arts–Virtually by Steve Parks

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Maybe the least of our problems in the middle of a pandemic is boredom. Call it cabin fever, self-confined to your home as a good citizen who’s also acting out of self-preservation. But that doesn’t mean you can’t go out, virtually, and catch a show like way back when—last week or so—to a movie at the multiplex, a concert at the Avalon, your kid’s play or art show at school.

Forget sitting around watching alarming TV news or “Law & Order” reruns. Transport yourself to even the world’s coronavirus hot spots, such as Italy and New York City, without the slightest health risk. All you need is an Internet-connected laptop or a streaming port on the tube.

The Metropolitan Opera shut down early in March at its Lincoln Center home. You can’t even catch its “Live in HD” simulcast series at the Avalon or other venues across the country. But you can see and hear encore Met performances nightly at 7:30, and for 20 hours after the original stream, for the duration of the shutdown. Enjoy performances for free on the website from the company’s “Live in HD” catalog, including Verdi’s “La Traviata” March 19 and Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” March 22, starring Renee Fleming.

The deadly virus first struck the U.S. hardest in Washington state where concerts by the Seattle Symphony, like most other orchestras everywhere, have been canceled until further notice. But the Seattle Symphony began streaming smaller ensemble performances by its musicians and rebroadcasting past full-orchestral concerts through its social media links on YouTube and Facebook. See what’s coming up by going here and signing up for email alerts on upcoming online concerts.

Other orchestras offer audio-only streamed recordings of past concerts, such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, while the New York Philharmonic presents audio rebroadcasts of past concerts and video clips. Both are free.

For restless kids unaccustomed to being homebound in the spring, Easton’s Academy Art Museum, while closed for its usual programs, is presenting a series of art-at-home activities, starting with a free download of “Australian Aboriginal Dot Art” available on its site.

Access to the visual arts through virtual tours of the greatest museums in the world have been available for years. But technology has greatly enhanced the experience. Right now, you can be admitted to the Uffizi Gallery while the streets outside are deserted as Florence is in lockdown. Inside, you’ll encounter Michelangelo’s David and one of the world’s top collections of Renaissance art. While touring Europe, don’t miss the Louvre in Paris, where you can skip the crowds around “Mona Lisa” for a private audience with her. Then stop by the Musee d’Orsay, a former railroad terminal on the Seine now home to arguably the most captivating array of Impressionist paintings anywhere. Next, skip over to Amsterdam for a feverish tour of the Van Gogh Museum followed by a Rembrandt-highlighted visit to the Rijksmuseum. In London, antiquity, by American standards, is the focus of the British Museum. And then you’re free to return closer to home with a seat-of-the-pants tour of the voluminous Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan and a whirlwind look at the National Gallery of Art and its Smithsonian neighbors in Washington, D.C. But don’t neglect the West Coast. The J. Paul Getty Museum survived the most recent California inferno, and its treasure was rescued—at least until the next disaster.

Go to individual museum sites for virtual tours or window shop among 2,500 available sites. For shortcuts, try this. But don’t kid yourself (snob alert!). Assuming there are future opportunities, seeing the art for real is digitally non-replicable. Meanwhile, you can’t get a better view.

Broadway is shut down, probably past Tony Awards season. With no live streaming of shows now, Broadway World is posting “Living Room concerts” featuring currently out-of-work actors doing solo or duo concerts from their apartments, hotel suites—whatever… Writers, actors, singers, and dancers are sharing glimpses of their talents nightly at 7:30 on Instagram, while the Actors Fund is planning to raise money for performers-in-need with daily videos on its site featuring theater stars singing from home.

Even high school and college students are getting in on the act. Broadway Tony winner Laura Benanti went on Twitter to invite kids to post video clips on #SunshineSongs of rehearsals and performances of canceled shows. College theater seniors are posting showcases of their canceled work on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram in hopes they’ll be noticed by agents and industry professionals.

To see full-length musical classics, go to Broadway HD, a subscription service that invites you to pluck any play or musical from its library. Among its “must-see” shows are Cats (I’m waiting for the Dogs sequel), Carousel, my favorite Rodgers-and-Hammerstein, the 2013-14 Tony-winning best musical Kinky Boots, among its most recent offerings, and the original Sweeney Todd (superb Sondheim) and The King and I. Shows taped for PBS and other outlets can be found on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu and YouTube, including a Sondheim troika—Company, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods—plus Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate and Disney’s Newsies. Most are by subscription or at roughly $6.99 a pop.

If you’re out and about in a few months, itching to see a show live on Broadway or in Baltimore, D.C., or Philly, just cancel the above subscriptions and apply your savings toward those expensive ticket prices.

Look for more suggestions this month, including TV and streaming recommendations, and where you can see Best Picture Oscar nominees you might have missed as movie theaters closed.

Steve Parks is a former New York arts critic, writer, and editor now living in Easton. 

 

 

 

Op-Ed: Trump Lacks the Leadership Gene by Steve Parks

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We’re not self-quarantining. We went supermarket-shopping last weekend. My wife and I will venture out for a half-hour walk once I finish writing this piece online. But we’re pretty much hunkering down.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, we spent parts of weekday mornings, after exercising at our Easton Club East clubhouse (now closed) or in YMCA’s pools, watching the news. Speaking for myself, I could only take so much. Most days I’d get so worked up about the president’s inane, often hateful tweets or egregious decisions that I’d have to restrain myself from throwing objects at the TV. At those times, I’d retreat to my man-cave and watch sports. It didn’t matter. Whatever was in season. Whatever I recorded the night before. But now, because of the pandemic, there are no sports to watch. (Kudos to commissioners who made those decisions, as much as I’m disappointed.) Now I bide my time writing, reading or watching movies ancient enough that every actor on screen is deceased.

The pandemic can’t touch them. 

But inevitably, we get back to news because it affects us all. What are the latest restrictions? What can we expect next? Then, there he is on TV spreading more misinformation—if not outright lies—babbling excuses, spreading blame to Democrats, journalists, presidential predecessors or anyone who utters a syllable of criticism.

In a Rose Garden press conference, reporters gathered on the lawn, side-by-side in rows of folding chairs, while a gaggle of scientists and politicians were arrayed, standing virtually shoulder-to-shoulder behind the president who, after declaring a state of emergency proceeded to undermine it with false assurances, then invited everyone behind him to speak. Each one adjusted by hand the microphone Trump had just released, each gripping the podium he’d clutched with both hands. Though one speaker awkwardly bumped elbows with the president, most shook his hand before returning to their places, reflexively touching their faces.

Everyone present knew the president had been exposed, briefly, to at least two people at a Mar-a-Lago party who tested positive for COVID-19. 

Two reporters asked if the president accepted responsibility for the months-long delay in delivering testing kits to determine who does or does not have the virus. “No, I don’t take responsibility at all,” the president declared shamelessly, deflecting blame on the Obama administration, out of office more than three years. He dismissed a follow-up question as “nasty.” In 2018, the president and national security adviser John Bolton fired the pandemic team from the White House staff—appointed by President Obama. Trump has made it his mission to undue everything Obama did. Again, Trump refused to take responsibility. He turned to those behind him, asking if anyone knew who made that decision. “It wasn’t me,” he said, admitting twice in the same press conference that the buck stops anywhere but on his desk.

Before his national emergency declaration, the president all but dismissed the pandemic as a “hoax” blown out of proportion by Democrats and the news media, even Fox at times. The sad and dangerous side-effect is that Trump devotees believe him, literally repeating to reporters who ask them that the pandemic is a hoax created by Democratic “fake news”—as if live video feeds of empty streets in Italy, across Europe and now New York City, were staged to frighten us, to spook stock markets and undermine the president’s re-election. Trump has espoused all these “hoax” motives, each recorded for posterity on video. Somehow his most loyal supporters find space for denial.

While we’re entertaining preposterous conspiracy theories, how about this one? Trump refused the offer of the World Health Organization—he despises global organizations dominated by “experts”—to supply the United States with testing kits in January. Two months later, we’re still behind in delivering our own brand. Why might the president want to foster a delay? How about suppressing the number of Americans infected so the economy wouldn’t plunge into recession? I don’t actually believe the president is capable of sustaining such conspiratorial deception. But it’s no more implausible than a partisan pandemic hoax. Trump practically confessed his darkest wishes when he said he didn’t want Americans onboard a virus-infected cruise ship to disembark because it would add to bad USA numbers. Off-shore, they don’t count. And dead Americans can’t vote.

In case you haven’t noticed, Donald Trump lacks the empathy gene. He mocks widows of American heroes, Democratic and Republican. He doesn’t care about your suffering. He shuns leadership because he thinks leaving tough calls to others—such as a national lockdown—gives him room to scapegoat. It’s long been his modus-operandi, dating back to serial Atlantic City casino bankruptcies. 

As I watched the news on Sunday, before switching to a 1941 film noir and later the Democratic debate, I was enraged to see what transpired at international airports across the U.S. Trump had announced cancellation of flights from Europe—without notifying Europeans. Americans returning from the continent were to be screened for the virus. To my horror, as it should be to anyone viewing these pictures, thousands of American citizens were packed like cattle, waiting hours to be screened, touching and breathing on each other all the while. Exponential viral exposure is inevitable. Meanwhile, at Disney World Sunday, thousands more spent hundreds of dollars to be COVID-19-exposed on the last night before the theme park closed for months. Donald said not to worry. So, they didn’t. 

We once believed our presidents. We do so now at our peril.

“I don’t take responsibility at all.” Besides the empathy gene, Donald also lacks the leadership gene.

NOTE: As I finished this commentary Monday afternoon, President Trump suddenly got serious at a press conference, though he later tweeted snarky complaints about two governors and the New York Times. Trump has not yet earned the benefit of our doubt. But let’s hope he rises to the occasion, however belatedly.

Steve Parks is a retired New York journalist now living in Easton.

 

Spy Review: MSO Loker Concerto Competition

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Now it can be said that the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s first annual Elizabeth Loker Concerto Competition was not only a success, it was a triumph.

The winning piece performed by University of Maryland music graduate student Joseph McNure, Paul Creston’s Concerto for Alto Saxophone, was astounding even when played with just piano accompaniment during January’s finals. Thursday night at the acoustically warm Easton Church of God, with the full orchestra at the baton command of Julien Benichou, the performance ranged from sublime to spectacular and back again in a three-movement sonic thrill ride. More on this concerto later.

Joseph McNure

McNure had a tough opening act to follow as Jamie Anderes, a home-schooled 11th-grader now in her fifth year as a Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra flutist, also directed by Benichou, performed as soloist on Cecile Chaminade’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, regarded as one of the most challenging pieces for her instrument. (Jamie is also a Junior Olympic gymnast and an artist who placed in the 2019 Congressional Art Competition. Talk about a young Renaissance woman.) The concerto opens with pastoral serenity beautifully rendered by the flutist, preceding a bold orchestral statement. She concludes with songbird piercings of a soaring string finish punctuated by a smooth-landing grace note.

Sandwiched between the two soloists was Rameau’s 18th-century Suite des Danses (from “Platee”). Danses is part of a comic opera now gathering dust. But this lively dialogue between upper and lower stringed instruments surrounding a syncopated dance interlude makes for a robust Baroque relic.

Considering the fireworks of the first half, post-intermission was a comparative letdown, though an informative one. In 1908, American composer Charles Ives endeavored to move the music world from European classical to atonal modernist all at once. “The Unanswered Question” asks whether we exist or not. It’s a question posed by Descartes, the philosopher who answered, “I think, therefore I am.” The near somnambulant strings of Ives’ piece stubbornly refuse to answer, which agitates the trumpet (Luis Engelke, hidden from view offstage), while reed instrumentalists add to the insurrection from the mezzanine. Clever, yes. But, as Benichou pointed out, Ives made his living selling insurance.

In introducing Mozart’s Symphony 33, Benichou noted that a survey of his musicians revealed only one who’d played it before. He still ranked it among Mozart’s better late symphonies. Although the orchestra played it vigorously when possible—the Andante is a dirge—it was only in the final movement that 33 came together with sharp interposes between strings and the oboe, bassoon and horn contingent. Mozart, ever in search of commercial success, failed to find one here. Yet it was among the few symphonies published before his death at 35.

Back to the sax concerto: Creston wrote all sorts of music, including for movies and TV. His alto-sax standard reflects some of those influences. McNure seemed to both absorb and reflect such nuances in his debut performance. The first movement, “Energetic,” is aptly titled, as are the other two. McNure’s playing brought to mind a smoky basement nightclub, far from the ecclesiastical setting. I could picture him as a jazz player in a 1950s black-and-white flick ending in a cops-and-gangster car chase set to NcNure’s lightning-fingered pace. An ominous string-and-timpani interlude leads to a sax introduction for the next “Meditative” movement with notes held longer than you thought possible, then rising to a burst of reflective self-awareness. Athletic chops are required for the “Rhythmic” finale—a relentless display of serial sax techniques with the orchestra obliging as second-fiddle.

A well-earned standing ovation ensued.

To promote the concerts, the MSO and Dunes Manor Hotel in Ocean City offer a weekend “cultural music package”—oceanfront accommodations and tickets for two at either ocean venue for $150. Weekend forecast: Partly sunny to sunny, highs in the 50s.

Elizabeth Loker, for whom the Concerto Competition is named, was a retired Washington Post executive
who moved to Talbot County and fell in love with the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, joined its board of directors and became a benefactor. In 2015, she died of cancer at her Royal Oak home. She was 67. The late friend-of-the-arts Pete Howell was also remembered on this occasion by board president Jeffrey Parker.

MSO Concerto Competition Concerts

Saturday, March 7 at 3 p.m.: Church of Christ, 55 West Ave., Ocean View, Delaware Sunday, March 8 at 3 p.m.: Community Church, Route 589 and Racetrack Road, Ocean Pines, Maryland Concert Only Tickets: $45/each Cultural Music Package: $150/for two, includes room at Dunes Hotel, Ocean City Or call: 888-846-8600.

Steve Parks is a retired journalist, arts writer, editor, and critic now living in Easton.

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Shore Arts: MSO Winner of Elizabeth Loker Competition to Perform

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At 22, Joseph McNure was already a winner in the realm of music performance before he captured the top prize of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s inaugural Elizabeth Loker Concerto Competition in January. In 2019, he won both the Penn State University woodwinds and the University of Maryland concerto finals, the latter against 50 fellow College Park students.

Paul Creston

But McNure is a rookie in another regard. Thursday, March 5, in Easton, marks his debut as soloist with a professional symphony orchestra, playing the same piece, Paul Creston’s Concerto for Alto Sax, that won him first place at College Park. He’ll follow that with two more performances—one at Ocean View, Delaware, Saturday, March 7, and at Ocean Pines Sunday, March 8. The concerts, along with a $2,000 check, were his prize for winning with flawless virtuosity at the Avalon Theatre.

“It’s a rite of passage for a musician playing his first time with a full symphony orchestra,” McNure says. “You have to prepare differently than you do with just a piano accompanist,” as he did in competition. “With an orchestra, there are so many more musicians to keep in time with.” He’ll have a couple of rehearsals with the MSO musicians under the direction of Maestro Julien Benichou before his “rite of passage.”

McNure chose the Creston concerto because “it’s challenging in a couple of different ways. There are fast sections that switch gears a lot. It’s so dynamic. The second movement is beautiful and heartfelt, while the other two provide more showmanship. You get to show the judges quite a range.”

A native of the Virginia Beach area, McNure graduated with a music education major from James Madison University in the Shenandoah region. At College Park, studying for a master’s in music performance, he credits professor Tim Powell, a fellow saxophonist and interim director of jazz, with helping him prepare.

McNure started on piano at age eight and took up saxophone in middle school. “I’m interested in a military band career someday,” he says. But he also wants to teach. “Music is more of a craft than a job,” McNure says. “I feel a responsibility to teach the next generation.”

This from a 22-year-old.

“I’m really proud to have won this competition supporting live, orchestral music,” he adds.

To help promote the event, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, and the Dunes Manor Hotel in Ocean City are offering a “cultural music package”—oceanfront accommodations and tickets for two at either of the Ocean City area venues for $150. Total. As a bonus, music director Benichou will be at the same resort hotel for a morning-after coffee chat on the veranda or in the lobby lounge, depending on the weather.

“With so many snowbirds, we thought this would be a good way to entice some of them to return a little early,” says MSO general manager Dane Krich. After all, most of the celebrity groundhogs on the East Coast, including Punxsutawney Phil, predicted an early spring this year.

Aside from the performance by competition-juggernaut saxophonist McNure, the orchestra will perform Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question” and Mozart’s rarely performed (for a Mozart piece) Symphony 33.

There will be a second annual Loker Concerto Competition, Krich says.

Of the competition namesake, who had a distinguished career before falling in love with the Easton-based regional orchestra, Benichou says: “Beth Loker was a most personable, dedicated, and knowledgeable music lover. She came to every concert . . . and always seemed to hear everything during the performance. After her time as the first female vice president of the Washington Post, former publisher Donald E. Graham described her as ‘brilliant, farseeing and gutsy,’ a person who ‘shaped the Washington Post of the last 40 years as much as anyone.’

The same is true of her work at the Mid-Atlantic Symphony. Through her gift to the orchestra and her membership on the board of directors, she provided support and vision, and gave the orchestra a direction for years to come.” Elizabeth Loker died of cancer at her home in Royal Oak in 2015. She was 67.

Inaugural MSO Competition Concert

Thursday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m.: Easton Church of God, 1009 N. Washington St., Easton, Md
Saturday, March 7 at 3 p.m.: Church of Christ, 55 West Ave., Ocean View, Delaware
Sunday, March 8 at 3 p.m.: Community Church, Route 589 and Racetrack Road, Ocean Pines, Maryland

Concert Only Tickets: $45/each
Cultural Music Package: $150/for two, includes room at Dunes Hotel, Ocean City
Or call: 888-846-8600.

Steve Parks is a retired journalist, arts writer, editor, and critic now living in Easton.

Don’t miss the latest! You can subscribe to The Talbot Spy‘s free Daily Intelligence Report here.

The Spirit of Harriet Tubman at Todd Performing Arts Center

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At 4-foot-10, Harriet Tubman was a giant in spirit, courage, and heroism in the eyes of a little girl in Canada, where so many slaves Tubman rescued found north-of-the-border freedom.

Leslie McCurdy, a native of Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit, didn’t have many historic-figure role models—certainly not many who looked like her. Not until fifth-grade when she first read about Tubman, a runaway slave from Dorchester County who returned south repeatedly to rescue dozens—eventually hundreds—from bondage.

Comparisons to Moses are not clichés. Tubman was the real deal.

“It made such an impression on me—my school was mostly white—that I found reasons on every grade level to do something about Harriet Tubman: Draw a picture, give an oral report, write a term paper,” McCurdy recalls. Following college, she turned to acting after an injury derailed her first artistic ambition—dance. McCurdy wrote a one-woman play, “The Spirit of Harriet Tubman,” which she performs live at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center Saturday evening, Feb. 21.
Taller in physical stature, McCurdy has portrayed Tubman on stage for 23 years, including about four years ago on the Wye Mills campus. “I guess they liked me well enough to invite me back,” she says modestly.

With a little prodding, McCurdy admits she’s often been “overwhelmed by the way people find it such a powerful and inspirational example of one person’s spirit and heroism.”

McCurdy’s source material—she owns the title role, of course—wasn’t easy to come by. “My play is based on words that are said to be her own,” McCurdy says. As a child field slave, Tubman never had the opportunity to learn reading or writing, unlike fellow slave Frederick Douglass, who, transferred from Talbot County to Baltimore as a youngster, became an abolitionist author, orator, and spokesman for enslaved and freed African-Americans.

Life-sized statues of Tubman and Douglass were unveiled at the State House in Annapolis at the start of the 2020 General Assembly session this month.
The statues were news to McCurdy when interviewed by phone on the road before her Chesapeake College show this weekend. But she has explored other local sites from Tubman’s life as a slave as well as others in Underground Railroad “depots” in Canada. At first, Tubman and those she rescued just needed to make it north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But renewed enforcement of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, rewarding the return of runaway slaves, lengthened the final Underground Railroad destination all the way to St. Catherine’s, Ontario, and other Canadian border towns.

“In some ways, Harriet was better known in Canada than in the States,” McCurdy says, citing Tubman’s image on the Canada $10 bill. Her picture was to replace President Andrew Jackson’s this year on the U.S. $20 bill. However, President Trump nixed that idea. Sooner or later, his unilateral decision likely will be overturned. But that’s another story.

In addition to “The Spirit of Harriet Tubman,” McCurdy also performs an abridged version for younger audiences—grades K-through-2.
Tubman isn’t the only black heroine McCurdy celebrates in live performance. She also does a one-woman show about another Maryland native, Billie Holiday, who she describes as a “race woman and artist.”

“People focus on her drug addiction,” says McCurdy. “But she was also a woman of conviction for just causes.” Or opposition to terribly unjust causes, such as lynching. Holiday ignored those who discouraged her from performing the song, “Strange Fruit,” which refers to black bodies hanging from trees that also produce apples, for instance, or, particularly in the South, peaches.

McCurdy personally met Rosa Parks, the Alabama woman who refused to surrender her seat on a municipal bus to a white passenger. Parks (no known relation to this writer) is among those McCurdy honors in her show, “Things My Fore-Sisters Said.” She once accompanied Parks to Underground Railroad sites in Canada. Now, other stops along the “railroad” are traced in Dorchester and Caroline counties, plus parts of Delaware.

McCurdy recalls visiting the country store in Bucktown, near Cambridge, where slave-girl Tubman was assaulted by a white man who cracked her skull with a hurled stone. The recent movie release “Harriet,” to which McCurdy takes some exception, depicts her injury as a source of clairvoyance. “That diminishes her intelligence and smarts,” McCurdy says, in eluding those who’d capture her and fellow refugees.

It may be easier to dismiss Billie Holiday’s anti-Jim Crow politics, owing to drug/alcohol abuse, or even Rosa Parks’ impertinence in the eyes of unrepentant segregationists. But Tubman, who lived to 90 or 91—slaves were robbed even of recorded birthdates—led Union soldiers to free slaves in Confederate states and, later, helped the aged and advocated women’s suffrage.

Tubman was and remained an unapproachable savior on the right side of history.

Take it from Leslie McCurdy: “Harriet’s been my hero since I was ten years old.”

Happy Black History Month. McCurdy does two shows a week each February. The dedicated month could hardly be better celebrated.

The Spirit of Harriet Tubman

Todd Performing Arts Center, Chesapeake College, Wye Mills Friday, Feb. 21, 7 p.m. Tickets: $20, $10 for children 10 and younger 410-827-5867

Steve Parks is a retired journalist and theater critic now living in Easton.

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Avalon Theater Presents Art Garfunkel

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Art Garfunkel makes his Easton debut in the 400-seat Avalon Theater not only on the most significant romantic night of the year—expect him to sing “I Only Have Eyes for You” during his Valentine’s Day gig Friday night—but he also plays the next two nights.

“Art specifically wanted to play smaller rooms for multiple days to reduce the travel grind,” says Al Bond, president of the Avalon Foundation, referring to Garfunkel’s current autumn-through-spring tour. “Otherwise, his brand is too big for the Avalon.” Translation: We couldn’t afford him for one night only.

“We’re thrilled to present Mr. Garfunkel, and we’re so looking forward to next weekend,” says Suzy Moore, Avalon’s artistic director. “The town should be bustling with the three Art shows and the inaugural Fire & Ice Festival.” Fire & Ice brings three days of ice sculptures, outdoor ice-skating, and other winter-themed happenings, along with music and “Stews & Brews” starting on Valentine’s Day, when Garfunkel arrives in town.

So, if you don’t yet have Artie tickets—it’s a sellout—you can celebrate anyway.

Garfunkel also played three nights last weekend at Wolftrap in Vienna, Va. at its indoor venue, The Barns, also with about 400 seats. There was a time, of course, when Simon and Garfunkel, the highest-profile folk-rock duo possibly of all time, could easily sell out the much larger outdoor Wolftrap venue, including overflow lawn seating, or draw an estimated million fans for a free Central Park concert. I once reviewed Simon and Garfunkel for the Baltimore Sun at Laurel Race Course, an outdoor concert with a video projection resembling a drive-in movie screen.

After years of squabbling following their breakup, Garfunkel has long enjoyed concert rights to perform the songs—all written by Simon—that made both of them famous. So, you’re almost homeward bound, excuse the pun, to hear his solo versions of “Sounds of Silence,” “Scarborough Fair,” and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters.” Not sure about my personal favorite, “The Boxer.”

There are also a dozen solo albums of cover songs—including Great American standards-plus others written or co-written by Garfunkel, which will expand your expectations about one of the greatest vocal collaborators of 20th-century chart-topping music.

Among some of the songs, you may not recognize may be “Bright Eyes,” a solo hit in Europe that somehow went mostly unnoticed in the States. Also, “Everything Waits to Be Noticed,” Garfunkel’s title song of his 2002 album. More familiar are his “(What a) Wonderful World” and “Someone to Watch Over Me” (George and Ira Gershwin).

Garfunkel also weaves an enigmatic tapestry of stories from the life of a celebrity. Besides being a world-class troubadour, he also once enjoyed a promising acting career in the 1970s, with roles in “Carnal Knowledge” and “Catch 22. I say “enigmatic” based on the title of his 2017 memoir, “Life Is All but Luminous: Notes from an Underground Man.” Inspired by Balzac and a subtitle borrowed from Dostoyevsky, Garfunkel says of Balzac, “He’s a forgotten man. You don’t hear his name at all nowadays. Honoré de Balzac. When you see pictures of him, he was so ruddy and alive. You just know he was a steak eater and a drinker. He’s got such a furious amount of energy.”

Apparently so does Garfunkel, who muses about his walking trips across Europe and America in relatively short hikes at a time.

At a recent concert in Los Angeles, he joked (we presume), “There’s a lot of mortality in this show.”

Of his current tour, which takes him to Florida after Easton and an eight-day performance cruise out of Miami, he told nashvillescene.com: “I don’t look at it as a tour. I just look at it as ‘this is what I do.’ I go out on the road, and I do shows, usually on weekends. Are they tours? They’re mini-tours. This is my life: I sing, I have a booking agent, he finds me stages, and I go all over the world. . . I love it. It’s a great way to get away with singing, warbling [Garfunkel’s way of making fun of his now-less-than-crystalline voice]. Ah, to do that and get away with it, and that’s your living, and you do these famous songs—and they pay you! And you move on to the next town—I love this deal!”

On tour, Garfunkel is accompanied by Ted Laven on guitar, Paul Beard on keyboard and, occasionally, by his son, Arthur Jr., on harmonizing vocals.

ART GARFUNKEL at the Avalon.
Tickets: sold out; call 410-822-7299 for possible cancellations

Steve Parks is a retired journalist, arts writer, editor, and critic now living in Easton.

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Op-Ed: Democrats Should have a Plan B for Trump by Steve Parks

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“Total exoneration! It was all a hoax! But now, with my great vindication, the State of the Nation and State of the Presidency are better than ever in the history of the USA, thanks to me and 51 patriotic Republican Senators:  Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz . . .”

We might have expected the president in his State of the Union address on Tuesday to go down the entire roster of Republican senators who voted to acquit him. Sort of like he did in a White House lawn gathering in the middle of the so-called Senate impeachment trial—personally thanking every senator in advance for their acquittal verdict. But, Deadbeat Donald, real estate tycoon, probably knows all about jury tampering. Get used to it, losers. Four more years!

That would be an existential threat to America as we know it. 

But McConnell couldn’t quite grant Trump’s wish to be acquitted before his State of the Union date with Congress. Yet that may not stop him from claiming exoneration even before the preordained Senate acquittal on Wednesday. If he does, every Democrat in the House chamber should walk out—including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, handing her copy of the president’s address back to him as she leads her caucus, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer’s, out into the warm winter night of the Nation’s Capital. 

It’s a fantasy, I suppose, but a fitting slap in the face that President Trump richly deserves. It’s also a rebuke to the Republican Senate majority that abdicated its constitutionally co-equal checks-and-balances responsibility on behalf of a semi-literate, fully ignorant, pathologically mendacious and narcissistic bully with the moral compass of congealed spittle and drool. Who speaks ill of the dead? Who mocks people with disabilities and gold-star parents? Who separates babies from their mothers to make his case for a border wall that can be completed only by confiscating millions of acres from American landowners? As for his ignorance and illiteracy, I cite Trump’s congratulatory tweet to the Kansas City Chiefs on their Super Bowl triumph—”representing the great state of Kansas!” Missourians must wonder if he can read even a map. 

Never mind that he did it before with Russia in 2016. (OK, so the Russians initiated the hack campaign to defeat Hillary. But Donald tagged along with enthusiastic transparency. “Russia, if you’re listening [ya-da-ya] 30 thousand emails. . .”) So, the day after the Mueller hearings ended—the very next day!—Donald inadvertently revealed what he learned from that narrow impeachment escape. Nothing! He called the newly elected president of Ukraine to shake him down by withholding nearly $400 million in military aid authorized by a bipartisan Congress for the “favor” of an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. (He who did his father no favors by joining the board of a Ukrainian energy company.) Trump also sought investigations into the crazy conspiracy theory that the Democratic National Committee server hacked by Russia had been whisked away to the former Soviet Union republic that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to reclaim by armed proxy rebellion.

Trump’s perfidy—arguably treasonable and brazenly impeachable—was exposed in his self-described “perfect” phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky. Ignoramus Trump should have known it would be monitored by a dozen or more White House and national security aides. A whistle-blower sounded his alarm. Several witnesses, both first- and second-hand, corroborated his complaint. Trump’s defense, as presented by his trial team, is barely more credible than those excusing his 2016 “Access Hollywood” audio of Trump bragging about sexual assault: It was just locker-room banter.

Well, far less credible if you listen to Alan Dershowitz’s legal theory on abuse of power. If the president believes his election is in the public interest, whatever he does in that pursuit is quid-pro-quo immunized—excepting only pecuniary sins (like accepting cash in brown bags which sunk vice president and former Maryland governor Spiro Agnew months before Richard Nixon resigned in impeachment disgrace). In other words, seeking re-election that he believes is in the “national interest” means Trump could get away with anything to further that outcome. Taken literally, that includes assassinating his rival. Hey, why stop at smearing Biden? Anyway, his Senate defenders made up for Donald’s failed Ukraine coercion by smearing the Bidens at every opportunity.

But Dershowitz goes way further in twisting the Constitution into ring-kissing knots for Trump. If Putin claimed Alaska because Russia once owned it, just as he did in stealing Crimea from Ukraine, and if Trump said, “You’re welcome, Vlad,” that would be “terrible,” Dershowitz concedes, but not impeachable! 

We doubt Donald would go that far, though he’d be tempted if Putin offered to pay him personally for the real estate. And although Trump has deployed such mob lingo as “take her out” when referring to Marie Yovanovitch, fired U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, I doubt he’d conspire in assassinating Americans, though he’s stoked people at his rallies to retaliate, citing “Second Amendment” solutions. Trump is so unhinged to moral, strategic and intellectual responsibility that we have no idea what he might resort to in saving his own skin. How about provoking a war to distract from impeachment or, in upcoming months, un-election. Didn’t he nearly do that with Iran? 

Democrats should have a Plan B in case Donald prevails in 2020. Use the Senate’s obscene fealty to His Trumpness to bury them in another Blue Wave. We’re looking at you, Moscow Mitch and all your Trump Toads, led by Lindsay Graham. You complain that the House didn’t have first-hand witnesses to Trump’s extortion of Ukraine. Then, when you have a volunteer witness who was in the Oval Office with Trump, you say the clock has run out. You don’t want to hear National Security Adviser John Bolton testify because word has it that he’d testify the president ordered himself and others to make the “drug deal” with Ukraine happen: Smear Biden or you don’t get your weaponry. Instead you say, we’ve heard enough, even as you complain it’s not nearly enough to impeach the president

We can’t count on ever hearing from Bolton. Not even through his book. That’s because we can’t count on it being published. There’s nothing to stop Trump from brow-beating national security officials now reviewing Bolton’s manuscript into redacting it to death. Or blocking publication altogether.

The House should subpoena Bolton to testify. Now. Maybe the subpoena will get nowhere. But by keeping the heat on, who would bet against the pertinent passages of Bolton’s nonfiction being leaked? Or that more witnesses will step forward to blow the whistle once the dam of Trump lies breaks? 

Seventy-five percent of Americans polled on the issue said there should have been witnesses. Otherwise, it’s not a trial. And, as Pelosi says, without a trial, there can be no acquittal. Instead, we have a sham—a real hoax as opposed to Donald’s fake hoaxes in attacking Bob Mueller, Adam Schiff et al.

The remedy, aside from defeating Trump in November, is to capture the Senate, retain the House and stifle Trump if he wins again. Thwart him. Nullify him. Make him a four-year lame duck. Don’t approve any nomination, particularly to the courts, unless his name is Merrick Garland. And if he so much as jaywalks to enter his emolument-clause-violating Trump International Hotel near the White House, impeach him again. It may be partisan. But this time, with McConnell involuntarily retired, America might have the votes to rid us of this monarch-wannabe embarrassment to our constitutional republic, Donald John Trump.

Steve Parks is a retired journalist now living in Easton.

 

 

 

Spy Review: Avalon Theater Presents Ziggy Stardust

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David Bowie, the late British singer-songwriter and actor, drew on both his musical and theatrical skills to launch him into rock superstardom with the 1972 release of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and subsequent concert tour dates.

You can catch it live—although without Bowie, of course, as his androgynous alter ego, Ziggy—thanks to Classic Albums Live, which, as the name implies, performs classic albums note for note in order of appearance on the original vinyl LPs. The Toronto-based concert touring company, which last came to Easton’s Avalon Theater in November to play The Doors’ LA Woman, brings Ziggy Stardust to life on the main stage Saturday, Jan. 25.

A different group of musicians is assembled for each album to meet Classic Album Live’s commitment to achieving as close as possible the same sound, riff-for-riff, as the recording that first turned you into a fan of, say, The Beatles, the Stones, Led Zep or The Boss.

Bowie had his first major success on the pop/rock charts with “Space Oddity” in 1969. But it was Ziggy Stardust that rocketed him to the top in the “glam rock” era of the 1970s.

This is a concept album in that its songs comprise a loose storyline about the travails of Ziggy, a space alien. He’s come to Earth as a rock star to warn humanity to change habits that pose an existential threat to the planet as a habitable island in the universe. Sound familiar?

As Bowie himself described the concept, “The time is five years to go before the end of the Earth. It has been announced that the world will end because of a lack of natural resources.”Or maybe it’s just so hot that the seas will soon flood all the planet’s landmasses.

Whatever. Here’s Ziggy Stardust, in first-cut-to-last order as you’ll experience it at the Avalon Saturday night:

“Five Years,” the low-key percussion-driven opening number, seems to have been influenced by the Plastic Ono Band (Yoko Ono/John Lennon). Drummer Mick Woodmansey also figures prominently in the undertone of “Soul Love,” accented by Bowie’s unique vocal lyricism and Mick Ronson’s layered electric guitar riffs. “Moonage Daydream” suggests a deep space sonic invasion with Trevor Bolder’s steadily accelerating bass leading to a furious piano, backing vocals, and electric-guitar finish.

The album’s hit single, “Starman,” remains one of the greatest in Bowie’s career. As an acoustic ballad, it brings to mind his breakthrough single, “Space Oddity,” with eerie sound effects, orchestration, and deft Ronson riffs following each chorus. The song represents a turning point in Ziggy’s persona from a manipulative would-be savior to a delusional refugee from another world. Side one closes with, oddly enough for a concept album, a cover—”It Ain’t Easy” by the late American songwriter Ron Davies. It fits right in with the “Stardust” vibe accented by 12-string acoustics and a harpsichord.

“Lady Stardust” opens side two with a moody piano-driven ballad featuring bass virtuosity but almost no guitar. Next, “Star” could be a piano-led rocker from the ‘50s or early ‘60s, while “Hang on to Yourself,” a punkish interlude with glam accents starring Ronson on slide guitar, sets up the climactic final numbers.

The title song represents the beginning of the end with serial classic rock riffs by Ronson, plus Bowie’s vocals delivered in a way to distinguish each of the number’s two parts from each other. In the original recording, “Ziggy” segues into “Suffragette City,” which became the No. 2 hit from the album. It’s a tight rock highlighted by stellar performances by Bowie and Ronson, suggesting a Velvet Underground influence. After that electric romp, the album closes with the acoustic “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” which finds Ziggy as a washed-up stage presence, before the song and album conclude with subtle electric guitar effects building slowly to full orchestration and a fittingly dramatic coda to a truly classic album.

Bowie, who died of cancer in 2016, went on to play another space role, this time on the big screen—”The Man Who Fell to Earth” in 1976, playing an alien from a dying planet. Twenty years later, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Next up in the Classic Albums Live series at the Avalon: the late Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes, Apr. 30.

CLASSIC ALBUMS LIVE: David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust
8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, Avalon Theatre, 40 E. Dover St., Easton
Tickets: $40, 410-822-7299

Steve Parks is a retired journalist, arts writer and editor now living in Easton.

 

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