Steve Parks

Review: Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra Opens Season

September 25, 2020 by Steve Parks 1 Comment

The Eastern Shore and southern Delaware’s only professional symphony orchestra opened its 2020-21 season Thursday night at the acoustically sublime Easton Church of God sanctuary in front of a live audience.

violin soloist Kurt Nikkanen

For that reason alone, it was an evening to celebrate. But the orchestra, led by maestro Julien Benichou and featuring violin soloist Kurt Nikkanen, gave us further cause to say hooray by delivering a splendid if slightly understated concert of classical masterpieces.

But more on the music later. First, in full disclosure, you are reading this review by a critic who was part of a larger at-home audience enjoying the concert streaming on TV or computer screens. As retirees, my wife and I are among millions of others who fall into the category of mature Americans who, while in good health, have what is euphemistically called “underlying conditions.”

Happily, the streaming of this concert—you can still see it through Oct. 1—came as close to being there as any I’ve seen in these pandemic times. Visually speaking, the camera work in certain respects offered at-home viewers a better seat than those attending in person. You can’t just get up and wander about a concert hall for an onstage closeup or climb to the balcony for an overhead glimpse. Nor can you see four angles at once as you can on a split-screen.

The live performance was only possible by limiting the number of MSO subscribers who could buy tickets and cooperated by wearing masks and scattering themselves for safe social distancing. The players were also masked–you can buy your own symphony orchestra mask, by the way–and they were also socially distanced, which mandated a smaller ensemble than usual. The 15 musicians, plus conductor Benichou, were spread out at least six feet apart, often more. Those conditions also dictated the type of program that could be performed live.

Which at last brings us, patient reader, to the music. Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D, Opus 61, is cause for celebration both in the performance and observation of Ludwig van’s 250th birthday this year. Because woodwind and brass instruments require much greater distancing—12 feet or more (no one can blow into them wearing a mask)—the violin soloist is accompanied by other strings in this arrangement. In a post-conference Q&A, Benichou conceded, “Some of the drama is missing without the brass, woodwinds, and tympani.”

Still, the genius behind this concerto is, in some ways, enhanced by a more modest presentation. There was no chance of diminishing the vigor of Nikkanen’s solo parts, expressing mixed lyrical emotions–from a tearful adagio of regrets to a vibrant rondo of cheerful recovery, ending in a joyfully repetitive theme. If you’re watching at home, you may want to dance–not recommended in a concert setting. Acknowledging the applause, Nikkanen took a bow, then said, “I’m smiling under the mask.”

Wrapped on either side of Beethoven were two pieces by Grieg—Erotik (Poeme Erotique) Opus 43, No. 5, and the Holberg Suite, Opus 40. The first piece, very short, serves as an appetizer to Beethoven’s 45-minute concerto. Written for piano, this string orchestra transcription brings to mind, as played here, feelings adrift in a dream of romantic remembrance.

Grieg’s suite, composed as a tribute to Danish author Ludvig Holberg, pays homage to the music of the early 18th century, evoking classical folk dances. With soloist Nikkanen slipping into the first violin concertmaster chair, the performance juxtaposes a storm-tossed athleticism—think downhill skiing—with a summer breeze after awakening from the seemingly perpetual Nordic winter of darkness.

We can hardly wait for the current darkness to lift.

The orchestra is getting the hang of performing several feet apart as required for now. In the post-concert Q&A, MSO violinist Celaya Kirchner explained the difficulty experienced in the recent makeup concert to last season’s postponed finale. “You can’t really hear the players in the rest of your section. It’s fun but scary.”

Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s live season-opening concert at the Easton Church of God Thursday evening, Sept. 24, streaming simultaneously on YouTube and midatlanticsymphony.org, which can be viewed free through Oct. 1.

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

Chesapeake Film Festival: Unarmed Man by Harold Jackson III

September 23, 2020 by Steve Parks Leave a Comment

Unarmed Man. Written and directed by Harold Jackson III. A Chesapeake Film Festival feature streaming on its website beginning 9 a.m. Oct. 1 and running through midnight Oct. 4. A program of all 46 films can be found at chesapeakeffvirtual2020.com with tips on streaming directly to your home TV. Streaming is free; contributions encouraged.

Director Harold Jackson III

Just the title, “Unarmed Man,” pointed my mind in the direction of a white cop murdering an innocent man driving while black. We all make assumptions, I suppose, and I confess that mine have lately tilted toward considering black men who matter like the rest of us are too often victims of racist cops, sometimes under sketchy circumstances.

This film did not change my mind about racial profiling or how such assumptions by armed police officers can and too often do result in the death, in particular, of men of color. But each case should be considered as this meticulous examination of a true-story death-by-cop “incident” on it’s specific and nuanced circumstances. I purposefully avoided identifying the race of director Harold Jackson III before viewing “Unarmed Man.” So as a spoiler courtesy, I will not reveal his race here. The story stands on its merits.

The real-life police officer, Greg Yelich, is played here by Danny Gavigan as a man of conscience, though we have no way of discerning whether his troubled demeanor is over his concern for his own culpability in the death of an unarmed man or his fate as a suspect as a murderer. Likely it is both,

We barely meet the victim, Cordell Pierce, played by DeWayne Foote with just a line or two as he is depicted behind the wheel of a car that is pulled over for a minor infraction. He announces to Yelich that he has a legal gun in his possession, in the glove box of his car. Yelich says he saw him reach for something. The officer fired five shots into the suspect’s body, killing him as his girlfriend, Deena Rodgers (Tia Dae) and daughter, played by Peyton Reavis, are witnesses to Pierce’s violent death.

But the film hardly gives us a glance of the deadly violence that leads to intense interrogation of the cop by a police investigator, Aaron Williamson, played by a black man, Shaun Woodland. Williamson comes across as both fair minded and skeptical. He listens intently to the white cop’s account of the “incident,” betraying neither racial nor institutional bias toward his subject. Still, the humanity and innate biases of both men emerge in moments of stressful interchange between them.

I am not aware of the acts regarding Officer Yelich and the shooting death of Cordell Pierce other than what we see in the film. What comes across to me is a deeply disturbing and ultimately impenetrable question of guilt or innocence. Yelich says he sees the driver reaching “for something”–perhaps a gun that is, in fact, found in the glove box–as his partner stands at that side of the car. Both men’s lives may have been in jeopardy in that split second. Yet only the driving-while-black man lies dead in the end.

There is a charge against Yelich, the cop, and a trial and verdict I will not reveal here so as not to spoil the subtle lineup of “facts” that demarcate guilty and not guilty.

I came away from this film thinking, as many of us have over the last few months, of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and too many others. Eight-and-a-half minutes of knee on the neck. An unarmed woman shot to death in her own bed. This case was nothing like that. We can only come away with the conclusion that both black and blue lives matter. All lives matter. Yours and mine and everyone we have ever known and loved.

Steve Parks is a retired arts critic and columnist now living in Easton.

Chesapeake Arts: The COVID-19 Pivot with Annapolis Symphony Orchestra’s Edgar Herrera

September 3, 2020 by Steve Parks

Although attending live concerts by the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra is still months away due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a small chamber ensemble of orchestra musicians will be performing outdoors in the gardens of London Town on the South River over Labot Day weekend. No public tickets are available, however, as the audience is limited to 39 subscribers chosen by lottery.

This follows the cancellation of a dozen concerts at the end of last season and over the summer.

While there are no immediate plans for audiences to attend indoor concerts for the new season beginning Sept 26, you can subscribe to live streams of each performance at the Strathmore Music Center in North Bethesda, where the Annapolis orchestra will be playing most of its in 2020-21 season. Two 2021 concerts are from Maryland Hall in Annapolis. For $99, you can enjoy five performances in the Masterworks Series, plus Holiday Classics in December, from the comfort of the best seat in front of your widest-screen home TV.

The theme for the Masterworks Series is “Harmony in Nature.” Annapolis Symphony maestro Jose-Luis Novo says he “invites you to embrace and relive the transformational relationship of nature to humankind. We will discover breathtaking landscapes, idyllic corners, ominous storms, seasonal beauty, all through the incomparable world of highly evocative sounds as we showcase not only our exceptional orchestra but also a stellar line up of guest artists.”

These soloists include violinist Leticia Moreno, clarinetist Robert DiLutis, soprano Janice Chandler-Eteme, pianist Olga Kern and pipa player Wu Man.

The series begins with concerts anchored by Piazolla’s “The Four Seasons,” Sept. 26, followed by Brahms’ “Serenade” Oct. 24. After the Dec. 18 holiday concert, the masterworks resume in February with Copland’s “Billy the Kid,” Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in March, concluding with Debussy’s “Le Mer” May 1.

The Spy talked to Symphony executive director Edgar Herrera from Mexico City about these changes for the Fall and his optimism that the Spring will bring live concerts back to the Chesapeake region soon.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about You can subscribe to the streaming series here .

Chesapeake Film Festival: You Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout Groove City

August 29, 2020 by Steve Parks

Much has been said lately about conversations we need to have about race relations in America. But the necessity for such exchanges long precedes the current Black Lives Matter movement. As a Made in Maryland feature documentary vividly demonstrates in a highlight of the 13th Chesapeake Film Festival, the races in the city of Cambridge, which is hardly an exception in these United States, have talked past each other for generations.

You Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout Groove City is many things. In part, it is a one-sided reminiscence about the heyday of Cambridge as, at first, an out-of-town stopover for some of the greatest names from the Harlem Renaissance, and later as a hotbed in the emergence of hip-hop as the successor to rock and roll as the predominant pop music genre. But more than that, the documentary, directed by Cesar Gonzalez, pastor of Cambridge’s Seventh Day Adventist Church, traces Dorchester County’s racial and civil rights history all the way back to Harriet Tubman.

The festival, encompassing 45 films chosen from more than 200 submitted, will be streamed live for free from Oct. 1-4, with preview trailers available for sampling starting Sept. 1. All you have to do to tap into this virtual festival is choose which films you want to see, pop your own popcorn, turn out the lights, sit back and see something you’re unlikely to find elsewhere on the internet.

You Don’t Know Nothin’ ‘Bout Groove City opens with Cambridge residents—a tourism director and the city’s first black mayor, as well as local historians and hip-hop impresarios—people separated not only by race but by generations, recalling what it was like back in the day. The elders remember what they view now as the good old days in the 1940s, when Cambridge was still bustling as the Eastern Shore’s only deep port. Though they lived separately, the races had their own services run by businessmen and entrepreneurs. The schools were strictly segregated, but we’re told, one could still get a good education at all-black public schools.

Because of more overt racism in other parts of what was regarded as the deep South, big names from Harlem—Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald—made appearances in Cambridge. Later, such stars as James Brown, Little Richard, and Lloyd Price brought a different soul vibe to entertainment venues in the city’s middle-class African-American Pine Street neighborhood and across town.

But in the 1950s, with a downturn and eventual closure of the Phillips crab-picking plant, the black community was hit disproportionally hard. Unemployment simmered for years before the 1960s civil rights protests culminated in a riot that led to a fire destroying much of Pine Street. (The name of the accused riot instigator, H. Rap Brown, isn’t mentioned in the documentary.)

“Pine Street, the other downtown and onetime stop on the Chitlin’ Circuit burns to the ground,” says director Gonzalez. “And less than ten years later, they come up with Groove City.”

That’s when Cambridge’s African-American entertainment heritage re-emerged as rap, blossoming into hip-hop. Artists from the local scene were in demand all over the Delmarva Peninsula and as far north as New York City and south as Atlanta. Extensive interviews with such current-day activists as Dion Banks of the Eastern Shore Network for Change, as well DJ Mike Bryan and musicians who led the Groove Street movement, paint a living history all but unknown to white residents interviewed for this documentary. Groove City was a foreign language to whites who lived mostly on the east side of Race Street. Amanda Fenstermaker, Dorchester’s Director of Tourism, doesn’t have any memories of Groove City. “I heard about it when I became tourism director,” she says. “But growing up, I don’t remember it.” To her and other white people interviewed in the film, Groove City, at that time, may as well have been from another planet as opposed to the next block over from Race Street.

The demarcation between the races is the yellow stripe down Race Street—the “third rail” as described by longtime resident Mike Starling—though the street name has nothing to do with race. Long ago, races regularly were held on that stretch of downtown Cambridge.

“You can see homes here that still have outbuildings that were slave quarters,” says Gonzalez. Slaves were once auctioned at a small pavilion next to the courthouse, now a bandstand.

The juxtaposition of party music and dance competitions so prevalent along Pine Street against the racial history of the region becomes jarring when the subject turns to the mural featuring Harriet Tubman on the U.S. 50 side of the Cambridge Visitors Center. The muralist who created the image, Michael Rosato, says in a vast understatement, “Not everybody who drives by feels the same way.”

As Banks recalls, a white person said of the mural, “‘Harriet Tubman was a thief. She stole other people’s property.’”

Tubman rescued dozens of slaves from Dorchester—”stole” them, if you will. If that’s what you believe, then tell me, instead, who stole your soul? Yes, we need more conversation. But don’t bring your hate to the table.

Trailers available for preview Sept. 1, free streaming of all films Oct. 1-4 on chesapeakefilmfestival.org

Steve Parks is a retired journalist now living in Easton.

Spy Review: The Virtual Monty Alexander by Steve Parks

August 21, 2020 by Steve Parks

One of Easton’s most popular live concert events of the year, the Monty Alexander Jazz Festival, won’t be happening this Labor Day weekend, as it has for the last decade. Instead, Coronavirus 19 has forced it to go virtual. The only good news is you can see these past concerts right now through the Chesapeake Music website and YouTube.

The gregarious festival namesake opens his video presentation with regrets that he can’t be here in person to perform his 11th annual set of concerts, opening his remarks with a brief ditty he called his “Easton Regretful Blues.” He went on to introduce his 2014 Live at Baloise Session in Switzerland, a 59-minute concert featuring a mini-festival of jazz standards and Alexander originals with a Caribbean flair.

Alexander opens, as is his custom, with himself on piano, riffing improvisationally on his “Hurricane come and gone,” sitting back occasionally to allow for sax and drum solos by members of his big band, Wayne Escoffery and Karl Wright, respectively. It’s followed by a raucous “King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown,” segueing into the Duke Ellington classic “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing” with Alexander picking the pace, first on melodica and then back to piano. The mood turns Delta bluesy with Vincent Ford’s “No Woman No Cry” as the title phrase is sung mournfully by Leon Duncan while strumming on electric bass.

Next Alexander welcomes his wife, vocalist Caterina Zapponi, to the stage for a pair of Italian standards that he accompanies softly on piano with Gerald Cannon on acoustic bass. The interlude is received politely by the Baloise audience, apparently more jazzed up for the band’s rowdier calypso and reggae-influenced selections. They get their wish with the finale, Alexander’s own high-energy “Regulator,” featuring solos by Escoffery and Wright, preceded by the Ahmad Jamal’s classic “Night mist blues.”

Alexander and his band rarely get into a rut in concert, moving all over the jazz repertoire in just under an hour. We’ll miss them this Labor Day. So enjoy them virtually.

You can make a full concert evening of it by opening with a shorter set by trumpeter and vocalist Bria Skonberg. She, too, expressed her regrets in introducing selections from sets at two Manhattan jazz clubs plus a torch-song video she released. In her remarks she said she’ll especially miss the crab cakes in Easton, “the best I’ve ever had in my life.”

Skongberg and her band play a few numbers at the Jazz Standard in New York and Dizzy’s Jazz at Lincoln Center nightclub. Most showed off her trumpet chops, playing songs associated with her hero Louis Armstrong. She often switches to vocals in mid-song and, of course, sings nothing like the late Louis. She saves her best vocal performance of this presentation for a soulful video directed by Jennifer LeBeau, “So Is the Day That I Write This Song,” making the most of her movie-stars look with a pouty delivery of a soulful love ballad.

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

MONTY ALEXANDER AND HIS BIG BAND AT BALOISE SESSION

“My Roots to Jazz” recorded in 2014 in Switzerland

BRIA SKONBERG AND HER BAND

Recorded at Jazz Standard and Dizzy’s Coca-Cola nightclubs in New York City plus a recent studio video

Streaming free online at chesapeakemusic.org in lieu of the Monty Alexander Jazz Festival canceled due to COVID-19

COVID-19 and Our Performing Arts Organizations

August 13, 2020 by Steve Parks

Ever since the March 23 shutdown of “nonessential businesses” ordered by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the arts have been put on hold across the state. Especially, performing arts. Art galleries, for instance, were allowed to reopen in May with restrictions. But because of social distance requirements, indoor theaters—including movies—and concert halls remain dark. And will remain so until the virus abates or effective treatments or vaccines emerge.

Here’s how some of our region’s leading performing arts institutions are responding to months, if not a year or more, without live in-person audiences.

ANNAPOLIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Annapolis Symphony Orchestra

“Despite of all the sorrow and distress this situation is bringing to our daily lives, one thing this pandemic has reminded all of us is how valuable the arts are to keep us centered and to bring some level of desperately needed spirituality while surviving in different modes of confinement,” says Annapolis Symphony Orchestra maestro, Jose-Luis Novo. “We are doing all we can to keep bringing great music and educational experiences to our community, even if we can’t be physically together.”

“This spring, we were saddened to cancel nearly a dozen concerts and events, including four of our Masterworks concerts,” says Edgar Herrera, the orchestra’s general manager. “Our musicians were forced out of work. The board and staff felt it was important to take care of our symphony family during such an unprecedented time. We’ve created the Annapolis Symphony Musician Fund, and the box office offered ticket holders the opportunity to receive a refund or donate the cost of their tickets. The response from our patrons was absolutely incredible, receiving about 80 percent in ticket donations. Thanks to our audience, along with the Paycheck Protection Program”—passed by Congress on April 23 and signed by President Trump—“the symphony was able to pay all of our musicians their full salary for the canceled concerts.”

In April, Annapolis Symphony musicians got together to offer comfort and consolation as COVID was at its peak in New York and New Jersey and spreading virulently in the D.C. suburbs of Maryland.

“Even if we are currently confined at home, we are not alone, Novo said at the time. “We are relying on our great music to stay close and help get us through.”

That help came in the form of a virtual performance of Beethoven’s beloved “Ode to Joy” from his Symphony No. 9. It was accomplished by individual symphony musicians self-recording their parts in “Ode” alone, each of which was compiled into a video posted online.

On July 21, Herrera announced cancellation of the Pops in the Park concert that would have taken place on Labor Day weekend at Quiet Waters Park because the City of Annapolis canceled its summer series due to the virus.
As for the upcoming season, Herrera says, “At this point, we intend to perform five Masterworks programs, one family concert and a holiday pops performance. Nevertheless, we’re exploring outdoor concert sites for the fall”—in case indoor concerts are COVID-canceled. “Our top priority,” he added, “is the safety of our musicians, staff and patrons.”

annapolissymphony.org, 410-263-0907

ANNAPOLIS SHAKESPEARE COMPANY

The Unified Jazz Ensemble will perform in a virtual cabaret series concert presented by the Annapolis Shakespeare Company streaming on Aug. 15.

“We’re bursting to get out from under the house-arrest shutdown,” says Sally Boyett, founding artistic director of the only predominantly Actors’ Equity theater company in the Anne Arundel and Mid-Shore region. Annapolis Shakespeare lost most of its spring and summer season, with cancellations of “Treasure Island” at its main-stage theater on West Street and an outdoor run of the Bard’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Awaiting the chance for a shutdown “jail-break”—Boyett does not argue against its necessity due to public health priorities—she remains hopeful of presenting a couple of short but sweet outdoor pieces this fall, including a “fast and furious” Moliere farce—health conditions allowing. More certain are virtual performances, including the “Spoon River Anthology,” inspired by Greek poetry epitaphs, and personal monologues by company actors—many posted now on the ASC website—and an interview series about what it takes to create a theatrical production.

More ambitious are plans for a 60-minute virtual cabaret show, featuring the Annapolis-based Unified Jazz Ensemble, on the evening of Aug. 15. Recorded live from the ASC sound stage, the performance will be available online from the company’s website and on YouTube. A virtual gala follows on Sept. 19, a fundraiser available for a fee yet to be announced.

But for now, the Shakespeare company’s intimate 125-seat main stage theater and its 76-seat cabaret room remain dark to live audiences and the theater’s expansion plans are on hold as are its 120 live shows a year.

annapolisshakespeare.org, 410-415-3513

MID-ATLANTIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Kurt Nikkanen is the violin soloist for the rescheduled season finale for the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra in Ocean City Aug. 16

“We’re optimistic and realistic at the same time,” says Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra general manager Dane Krich. “We’re just trying to find a balance.”

The Easton-based symphony that also performs at Chesapeake College, Ocean City and beach communities in southern Delaware was forced to cancel the finale of its 2019-20 season in April due to COVID. The concert is to be made up at the Ocean City Performing Arts Center on Aug. 16 with a revised program that takes into account the limitations of spacing the musicians, even on as large a stage as the Ocean City center. An all-Mozart program, entailing just a few brass and wind instruments and fewer musicians overall, features solo violinist Kurt Nikkanen. “We’re trying to give some hope where there’s a lot of stress out there,” says Krich. The program, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, his Symphony No. 40 and Adagio and Fugue. The audience in Ocean City will be masked and distanced, since there are more than 500 seats available. Those arriving will get a temperature check.

“We’re trying to provide culture and arts to the community while keeping our name out there,” says Krich. To that end, the Ocean City concert will be streamed for an as-yet-to-announced “ask-for” donation. The smaller orchestra for the all-Mozart program makes the concert a more realistic price-point for the MSO, while still employing a fair number of the orchestra’s freelance musicians.

The new season is still on schedule, with a quarter-millennium celebration of Beethoven’s birth—he’d be 250—starting Sept. 17 in Ocean City, but also, possibly, Sept. 24 at Chesapeake College and Sept. 26 in Rehoboth Beach. The program includes a pair of fives—Beethoven’s 5th and his Emperor Piano Concerto No. 5. Should the pandemic allow, the season continues in November with “Serenades & Double Reeds” with Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky selections, and in December with the “Holiday Joy!” concert, which will move from its traditional Avalon Theater location to Chesapeake College where audience spacing is more available, as well as performances in Ocean City and Lewes, Del.

All of which, Krich acknowledges, depends on health restrictions issued in Maryland and Delaware by this fall.

midatlanticsymphony.org, 888-846-8600

AVALON FOUNDATION

The Sara Jones Trio performing outdoors between the Tidewater Inn and the Avalon Theatre.

The last show at Easton’s Avalon Theatre was March 12, a sold-out performance by High Voltage, an AC/DC tribute band. According to Al Bond, executive director of the Avalon Foundation, which programs shows at the gorgeous Art Deco theater on Dover Street downtown as well as other venues in and around Easton and higher profile acts at Chesapeake College, its various indoor stages will “hunker down” probably until there’s a vaccine or effective coronavirus treatment.

Meanwhile, during these summer and early fall months, the Avalon is presenting dinner shows at the Tidewater Inn catercorner from its home base at Harrison and Dover streets and the Wylder Hotel on Tilghman Island.
“Dinner and a show—we’re not making any money on this,” says Bond. “It’s just our way to help artists stay afloat, to keep working.”

“We’re not trying to schedule anything at the Avalon”—either the mainstage or the intimate upstairs Stoltz Room—“because we want to come out of this with a reputation to keep people safe.” Part of the foundation’s decision to play it safe is due to the support it enjoys. But, as Bond says, “We’re not taking it for granted. The critical part is that the support we have from the community keeps us going. As long as that holds up, we’ll be OK and ready to reopen when it’s safe.”

avalonfoundation.org, 410-822-7299

GARFIELD CENTER FOR THE ARTS

A scene from last year’s “Superhero” short from the Short Attention Span Theatre festival at the Garfield Center, starring Paul Cambardella as Marvelous Man.

The multidisciplinary presenter of performing arts in downtown Chestertown may be uniquely positioned to survive the pandemic that has so far shut down live shows everywhere, from Broadway to Bucolicville USA. We’re thinking of you, Church Hill with your old-timey small-town theater with a proud tradition.

Steven Arnold, an alumnus of Church Hill Theatre, just down the road in Queen Anne’s County from Chestertown—he detoured briefly to New York—inherited a lively tradition. The Garfield Center’s Prince Theater on High Street has long reveled in its self-deprecating one-act-or-less Short Attention Span Theater Festival.

“We didn’t relish losing this cornerstone of our identity,” says Arnold of his decision to postpone and reimagine the festival at the outbreak of the virus. “Instead of giving up, we asked the writers whose pieces we couldn’t stage because of COVID to give us radio-style scripts. Now we’ve turned the festival into GCTV, a streaming series we launched this spring.” Besides the popular shorts series, available on Facebook and YouTube, the Garfield Center added a Wednesday night platform for local musicians, comics and poetry slams.

GCTV, Arnold hopes, will keep the Garfield vibe (no, Garfield has nothing to do with the comic-strip cat) alive and wagging until such time as performances with a live audience, not necessarily socially distanced, is possible again.

garfieldcenter.org, 410-810-2060

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

Art Review: Antonio McAfee and New Photography II by Steve Parks

August 9, 2020 by Steve Parks

The good news is that Easton’s Academy Art Museum is open again—pandemic be damned. Well, maybe that’s the best news after all. But it’s also good to know that the two new shows that were scheduled to open way back in April are well worth the wait.

As you enter through the new glass-box entrance facing the Harrison Street courtyard, you’ll encounter the first glimpses of the “New Photography II: National Juried Exhibition,” which engagingly occupies all the first-floor galleries of the museum.

Among the first images you’ll see if following the directional signage that encourages social distancing, is one you might mistake for a sculptural construction. But JoAnne Dumas’ “Copper Ripples #2” is actually a relief collage of pigment ink images on a series of wavy metallic strips resembling a tattered flag.

Others are far more conventionally photographic, but no less riveting. Jonathan Clark’s “Afternoon Tea” may seem as ordinary as its title suggests but for the apparently long-married couple captured in a moment of raging boredom with each other. Another medium comes to mind—Meatloaf’s recording of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” culminating in the lyric “I’m praying for the end of time so I can end my time with you.”
More comically enigmatic is Jesse Egner’s untitled photo from the “Disidentification” series picturing a young man weaving a sock of yarn spooling from, perhaps, a parent’s head.

Photography takes a deconstruction turn in Academy Art Museum’s resident artist Antonio McAfee of Baltimore. In his show, “Legacy,” McAfee peels back the history of archival photographs from the late 19th century in a series of ovals evoking ghostly images. The process involves taking back a photograph to its negative-image beginnings from which prints are processed by the seemingly magical feat of chemistry on paper. Working forward from that origin, McAfee extracts black-and-whites that capture bits of a life past, along with subsequent degradation.

“It’s all about taking away and adding layers, like deconstructing an object,” McAfee said in an interview at an AAM studio. “I had an interest in this as a kid, taking apart stuff,” such as recording devices.

Remember to wear a mask. If you don’t have one, they will supply one at the desk just inside the new entry way.

Steve Parks is a retired arts critic and editor now living In Easton.

NEW PHOTOGRAPHY II: NATIONAL JURIED EXHIBITION
ANTONIO McAFEE: LEGACY
Through Oct. 7, Academy Art Museum, 106 South St. (Enter on Harrison Street courtyard, exit on South Street); 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-4pm. Sundays. Admission: $3, children aged 12 or younger free. 410-822-2787, academyartmuseum.org

Eye on Annapolis: When Hamilton Was in Town by Steve Parks

July 11, 2020 by Steve Parks

During this past Fourth of July holiday weekend, Alexander Hamilton, for a time the forgotten Founding Father, sealed his posthumous future as a pop culture superstar.

Sure, his portrait still graces the $10 bill. But he was about to be displaced by one of several great American women when a Broadway musical made him a cult hero 216 years after his death by gun duel.

Hamilton, a New Yorker most of his life, also left his mark on the post-Revolutionary War history written in Annapolis, which for a year, 1783-84, was de facto capital of the United States as well as of Maryland. The Continental Congress met in the State House. Though Hamilton resigned the Congress in 1783 to open a law practice, he also took part in the Annapolis review of the Treaty of Paris signing, in which he held the British in violation concerning returning captured black slaves to the new United States of America. Though he considered himself an abolitionist, a clean break with Great Britain was far more important to him.

Today, the Treaty of Paris restaurant and King of France Tavern remain centerpieces of historic Annapolis as you pass through State Circle on your way toward City Dock. And at the docks, memorial statuary to Alex Haley, author of “Roots,” marks the right-off-the-ship venue where slaves were auctioned.

Hamilton’s most significant impact on the future of the nation, possibly second only to his brilliance in establishing the nation’s financial system, was achieved at the Annapolis Convention of 1786. It took place at Mann’s Tavern, where Hamilton likely lodged as well. The site of the tavern, destroyed by fire in 1919, is marked by a plaque on Conduit Street. Its significance is invaluable. The Annapolis Convention led directly to the Constitutional Convention a year later. Thanks in large part to Hamilton, who abhorred the weak Articles of Confederation and Continental Congress that ruled the fledgling nation, the resulting Constitution established an executive branch sharing checks-and-balances power with a bicameral Congress and federal court system. To this day, presidents, members of Congress, and jurists pledge allegiance to that document—some more honestly than others.

Whatever Hamilton’s status as a Founding Father, he would be of interest mostly to history junkies alone but for a thick biography by Ron Chernow that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to create “Hamilton,” the musical.

Now, thanks to Disney Plus streaming service and, yes, to COVID-19, “Hamilton” is more widely available than ever. Until March of this year, when shutdowns commenced across the U.S., audiences still crammed every seat on Broadway at $800 a pop, more or less, and earlier national tours to Kennedy Center in D.C. and the Hippodrome in Baltimore went for $400. Now you can see a filmed version taken from two performances by the original cast for a $6.99 monthly subscription. (Previously, the film wasn’t to be released until October 2021. Maybe we’ll have a vaccine by then.)

Of course, seeing a show live cannot be duplicated. But that’s not possible now nor for the foreseeable future as Broadway (and other live indoor theater) is closed for at least the rest of the year. Thomas Krall, who directed the Broadway production, directed the film as well. Closeups enhance the dramatic and, with one character, in particular, comic expressions that are difficult, if not impossible, to appreciate from a distant seat. Switching among an array of camera angles, including long shots and overhead glimpses of the stage’s slowly revolving turntable, keeps the recorded viewpoints from growing static.

While the narrative adheres closely to Hamilton’s life and career, Manuel has taken notable liberties, some for dramatic effect and others to make the lead character more empathetic. Although Hamilton wrote and spoke in favor of abolitionist causes, he also conducted slave transactions involving his New York in-laws.

Although Annapolis is not directly referenced in the show’s lyrics—maybe it’s too difficult a rhyme—Hamilton’s impassioned pleas for a strong constitution to replace the ineffectual Articles of Confederation is captured in the song “Non-Stop” in which Hamilton and Burr debate the future. “Who’s your client,” Burr asks, after his rival, Hamilton turns to practice law and Washington resigns his commission in Annapolis in 1783. His bronze statue stands today in the State House chamber, where he delivered the speech that made him a civilian and later our first president. In reply to Burr, Hamilton names his “client:” “The Constitution,” which he fought to bring about in a leadership role at the Annapolis Convention three years later.

The musical spans Hamilton’s life from cradle to grave, opening with the lines, sung by Burr: “How does a bastard son of a whore . . . grow up to be a hero and a scholar.” Those words lend a hint to the motivation that made him so relentlessly driven. Consumed with promoting ratification of the Constitution through the Federalist Papers, workaholic Hamilton forsakes his wife and sister-in-law, Eliza, and Angelica, both in love with him, for a married woman of convenience. The resulting self-confessed scandal ultimately proves fatal.

Much of Act II of this historically dense and emotionally gripping musical is devoted to Hamilton’s personal life reflected in Manuel’s visceral intensity, even without a soaring vocal capacity. (I’ll withhold crucial details of Hamilton’s life to avoid spoilers. Except for what we already know: The former Secretary of the Treasury was killed in a duel with Vice President Burr on July 11, 1804, at the approximate age of 48. His Caribbean birth date is not definitively known.)

For those who may consider themselves allergic to hip-hop, be assured that this is not exclusively a rap musical. And while there are a couple of Disney-deleted lyrics, the content is far more cerebral than censorious. Even in this story of war, independence, and tragedy, there’s also show tune comic relief. Jonathan Groff, as King George III, representing the very distinct minority of white actors among the original cast, warns his rebellious subjects that “when push comes to shove, I will kill your family and friends to show my love.” Especially at this time in our national discourse, it’s so rich that each slave-owning Founding Father is played by a black man: Christopher Jackson as a paternal George Washington, Daveed Diggs as a dandy Thomas Jefferson, Leslie Odom Jr. as a puckish Aaron Burr. Philippa Soo, as Hamilton’s wife, is Asian-American, while her sister, Renee Elise Goldsberry, as Angelica, is African-American.

Soo brings the show to a perfect and devastatingly emotional end. In her climactic portion of the closing song, “Who Lives Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?” we’re given a peek into her character’s widowhood future. Soo fleetingly alludes to the founding by Eliza Schuyler Hamilton of one among the first privately run orphanages in the new nation. It operates to this day, making Eliza a Founding Mother of the USA.

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

Spy Moment: Remembering Victims of Violence

July 5, 2020 by Steve Parks

The Fourth of July Artists for Justice outdoor show, comprised of 26 paintings of African-Americans who died of police or vigilante violence, drew a steady stream of viewers at the new Aurora Street location of organizer Nancy Tankersley’s art studio. An estimated 300 visited the outdoor gallery.

The paintings, all roughly one-foot square, were displayed along a wooden fence enclosing a courtyard next to the studio at 11 S. Aurora St., formerly home to Atelier 11, an architectural firm now on Dover Street. Twenty or so masked and socially distanced perusers followed yellow directional arrows past each portrait while consulting handout binders containing the stories behind each fatality.

One of the African-Americans who attended was Yolanda Acree, a Federalsburg collagist—”digital and analog,” she says, referring in the latter to works on paper. She heard about the show on the Social Action for Racial Justice site on Facebook. “I wanted to see the artists’ rendition of these faces I’d seen only on the news. I’m happy to see this support of Black Lives Matter. And surprised,” she added, citing the Eastern Shore’s racially checkered history.

All the works in the show are solo portraits except for the painting by Katie Theeke of the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing victims in Birmingham. Theeke depicts Carol Denise McNair, 11, Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, all 14, strolling carefree outside of what may be the church where they died at the hands of four Ku Klux Klan racists, the last of whom was convicted in a long-delayed prosecution led by current Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama.

That painting was haunting to gaze upon no more than, except by a factor of four, as the visage of Tamir Rice, clearly a child, as painted by Mignonne La Chapelle. He was 12 when shot to death by a Cleveland policeman who fired within seconds of his cop car arriving on the scene. Tamir was holding a plastic toy gun, menacing no one.

Of the two portraits by Tankersley—one of Michael Brown shot to death by a Ferguson, Mo. policeman—the joyful face of Hattie Carroll, wearing what looks to be her Sunday best ladies church hat, bright pink, evokes a tragic irony. As a barmaid, she was clubbed to death by a Charles County drunk at Baltimore’s long-gone Emerson Hotel.

Other paintings incorporate bits of text, including that of George Floyd by Sara Linda Poly. It bears the words, “When George was young he said I want to touch the world,” to which was added as an epitaph, “and so he has.” One of two Philando Castille portraits is Laura Kapolchok’s framed by the inscription “Son father friend cousin. Honor student mentor.”

A local teenager who died in 2018 at the hands of police is Anton Black of Greensboro. While many of the victims painted here appear to relive happier times, Lori Yates captures him in a pensive mood, almost as if anticipating trouble ahead.

The one piece that’s not strictly a painting is a collage by Maire McArdle of Stephon Clark. Among the images, besides that of his face, is a reference to a helicopter pilot who directed cops to his location and mistakenly reported that Clark was pointing a weapon. He held a cell phone instead.

Meanwhile, an accordionist provided unobtrusive background music suitable for muffled conversation through masked mouths. Ordinarily, there might have been refreshments and finger food, as customary at art gallery openings. But buffet-style noshing is out of the question as long as COVID-19 prevails.

The show, however, is likely to reappear, Tankersley says. “All the artists I contacted after the first Black Lives Matter rally in Easton on May 30 were eager to jump right in. Now we’re looking to take the show to Dorchester in September.”

Although the portraits are not for sale, certain galleries, she acknowledged, might take on such a newsworthy show to draw potential customers to other art that carries a price tag.

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

The Arts: Artists for Justice Paint 26 to Honor Black Lives Matter

July 3, 2020 by Steve Parks

On this Fourth of July, a group of Easton artists celebrate the lives while mourning the violent deaths of African-Americans who, while citizens of the United States, have been and, as we see from recent atrocities, still are treated as second-class citizens.

When Nancy Tankersley and her family attended a May 30 Black Lives Matter rally along Marlboro Avenue in Easton she said she was “overcome by a young African-American woman who was so sincere, so appreciative as she drove by reading all the signs and shouting out her thanks. Her graciousness in the face of all that has happened within black communities shamed me. All I had done was stand there for an hour of my life while we waved signs and chanted. It woke me up to the realization that we all need to do more.”

Armaud Arbery by Rhonda Ford

As Tankersley is a painter, a professional artist and teacher of art, her natural inclination, her best means of demonstrating support was to organize an art show relevant to this cause. The featured artist of the Waterfowl Festival and one of the co-founders of the Plein Air Festival brought together 25 artists who work and live in and around Easton for an “Artists for Justice” exhibit outdoors. Each artist chose to paint a portrait of a particular African-American who lost his or her life due to systemic racism in the United States. Not all were victims of police violence as in the case of George Floyd whose murder by neck compression—a chokehold by knee—sparked the current international groundswell of street protests and social media condemnation. Justice in the wake of their deaths, whether at the hands of police or vigilantes, failed all of them.

Tankersley reached out to artists who she has mentored in her Easton studio along with other downtown artists. The show, which runs from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, the Fourth of July, was conceived by a white artist and painted by white artists. As such, Tankersley sees it as “an apology for being silent for so long. Of the hundreds of artists, I have taught, I can count on one hand the number of black students. I want to rectify that.” Meanwhile, she says, “This is a learning experience for us to get to know these people who were murdered.” To that end, all of those attending can pick up a booklet containing the stories behind each portrait. She hopes it will be seen as an invitation for a wider audience of artists of “all colors, ages and ability to participate. . . .”

The show will be held at 11 Aurora St. on the edge of Easton’s Arts and Entertainment District and adjacent to the historic Hill neighborhood that has been home to free African-Americans since long before the Emancipation Proclamation. The art will be displayed on a wooden fence next to the renovated former home of Atelier 11, which will soon become the home of Tankersley and her husband Carl as well as the site of her new studio.

Tankersley contributed two portraits to the show “to even it out’’—to 26—one for each of the other artists. One by Tankersley is of Michael Brown who shooting death in a confrontation with a Ferguson, Mo. police officer spurred the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014. The other is of Hattie Carroll who in 1963 was killed in Baltimore by a drunken, racist brute from Charles County who assaulted employees at the Eager House restaurant before moving on to the Emerson Hotel for more drinks. After ordering a bourbon, Billy Zantzinger beat Carroll, a barmaid and mother of nine, on the shoulder, neck and head with a cane and called her vile names because, he complained, she took too long to deliver his booze. When his wife complained he struck her with the cane, too. Carroll died of a brain hemorrhage a few hours later.

Her death was immortalized a year later by Bob Dylan in “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” on his “Times They Are a-Changin’ ‘’ album. (Apparently, the times haven’t changed enough.) Dylan wrote in part:

But you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all fears,
Take the rag away from your face, now ain’t the time for
your tears.

A year earlier, Dylan wrote “The Death of Emmett Till.” A Chicago teenager, Till was visiting cousins in Mississippi when may have wolf-whistled a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in a grocery store. Her husband, Roy, heard about it and accompanied by his half-brother J.W. Millam abducted Till from his great-aunt’s house. They threw him in a truck, pistol-whipped him along the way and finished beating Till to death in a barn. They threw his body into the Tallahatchie River. It was recovered, bloated and disfigured in time for a trial in which the Bryant and Millam were acquitted by an all-white male jury. One year later, Bryant and Millam gave an interview with Look magazine in which they freely confessed to the murder knowing that double jeopardy shielded them. Till’s body was returned to Chicago where his mother insisted on an open casket at her son’s funeral. The story, plus photos of the body, became a sensation when published in black-oriented Jet magazine. Till’s murder in 1955 is widely marked as a catalyst of the modern civil rights movement.

This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man
That this kind of thing still lives today in that
ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan.
But if all us folks that think alike, if we gave all we could give,
We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

Besides these historical references represented in “Artists for Justice” are those that are on the front burner of the current Black Live Matter movement. Among these

Breonna Tayllor by Joan Hart

are Breonna Taylor, the Louisville, Ky., EMT worker shot to death in her own bed during a no-knock police raid in search of a drug dealer who, if they checked, was already in custody. Fearing a home invasion, Taylor’s boyfriend shot at the invaders, not knowing they were cops. In their return fire, the police raiders shot Taylor 10 times. Her portrait was painted by Joan Hart.

Another from this year is Ahmaud Arbery, murdered by armed neighborhood vigilantes in Georgia who say they suspected him of what? Speeding while jogging? No, it was jogging while black in their white enclave. Travis McMichael and his father Gregory followed Arbery in a pickup truck while they were just hatefully stupid enough to have the murder recorded on video by a trailing car driven by Roddie Bryan. Police waited months before charging the vigilantes, waiting until after the video surfaced. Arbery’s portrait was painted by Rhonda Ford.

Other portraits include that of Freddie Gray whose death in police custody erupted in violence in Baltimore in 2015. That painting is by Mary Ellen Mabe. The George Floyd painting is by Sara Linda Poly. Portraits of two other recent victims of police violence—Raynard Brooks, shot in the back in Atlanta after being found sleeping in his car, and Elijah McClain, who died after being stopped for wearing a ski mask, wrestled to the ground in chokehold and injected with a tranquilizer—are by Kathie Rogers and Maggie Sarfaty, respectively.

While the show is open for just the Fourth, Tankersley hopes to exhibit it in galleries or other locations in the area. “Maybe it could be part of a mini-movement,” she said.

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