Easton Choral Arts Society

Easton Choral Arts Society played its annual Christmastime songfest, “A Winter Rose,” before a full house in its new concert venue, St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, on Friday night, Dec. 5, ahead of a matinee encore performance on Saturday.

Moving from its longtime home at Christ Church in the Arts District of downtown Easton, St. Mark’s can accommodate a larger audience as well as more performers – singers and instrumentalists – upfront. Not to mention easier parking.

Some of those advantages were evident on opening night: First, a sold-out concert drawing 312 fans of choral music, plus 10 professionals as guest instrumentalists accompanying the 75-voice chorale.

Conducted by artistic director Alexis Ward, the concert opened with Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” from “The Nutcracker” performed by the instrumental ensemble of Rebecca Silverstein on flute, violinists Joel Alarcon, Martin Monnett, Sachiho Murasugi and Daniel Seymour; violists Merideth Buxton and Nevin Dawson; cellist Denise Nathanson, pianist Ellen Grunden and Stephanie Stabley on percussion.

Next, with assistant director Amy Morgan accompanying on piano, prepare yourself for the lush impact of so many voices singing in ecclesiastical harmony on Michael Praetorius’ “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” followed by the boisterous familiarity of “Deck the Halls” and, completing the flowery triptych, “The Rose,” released in 2017 by Ola Gjeilo embracing the thorny enigma of the fragile beauty of its bloom.

Amanda Manning, Siroon Topjian and Carys Pokrywka give the rest of the chorus a breather while they sing a sweet “Cherry Tree Carol,” topped off with the first of two audience sing-alongs: the traditional English carol “The Holly and the Ivy.” and later “O Christmas Tree” whose tune was borrowed by James Ryder Randall for “Maryland, My Maryland,” which was the state’s anthem from 1939 to 2021. The General Assembly retired it due to its conspicuous Confederacy leaning. (One stanza refers to President Lincoln as a “despot” and the Union Army as “Northern scum.”) Happily, “O Christmas Tree” – also known by its German title “O Tannenbaum” – is free of politics.

Between the sing-alongs, tenor Patrick Mason delivers Herbert Howells’ “A Spotless Rose” as a flawless lullaby to a blessed newborn, followed by the full choir on Cecilia McDowall’s “Of a Rose” cantata. Various vocal sections trade places according to each piece’s choral arrangement, accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble.

“On This Silent Night,” a 2022 song by Sarah Quartel conjuring the creature comforts of a warm fire on a wintry night, is an SATB arrangement for four voices – soprano, alto, tenor, bass. It leads off a set that includes two songs of ancient Catalonian and Cornish traditions, “Cold December Flies Away” and “The Holly Bears a Berry,” respectively.

“The Huron Carol,” Canada’s beloved 17th-century ode to Christmas, features soprano soloist Justina Holte with melodic back-up by Amanda Manning, Jillian Downes and a full chorus, will have you feeling “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” written by Meredith Willson, best known for the Broadway classic “The Music Man.” Crooner Perry Como later amended the lyric to “Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.”

Soloist Scott Clausen stands in for Frank Sinatra in the holiday hit originated by the late Chairman of the Board, “Mistletoe and Holly,” in an arrangement by artistic director Ward, leading to the concert’s penultimate carol, Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” ubiquitous this time of year. There was even a little snow on the ground Friday night. The rousing finishing number, “Here We Come A-Wassailing,” may leave you a-humming all the way home from “A Winter Rose.”

With its roomier home base, you can expect an even larger Easton Choral Arts Society as early as its next concerts, “The Wings of Song,” April 24 and 25, 2026, celebrating aviation and the human longing to rise above it all.

ECAS president Emily Moody, who also sings alto with the company, announced that auditions will no longer be required to become a choir member. “To join in our singing,” she said, “you only need a love of music and a willingness to practice and learn.”

Of the recruitment of new singers, artistic director Ward added, “If you love great music, good people, and the feeling of being part of something meaningful, come sing with us this season.”

A WINTER ROSE’ HOLIDAY CONCERT

Easton Choral Arts Society’s opening night at its new home, St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, 100 Peachblossom Rd., Friday, Dec. 5. A second concert at 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6.

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

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s Grammy-winning music director, Michael Repper, nominated for two more Grammys to be awarded in 2026, led the first of three “Holiday Joy” concerts Thursday evening, starring guest soloists from the opera circuit, soprano Kresley Figueroa and baritone Jonathan Patton.

Jonathan Patton

Following an opening medley of seasonal favorites, including Rachael Yokers’ flute-solo mating call in “Let It Snow, Let It Snow” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, Patton and Figueroa showcased their vocal and acting chops on arias from timeless operas that, nevertheless, span three centuries. 

 The accomplished young soloists – Figueroa performed in MSO’s 2024 New Year’s Eve concert and Patton is making his Mid-Atlantic Symphony debut – are paired in the Bei Mannern/Liebe Fuhlen aria from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” with lyrics translating in English: “Men who feel the call of love/Do not lack a gentle heart” coupled with “To return that gentle feeling/Is a woman’s finest art.” Next, portraying Escamillo, Patton’s lyrical and dramatic range is delivered with the jaunty bravado of a bullfighter on “Votre Toast” (better known as “March of the Toreadors”) from Bizet’s Carmen.” 

Wrapping up the aria triple play, Figuero, perhaps autobiographically, sings the role of a budding soprano longing for opera superstardom in the polonaise from “The Barber of Seville” by Geronimo Gimenez. She makes her dream seem like a sure bet in this popular zarzuela – Spanish for comic opera.

   Hanukkah, which begins on Dec. 14, was rated an instrumental affirmation just before the Act I closing number, “Sleigh Ride,” conducted by the highest bidder of the pre-concert fund-raising dinner, vice chairman Philip Davis. He was assisted by staff consultant Mary Lou Tietz who supplied a whip to crack on the imaginary horses drawing the imaginary sleigh. (Despite the audible cracking sound, no actual horses were whipped.)

Kresley Figueroa

 After intermission, Figueroa returns to deliver a warmly felt Beverly Hills memory opener to “White Christmas,” before outdoing Bing Crosby on the greatest Yuletide hit ever written by a Jewish lyricist, Irving Berlin. (Personally, like Maestro Repper, I favor Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song,” also making the “Holiday Joy” playlist, featuring a soulful horn solo by Beth Lunt in place of Nat King Cole’s tender reminiscence. Meanwhile, Christmas observers native to the Northern Hemisphere are reminded that Dec. 25th falls on the calendar, “In the Bleak Midwinter”: “Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone” as written by Gustav Holst and soulfully sung by Patton. 

   On a lighter vein, “Little Bolero Boy” makes fun of what Repper calls two of the most monotonous tunes ever written – “Bolero” by Maurice Ravel and “Little Drummer Boy” by Katherine Kennicott Davis. Percussionist Dane Krich kept the beat going, and going, and going. 

    Figueroa and Patton cap the “Holiday Joy”  celebration with a stagecraft reading of “ ’Twas the Night Before Christmas” by Bill Holocombe, with full orchestral accompaniment directed by an effervescent Repper.
                                                  ***
If you missed Thursday’s performance and can’t make to the next two concerts on Saturday in Lewes and Sunday in Ocean City, you can catch the MSO Brass Quintet in the holiday spirit at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 19 at Community Church in Ocean Pines; 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 20 at Ellsworth United Methodist Church in Rehoboth Beach, and 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 21 at Christ Church in Easton. Also, at Christ Church, toast the arrival of 2026 with an early New Year’s Eve concert at 7 p.m., Dec. 31, of course, with the MSO and guest soprano Viviana Goodwin.

‘HOLIDAY JOY’ MSO CONCERT CELEBRATION

Thursday evening at Todd Performing Arts Center, Chesapeake College, Wye Mills. Upcoming performances; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Cape Henlopen High School, Lewes, Delaware, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Ocean City Performing Arts Center. midatlanticsymphony.org

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

It’s not unusual that a guest conductor will bring a different vibe in his choice of a classical repertoire to present to a one-time-only audience. But it is a bold step to promote the concert as “Echoes of Greatness.”

For much of his three seasons as music director of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, Michael Repper has mixed in works by lesser known composers – often discovered or rediscovered after decades and even a century of obscurity, underrecognized in their lifetimes as minority or female artists.

George Jackson, a native and resident of London whose Stateside contract as music director of the Amarillo (Texas) Symphony was extended in 2024 for three years, says his program “resonates with the legacy of three of history’s most extraordinary composers – Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn – who represent the great orchestral voices of Vienna, Germany and London.” For his guest gig, Jackson conducted a full plate of music by this trio among the foremost long-dead European composers of all time. Together, their masterpieces comprise about as hearty a meat-and-potatoes menu as you can digest – but with a bit of a twist.

The concert opens with a Beethoven overture. He wrote a great many of them, presumably to keep himself solvent. His genius was not evident in some of those pieces. But the Coriolan Overture to the opera “Fidelia” is an exception. (Among his many attributes as a conductor, Jackson is noted for his fluency in operatic scores.) Beethoven sticks to “Fidelia’s” two dramatic themes: the title Roman Empire general’s quest for revenge against his usurpers and his mother’s plea for him to avoid an inevitably tragic end. Sudden bolts of C minor chords pulsate with Coriolan’s rage, featuring the bombast of timpani (Dane Krich) and brass, led by principals on trumpet (Guy McIntosh) and horn (Anne Nye). The tender E-flat major sonata theme of the mother’s fears for her son’s fate, conveyed by lower strings (viola and cello principals Yuri Tomenko and Katie McCarthy), brings to mind, in part, the immortal symphonies Beethoven wrote before and after the overture – Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”), possibly inspired by Mozart’s Symphony 39, which follows Coriolon on the program, and the thunderous Fifth.

The opening of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39, written at a feverish pace with two other of his late symphonies, demonstrates how far ahead of his time Mozart was regarding clarinets. Barely accepted as an orchestral instrument in his time, the clarinet is prominently featured in what’s also known as his “Eb” symphony, led in this concert by Brian Tracey along with Eric Black. The melodically stated introduction morphs into a pastoral-themed, violin-led allegro echoed by the horns and oboe principal Dana Newcomb. A slower A-flat movement follows with elaborations of earlier themes, concluding with a lively minuetto with a clarinet solo liberally sprinkled with flute accompaniment led by Mindy Heinsohn.

The single-theme finale is considered the most Haydn-inspired movement Mozart ever wrote, perhaps as an ode to his friend and mentor, although its imaginative variations suggest the compositional dexterity of Beethoven, with its sudden silence preceding a final rush of violins plus woodwinds, including principal bassoonist Terry Ewell, toward a spirited finish.

By then, it’s high time for an intermission break for the players and the audience as well. It’s also time for the youngest of 19th-century greats to be heard. Felix Mendelssohn was only 15 when he completed his astonishingly mature First Symphony in 1824. A bold and stormy opening movement in C minor shows his youthful respect for elders with its near-deathbed elegy to Beethoven. The second movement minuetto sounds more like a scurrying scherzo than a courtly dance, setting the stage for a finale bursting with violin counterpoint paced by concertmaster Kimberly McCollum and associate Paula Sweterlitsch in a salute to Bach, who also inspired impressionable young Felix.

While Mendelssohn later downplayed his child-prodigy brilliance – even rewriting parts of his Symphony No. 1, the orchestral gem stands today as a bridge linking the stately Classical legacy to the new-age Romanticism.

‘ECHOES OF GREATNESS’
Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra concert guest conducted by George Jackson of classical masterpieces by Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn at Easton Church of God, Thursday night, Nov. 6. Final two concerts 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7, Ellsworth United Methodist Church, Rehoboth Beach, and 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, Community Church, Ocean Pines, MD. midatlanticsymphony.org

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

“Dracula: A Feminist Revenge Fantasy,” like many in Kate Hamill’s extensive body of work, is adapted from a classic novel – in this case Bram Stoker’s blood-thirsty saga. But, as the most-produced American playwright in the 2024-25 season, her portfolio is dominated by other familiar titles, ranging from Pride and Prejudice and Little Women to The Scarlet Letter and The Odyssey. More along the lines of her radical take on Dracula is Hamill’s much-in-demand regional hit, Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson, her stage adaptation of a 2020 film of the same title.

In Dracula, feminist vengeance is first characterized by Liv Litteral as Mrs. Renfield, an asylum inmate who rambles so incoherently that no one but her doctor pays her any mind – until much later when she lucidly declares: “So long as men have power over us, they will use it.” Barely clad in what amounts to a loose-fitting hospital gown, she struggles to jot down in chalk (even before the play starts) warnings about, we suppose, deadly consequences of Count Dracula’s toxic, hard-bitten masculinity. Perhaps only in Mrs. Renfield’s lost mind, the action flashes back to Transylvania, where the Count, portrayed as a menacingly loud yet suave night owl by N.F. Thompson, sics his vampirical “brides” Megan Bradley and Katelyn Masden on a self-absorbed London barrister, an uptight wimp as played by Max Brennan (even though Brennan doubles as fight captain).

Back home in England, the lawyer’s wife Mina (Shae Reid), a vulnerably dependent pregnant woman who catches on quickly, is entertained by her once-confident close friend Lucy (Cavin Moore), unwillingly falling under the sway of her domineering fiancé, Dr. George Seward, who runs the asylum harboring Mrs. Renfield. Next, we’re introduced to the most colorfully imposing figure – rivaling even the Count – vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, played by Lily Sanford like a stylishly well-armed cowboy (female) who is sworn to preserve Englishmen and women medical access to blood of all types. (Costumes by Jeri Alexander.)

Directed with an antic sense of humor and mock horror by Iz Clemens (Factory Project’s 2024 production of A Streetcar Named Desire is among her previous credits), Dracula is embellished by eerie lighting and sound design by Joe Fox and Ray Nissen, respectively. There is next to no set design, other than a chalk-inscribed alternate version of the Lord’s Prayer on the front edge of the platform upon which most of the action takes place. Scenes shift back and forth from one end of Europe to the other – England and Transylvania – with no hint of locale. Just a series of boxes moved on and off the darkened stage with a pillow and sheet for a bed.

But aside from the play’s attention-grabbing relevance to current social issues, one of this farcical horror’s better Halloween lines is incisively delivered by a blustery Zack Schlag’s Dr. Seward: “You can say this phenomenon is caused by poltergeists or hobgoblins or tiny glowing worms from Planet Bellybutton . . .” Meanwhile, the feminist vengeance-seekers may or may not have achieved their #MeToo moment. Any such reveal would be a bloody spoiler, as British villains or heroines would likely put it.

‘DRACULA: A FEMINIST REVENGE FANTASY’ opened on Thursday night and continues at 7 on Halloween night, Friday, Oct. 31, and Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Avalon Theater, 40 E. Dover St., Easton. avalonfoundation.org

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