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November 26, 2022

The Talbot Spy

The nonprofit e-newspaper for the Talbot County Community

Arts Delmarva Review Top Story

Delmarva Review: The Entropy of Little Things by Martina Kado

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Author’s Note: I live just outside of Baltimore, in a historically blue-collar neighborhood surrounded by water and wildlife. Sometimes it feels like living in a novel Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Kurt Vonnegut could have written together: filled with the magic and tragicomedy of the universe. As people and animals were dying around me, I wrote this narrative meditation on the disheartening matter-of-factness of transience and finding comfort in tiny acts of kindness and each new day.

 

The Entropy of Little Things

PEOPLE GIVE US LIVING THINGS. Things I don’t know how to take care of. It is customary when one moves into a new home. A shamrock hibernates, I learned. It is also not Irish, but South American: people just call it “shamrock” because of how the leaves are shaped. The tomato plants love the sun: both of ours grew tall and bore fruit, which we heartily consumed in salads. The hydrangea is supposed to go to a shady spot in the ground. You can alter the color of the flower petals by adding different chemicals to the soil. The oak saplings, which were a gift meant to be a reminder of their centenarian namesake at our previous house, did not make it through winter. You have to pluck the dead flowers off a petunia to make room for more. The coxcomb rallied itself after wilting away at first. The orchid has not blossomed since I got it as a birthday present but has three keikis; getting it to bloom again will be my next challenge. 

I obsess over these things I don’t know how to take care of. The feeling of responsibility is overwhelming. 

We live at the end of a dead-end street, tucked away between two marinas, in the shadow of Bethlehem Steel and its blue-collar pride and mesothelioma. Marsh wedges through our property. A wall of trees, reeds, and honeysuckle surrounds us in summer, illuminated by fireflies; when the leaves are gone in winter, we can see the water and the boats. Our neighbors have roosters and guinea hens. Snapping turtles knock on our door in the morning, fighting our brooms as we gently coax them back into the marsh. Our home is a humbling battleground between human hubris and nature’s quiet, relentless patience. 

“What’s that swimming in the pool?” my Storyteller said. 

It was a rabbit. With no idea how long it had been drowning, he scooped it up immediately and cradled it in a towel. We spent the day taking turns nursing it and making sure the Domestic Long Hair didn’t notice. 

The Domestic Long Hair brings us living things. Things I don’t know how to save. The fledgling dove, accompanied by the mother as they walked carefully around the backyard looking for bushes in which to grow out of its adolescence, left as an offering at our front door. Countless mice, which served as toys before meeting their doom, beyond help. Multiple rabbits, still alive and injured in various places on their frail bodies, which we tried to patch up and nurse and release, but were dead and cold in the morning as I opened the door to the back bedroom where we kept each one. Domestic cats have a kill rate of 32 percent, and they only eat 28 percent of the kills. But to be honest, we haven’t really had a success story. 

I’m a country girl. I grew up on a farm, waking up to the sound of pigs being led to slaughter. I held chickens in my arms, tracing the bend of their wings with my fingers. When the time came, I watched my grandmother chop their heads off for soup. It was a treat to be given a boiled chicken foot as a snack as I ran around the yard looking for my next adventure. I plucked fleas off cats and popped them between my fingernails; picked full ticks off dogs and threw them in the fire (that’s where they go). Drank milk straight from the cow’s udder. Slept in a room with the top of the armoire filled with pickled vegetables, my hands smelling of dill and peppercorn. There is no perfume that could match the smell of horses for me. I understand the beauty and cruelty of life’s cycle. “We are all consumers,” a friend said recently. 

But I’m a country girl with a PhD, and I have never killed for sustenance. I didn’t have it in me to become a veterinarian. I don’t know how to grow food. I wrote a dissertation about ships and sailors, but I have never sailed. I drive past the Church Hospital where Edgar Allan Poe died on my way to work every day and study words for a living. 

Cottontails don’t burrow, I found out. They nest. If they are the size of a softball, they can fend for themselves. The best thing you can do for one is leave it alone or send it back to nature as soon as possible. 

The rabbit spent the day sleeping in a box. His heart was beating fast, and his breathing was shallow. He also became a “he” to us during this time. As evening approached, I realized we wouldn’t be able to release him yet, which diminished his chances of survival. We put him in the Domestic Long Hair’s crate for the night, snuggled in a new towel. I left baby spinach leaves in one corner and a plastic lid of water in another. He moved around, ate, and left tiny droppings all over the crate. He rallied. He would make it through the night, and we would release him first thing in the morning. 

“It’s a hard world out there for the little things,” my Storyteller said as we buried him next to the garage the following day. It’s Raising Arizona, but it’s true. 

I had found the rabbit’s little body cold and stiff in the crate, his eyes half-open. He had moved during the night and looked surreally comfortable, deceptively at peace. He had eaten, drunk water, left more droppings. An image of still life, the little machine with its inputs and outputs, the entire assemblage looked insultingly animated. The defeat was overwhelming. I had woken up hopeful, willing him to be alive, planning to release him back into the wild, all the while blowing raspberries at the Domestic Long Hair, “Some apex predator you are, oblivious of prey right under your nose!” 

We buried the rabbit as Storyteller’s Stepmother made arrangements for home hospice, in the shadow of her New England pride and multiple myeloma. Five years into stem cell transplant and chemotherapy, she took back the reins. She stopped eating and was seeing people outside the living room window, drifting between worlds. She was asking her spouse to come with her. 

My Storyteller is grieving. I have never seen him so sad. He believes in Yeatsian gyres and that the memory of one’s returns makes one better. I believe in physics. Bodies in space. Atoms repelling and attracting. Quantum entanglement. Any spirituality that can be explained with particles and waves, I will take it. 

But it’s the entropy that kills me. The tendency of the universe toward disorder. Of warmer bodies to get colder until the system reaches equilibrium. Life seems to be a permanent Redshift to me, a constant, irreversible moving away from one another. 

Ancient Greeks paid a lot of importance to how one died. The Iliad, I remember fondly, was little more than a collection of individual quests for the most noble, heroic death. It does decode one’s life in hindsight, doesn’t it? That first blood test, decades ago, when they told you there was a protein, element, or whatnot that would eventually show itself. The prophecy and its fulfillment. 

Should I not have fed him spinach? Or given him water— perhaps he was still suckling and I have no idea what size softballs are? Should we have released him right away? Or not had a pool in the first place? (We are not rich; it came with the house.) Different choices that in a different multiverse would have led to different outcomes raced through my brain as we both wiped away tears and Storyteller shoveled dirt on top of his little body wrapped in the towel in which he’d died. They are stress- ridden animals and can expire at the drop of a hat. There are many of them. There would be more. It’s the equilibrium of nature. 

The Domestic Long Hair kills for sustenance, but also for sport. We give him blues nicknames like Mudfoot and Waterbelly as he drags the marsh into the house. We also call him Mr. Murder. He doesn’t need us to survive, but he, too, is a little thing. There are so many big things out there that could hurt him. He will chase a rival cat up a tree and stare down a boxer three times his size, then hide in the closet at the faint sound of a lawnmower and meow frantically to be let in the house when Labor Day fireworks go off. 

That just might be the only thing I’m good at: taking care of apex predators because they take care of themselves. 

She never got in the hospital bed. She died in her recliner, with one of her cats in her lap. She wore jewelry to the last, shifting rings from the fingers of one hand to the other. As she passed, a bouquet of heart-shaped Mylar balloons in all colors of the rainbow floated from the kitchen, through the living room, and upstairs to the bedrooms. 

Jai Guru Deva, om
Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Nothing’s gonna change my world 

Two days later, I heard a familiar growl outside the front door. The Domestic Long Hair was wrestling another little thing, and I didn’t have it in me to look at the state of it. I did nevertheless—had to—with more instinct than anticipated: it was a baby rabbit, and it was still alive. I jumped, chasing the Domestic Long Hair all the way to the neighbor’s yard as he zig- zagged in front of me. (Storyteller was impressed by my speed.) In a moment of distracted growling at me, he let the rabbit go, and it ran away into the marsh. Our first success story. 

The Domestic Long Hair slept on Storyteller’s chest through the night, guarding him. One living thing left this world. Another got to spend one more day in it. 

I don’t know if that means that the system is in equilibrium. 

I’m a country girl, and I just want to be there for the little things. 

⧫

Martina Kado is director of publications at the Maryland Center for History and Culture, in Baltimore, where she serves as editor-in-chief of Maryland Historical Magazine. Researching maritime narratives for her PhD in English turned her life into a “traveling genre.” A Fulbright Fellow, translator, and flamenco dancer, she gets stir-crazy when exposed to only one language for too long. Her work has appeared in Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, Overland, and The Quill Magazine. Website: www.martinakado.com 

Delmarva Review, now in its sixteenth year, publishes the most compelling new prose  and poetry selected from thousands of submissions during the year. Designed to encourage outstanding new writing, the literary journal is nonprofit and independent. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org

 

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Spy Art Review: ‘Earth Abides’ at the Academy by Steve Parks

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My first thought after reading the title of the Academy Art Museum’s compact but highly pertinent exhibit of selections from its collection was about “The Dude.” That would be Jeff Bridges’ character in the Coen Brothers’ film “The Big Lebowski.” That’s because AAM has called its exhibit “Earth Abides,” which coincides with variants of The Dude’s favorite expression: He either abides or decidedly does not.

Although the dictionary definition of “abide” is to follow the rules, to obey, or, in the negative, to disobey. But for The Dude, it’s more like going with the flow or swimming upstream against it – often disastrously. That’s sort of how our planet abides: It can take whatever humans and the elements inflict on it, but disaster eventually catches up, usually to the perpetrators living on its surface.

Thomas Hart Benton’s study for “Prodigal Son”

A Thomas Hart Benton study of his “Prodigal Son” painting catches your eye across from the top of the stairs to the museum’s second-floor gallery. The New Testament parable of a wayward son welcomed as he returns home, takes on a Dust Bowl twist as poor farmland management and drought devastate the landscape. The lithograph portrays a son returning to a long-abandoned family home. He passes a bovine skeleton beside the dusty lane. To the left, Grant Wood’s “March,” another fine example of Regionalism art of this period, keeps topographical company with Benton’s print, both circa 1939. In Wood’s sepia-toned scene, a winding road leads up a hill where a lonely tree abides, bending over in the stiff wind.

Further along the same wall, a grizzled middle-aged woman stands tall in abiding tolerance in George Schreiber’s “I Raise Turkeys and Chickens,” a 1953 lithograph. A scraggly stand of cornstalks – no turkey or chicken in sight – signifies the sparse yield of the earth beneath her feet.

Some of the art in “Earth Abides” speaks to the notion of who is boss. Ansel Adams’ “Upper Yosemite Falls – Spring” (1946) is one of many photos he took of the national park’s titular falls. Together with “Cedar Trees and Maple Leaves” (1974), they depict landscapes that will survive long after we’re gone. That is, except in the case of climate- or human-caused fires such as the infernos at one of Adams’ other favorite national parks, Sequoia in California, that threatened stands of ancient trees from which the park takes its name.  

Amid these mostly black-and-white artworks, Melissa Miller’s 1998 four-color lithograph, “Fossil,” stands out refreshingly. The title suggests that her predator-prey food chain is not what it seems, as horses do not hunt anything, much less fish, and fish have no means to eat birds. Miller’s imagery may signal an ecosystem gone awry, perhaps by pollution or climate change. None of which any carnivore or vegetarian can abide.

James Turrell’s enigmatic 1987 “Mapping Space (1)” turns research on an extinct volcano into a topographical, multi-media etching that maps in cake-like layers both aerial and surface views of the volcano with a white-circle aperture in the middle. Is it art, a geological record, or both?

On the opposite wall, Leonardo Drew’s 2012 collage of handmade papers bearing stenciled pigment represents a dead tree. The roots below that once sucked nutrients from the soil now release them, both below and through the dead or dying branches above. A rectangle rising amid the branches appears to recall the tree’s once-living bark. From death, life – a phenomenon we see sprouting after every forest fire. 

Kiki Smith’s 2018 etching “Healers” isn’t about human healing but rather that of bees. In recent years, there’s been an alarming die-off of bees, which humans absolutely cannot abide by. Maybe we could live in a world without flowers but not without plant blossoms that metamorphose into fruits and vegetables after pollination. Smith presents a bouquet of uncut wildflowers against a cloud-like background as if served up as an airborne feast for busy bees on a pollinating mission. 

Collagist Robert Rauschenberg’s 1982 sojourn in China inspired one of his most ambitious projects. Working with the University of South Florida’s Graphicstudio, he produced a 100-feet-by-30-inch color photographic mural printed on a single linear sheet entitled “Chinese Summerhall,” cutting and collaging small portions of his photos to assemble the final image. Another 28 photos that did not make the cut for his mural were printed in two portfolios, one of which, his moody study for “Chinese SummerHall (Man and Tree),” captures a figure, his back to the camera, in a prayerful pose – or perhaps he’s just reading – with a deciduous tree towering above the bench he’s seated on. The tree abides. What else can it do?

***

Winners in the 22nd Annual Members’ Exhibition were announced in nine cash-award categories at the opening reception Friday evening, Nov. 18. 

Jinchul Kim juried the show, now on display through Dec. 7 in the Academy Art Museum’s two main galleries. A South Korea-born artist and professor at Salisbury University, Kim has been commissioned to paint the official portrait of the First Lady of Maryland, Yumi Hogan, also a South Korean native. Kim, who has exhibited his art internationally, is a recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council Distinguished Artist Award and Salisbury University’s Distinguished Faculty Award. 

Best-in-Show winner by Michael Iandolo, “The Madness of Plein Air Easton”

The winners he selected in a blind viewing of the art (no names attached) are:

Best in Show in Honor of Lee Lawrie: Michael Iandolo, The Madness of Plein Air Easton, 2022, oil on board.
Nancy South Reybold Award for Contemporary Art: Christopher Harrington, Blue Triangle, 2022, resin
M. Susan Stewart Award for Best Collage: Sheryl Southwick, My Collapsing House, 2022, collage
Trippe Gallery Award for Best Work on Paper: Barrie Barnett, Michele, 2022, pastel
Jane Shannahan Hill Offutt Memorial Award for Painting: Linda Perry, Aqualung, 2022, mixed media on canvas
Academy Clay Award: Kathy Bodey, Forgotten, 2022, clay
Best Landscape Award (sponsored by the St. Michael’s Art League): Nancy Tankersley, Lovely Intruder, 2022, oil
Arielle Marks Award for Best Print (sponsored by Amy Haines and Richard Marks): Judith Wolgast, Assateague Marsh, 2022, etching and aquatint
Excellence in Photography (sponsored by Tidewater Camera Club): Sahm Doherty-Sefton, Eastern Shore, 2022, inkjet print

Besides the prize money, many of the artworks in the show are for sale by both winners and non-winners. 

“The Members’ Exhibition is an annual tradition at the museum that dates back to our founding in 1958,” said director Sarah Jesse. “We are fortunate to have many talented artists living in the area and for the museum’s adult class program, in many cases, to have played a role in helping hone their skills. The exhibition is a testament to our wonderfully creative community and the museum’s exceptional teaching artists.”

“Earth Abides: Selections from the Collection”
Through Feb. 28, Academy Art Museum, 106 South St. Easton

2022 Members’ Exhibition
Through Dec. 7, academyartmuseum.org

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

 

Design with Jenn Martella: North Point 

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Royal Oak is one of my favorite areas for its desirable location between Easton and St. Michaels and its range of house styles have inspired many of my past articles. This house on a quiet dead-end street was built in 2001 on 2.89 acres along the Tred Avon River in the North Point subdivision. As I drove up the driveway, I noticed how well the house was sited to maximize the side yards for privacy and play. One side yard has trees at the street side and the side property line for a grassy play area for play from tag to touch football and the other side yard has a large pool, hot tub and trampoline against the dense background of trees. 

The massing of the traditional styled “L” shaped one and half story house has the two-car garage in the short leg of the “L” facing the parking area. The story and a half center wing’s full front porch wraps around the front of the garage and the column bays lessen the impact of the garage doors. A side wing containing the primary suite steps down from the main wing and a short hyphen connects the main wing to the garage. Each elevation includes a range of design features that articulate the massing including single window dormers at the front roof, shed dormers over the garage, a shed roof projection at the rear of the main wing that creates a sunroom and another shed dormer at the second floor, two bay projections at each side elevation that creates a space for breakfast at one side and a nook for the primary suite 

When I opened the door, the dramatic two-story foyer’s interior is defined by the staircase at one side and wide wall openings to the dining room opposite the staircase and another wide wall opening across the hall to the living room that create an easy flow among rooms. The staircase wall is detailed with panels below the treads painted white as a backdrop for the blue wood settee set into the alcove created by the stairs and the powder room that is below the stair landing above. Single window dormers centered over both the front door and the stair landing bring sunlight within. Another blue accent are the tall blue double shutters between the cased opening between the dining area and the kitchen that are fixed against the wall as decorative accents. 

The spatial volume changes from the two-story foyer to the one-story dining room and hall to the two-story living room with the pitched ceiling that follows the underside of the roof rafters. The brick fireplace soars to the ceiling and its white brick chimney becomes a sculptural element between the slate blue shiplap laid on a diagonal. Three pairs of French doors lead to the waterside sunroom. 

One end of the center hall off the foyer ends at the open plan family room, breakfast area and kitchen.  The bay wall projection of the breakfast area overlooks the pool and the family room has millwork on the interior wall for TV and books, rear windows with transoms flanking the fireplace and a triple unit window with transom that keeps this room sunny throughout the day. The “U” shaped spacious kitchen another blue accent in the range hood that stands out against the light colored cabinetry and marble countertops. 

Between the kitchen and the garage is a large laundry, powder room, mudroom with space for the family pets’ food bowls in the corner opposite the stairs to the private guest suite over the garage.  The exterior door in the laundry room leads to a deck and then to the pool deck for ease of clean up after a day on the water or in the pool. 

At the other side of the center hall is the sumptuous primary suite. The bedroom has two pairs of long triple unit windows for water views and a side door to the deck, pool and hot tub. I envied the large bath with a dual lavatory with both drawers and open shelves for storage and mirrors over each lavatory bowl.  Opposite the lavatory wall is the bay wall projection with long windows behind the soaking tub. In the next compartment is the large shower with a front glass wall and a side wall that provides privacy for the water closet.

The second floor is zoned well with the stairs ending at a “bridge” connecting the three bedrooms and one office/TV area. Two bedrooms share a “Jack and Jill” bathroom and the third bedroom is accessed by the office/TV area so it could become a private bed-sit suite. If I were a guest, I would claim the suite over the garage with its own staircase and large bathroom. The shed dormer on one side with triple windows would be the perfect space for a window seat. The window at the gable end wall and skylights above the knee walls on the other side of the room provide ample daylight.

Great home for relaxing with family or entertaining, 

Since this is the month for giving thanks, I wish to thank each of you for being readers of my articles. I am especially grateful to those of you who post comments or tell me personally how much you enjoy reading them. Stay Tuned!

Photography by Eve Fishell, Chesapeake Pro Photo LLC, 443-786-8025, www.chesapeakeprophoto.com, eve@chesprophoto.com

Jennifer Martella has pursued her dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. Her award winning work has ranged from revitalization projects to a collaboration with the Maya Lin Studio for the Children’s Defense Fund’s corporate retreat in her home state of Tennessee.

Bookplate Holds Dickens of a Christmas Readings at Zelda’s

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On Saturday, December 3rd at 11am, all are invited to meet local author Lucy Maddox as she signs copies of and discusses her book, “The Parker Sisters: A Border Kidnapping” upstairs at Zelda’s on Cross Street. This event is hosted by The Bookplate as part of the Dickens of a Christmas holiday weekend festival. The back room of The Bookplate has been expanded during the pandemic to include a larger selection of titles, so events such as the popular Authors and Oysters series, are often held off-site.

The Parker Sisters is a nonfiction exploration of the 1851 kidnapping of two free black sisters from Chester County, PA,  just above the Pennsylvania-Maryland state line. 

Lucy Maddox is Professor Emerita of English and American Studies at Georgetown University. She is the author of several books including The People of Rose Hill: Black and White Life on a Maryland Plantation, Nabokov’s Novels in English, Removals: Nineteenth-Century American Literature & the Politics of Indian Affairs, Citizen Indians: Native American Intellectuals, Race & Reform. She lives with her husband in Chestertown. 

“The Parker Sisters impresses by the breadth and depth of the impeccable research as well as by its engaging, at times genuinely suspenseful writing. The brisk narrative of the kidnapping of two free black sisters across the Mason-Dixon Line comes to life here. Maddox is a skillful historian who enters a single case so fully that the Fugitive Slave Act becomes understandable in a very direct way. This is an outstanding book.” – Werner Sollors, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Research Professor of English Literature, Harvard University

Then at 2pm on the same day, join us back at Zelda’s to meet NPR’s Maureen Corrigan as she discusses her book, So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be And Why It Endures. Corrigan’s book asks us; how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? While Fitzgerald’s masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power. Offering a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great — and utterly unusual — So We Read On takes us into archives, high school classrooms, and even out onto the Long Island Sound to explore the novel’s hidden depths, a journey whose revelations include Gatsby ‘s surprising debt to hard-boiled crime fiction, its rocky path to recognition as a “classic,” and its profound commentaries on the national themes of race, class, and gender. (And we can’t think of a more appropriate location to discuss this book than at Zelda’s!)

Maureen Corrigan is the book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air and the author of Leave Me Alone, I’m Reading. Winner of an Edgar Award for criticism, she has written essays and reviews for many publications. She teaches literature at Georgetown University, where she is the critic in residence, and lives with her husband and daughter in Washington, D.C.

“Maureen Corrigan has produced a minor miracle: a book about The Great Gatsby that stands up to Gatsby itself.” -Michael Cunningham, author of The Snow Queen

For more event details contact The Bookplate at 410-778-4167 or contact@thebookplate.net. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are not required. Zelda’s Speakeasy is located at 108 S. Cross Street, in Chestertown, Maryland. The Bookplate will continue its popular Authors & Oysters series at The Retriever Bar on 12/7 with Doug Richardson and his thriller, “Down Wind and Out of Sight”.

Spy Concert Review: From Bell to Bernstein and Opera to Folk by Steve Parks

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The hot new music series, “Gabriela Montero at Prager,” hit its highest note so far, literally, at the resplendently restored former sanctuary known as the Ebenezer Theater Saturday night, thanks largely to guest artists soprano Larisa Martinez and her super-star husband, violinist Joshua Bell.

Pianist Montero, who headlined the September 17 series opener with just her two hands, played a supporting role on this night, skillfully accompanying the couple on nearly all the program’s ten primarily short pieces. The Pragers in the title of the series are, of course, Joanne and Paul Prager and the Prager Family Center for the Arts. Montero is the artist-in-residence of the center, of which the Ebenezer Theater is its crown jewel.

Saturday’s concert opened with a 10-minute Bell and Martinez duet, one of the three longer pieces on the program. From Mendelssohn’s concert aria for soprano and orchestra, or in this case, violin, they performed “Ah, ritorna eta dell-oro.” (return to a valley of gold). To unobtrusive piano backing, violin and vocals trade places intermittently in a call-and-response duel before introducing an assertive change of pace as Bell propels his bow with the thrust of a fencing foil to Martinez’s dramatically ascending intensity. 

Bell left the stage for the next piece, described by his wife as Schubert’s “love letter to music.” With a lilting voice and light piano touch, Martinez and Montero delivered a brief and soothingly sweet respite before diving into the “Je suis” encore from Massenet’s “Manon.” Moving her sheet-music stand aside, Martinez sang in character, ranging from flirtatious girl to sultry woman, curling up and down the scale in rehearsed improvisation even as she laughed on key. Next, French composer Delibes’ “Les filles des Cadix” (The girls of Cadiz) opens with a pounding piano riff that launches a song suggesting Bizet to a flamenco beat with Martinez’s smoky soprano rising to toweringly high notes. 

Her husband returned with remarks complimenting the Ebenezer venue and the appreciative audience, as well as the Pragers, for the salon-style atmosphere far more intimate than Bell’s usual vast concert hall settings. He then drew laughs while recounting the pandemic hibernation as a “year-long honeymoon at home” for the newlyweds who married in 2019. Bell had enough time on his hands to arrange Chopin’s best-known, much-loved nocturne, Op. 9 No. 2, to his violin interpretation. At Ebenezer, his playing rose to heightened romantic tension with a silvery smooth flow to the melody repeated with ever-more decorous techniques, culminating in quavering vibrato trills and a big-finish violin-and-piano coda. 

Martinez followed with a prayerful lullaby for children by Spanish composer Montsalvatge of the Catalan region and its capital, Barcelona. Continuing her Spanish-language tour, she sang a medley of traditional Latin folk tunes and short pieces by Ovalle (Brazil), Gimenez (Spain), concluding with Figueroa of her native Puerto Rico.

For the rousing finale – Bernstein’s “West Side Story” Suite – Bell returned to the stage for an instrumental prelude with Montero, which morphed into the familiar “Maria” melody. As if responding to the invocation of her concert character’s name, Martinez rejoined them to deliver in dulcet tones the best-known songs suitable for soprano from the 1957 Broadway musical, beginning with “Tonight,” pausing for violin solo interludes. Next, she was feeling pretty as Bell’s strings sounded delighted while she figuratively looked into a mirror. But the smile on her face faded as the suite segued into “There’s a Place for Us,” even as we all know there is none for them. Once the impending doom is realized, Martinez emits a tragic soprano scream drenched in operatic anger and loss, punctuating the suite’s violent denouement to a standing ovation. 

Full disclosure: My relationship with this former house of worship still evokes in me a sense of nostalgic sentiment whenever I walk up to what has been converted into a splendid and inviting concert chamber. I attended Sunday school downstairs and services in the upstairs sanctuary until 1962, when Ebenezer Methodist merged with two other Easton congregations to form St. Mark’s United Methodist Church. I was in ninth grade, and although that was a half-century ago, and I was too young to appreciate many of the sermons or hymns fully, I don’t recall anything quite as inspired as the performance I experienced Saturday night.

                                                                                     ***
If you haven’t bought tickets to the sold-out Saturday night concert or the Sunday matinee, you can catch Joshua Bell performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore April 21 and 23 or the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda April 22. bsomusic.org  

Gabriela Montero at Prager Concert Series
Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, December 10
Irish tenor Anthony Kearns, December 17
The 2023 season opens with Cuban clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, on June 10
monteroprager.com/concerts

 

 

Mid-Atlantic Symphony Brings “Holiday Joy” to Its Audiences

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Rochelle Bard

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra once again ushers in the Christmas and Holiday Season with its annual “Holiday Joy” concert. This year the much-anticipated event features Soprano Rochelle Bard in carols, arias, and other songs of the season.

“We are pleased to be able to showcase the wonderful soprano Rochelle Bard at this year’s Holiday Joy concerts,” said MSO General Manager Dane Krich. “This is always such a special and joyous occasion for both our audience and the MSO Board, staff, and musicians. This concert continues to be the most popular concert of the year, inspiring our audiences and filling them with the joy of the holiday season.”

Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride — a “Holiday Joy” tradition with its sleigh bells and horse whinnies – once again opens the program. The concert continues with selections from around the world through several centuries of music with traditional carols, music of more recent vintage, opera arias, and salutes to some of our many holiday traditions.

Concertgoers at the Chesapeake College and Ocean City events are invited to special events at those two locations. The Atrium at Chesapeake College will be the site for pre-concert cocktails and a post-concert dinner. The Ocean City event will be a post-concert event with heavy hors d’oeuvres and other surprises. Separate tickets are required for these events and are available on the MSO’s website (www.midatlanticsymphony.org).

A note on the guest artist: Soprano Rochelle Bard has been described by critics as an ‘exquisite’ and ‘poignant’ singing actress. Ms. Bard earned a Master’s degree from the New England Conservatory and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from her alma mater, The College of the Holy Cross. With a focus on bel canto and Verdi roles, she has been a soloist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Hartford Symphony, Tanglewood, and with Opera Orchestra of New York and the MidAtlantic Opera at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

…CONCERT DETAILS FOLLOW…

WHEN and WHERE: This concert will be performed at three venues on three days on the Delmarva Peninsula.

Thursday, December 1, 2022 – 7:00 PM – Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center, Wye Mills, Maryland

Saturday, December 3, 7:00 PM – Cape Henlopen High School, Lewes, Delaware.

Sunday, December 4, 3:00 PM – Performing Arts Center, Ocean City, MD.

TICKETS

Individual tickets for this concert are $55 per person at each venue and are available at midatlanticsymphony.org/tickets. Tickets for the additional events at Chesapeake College and at Ocean City are also available at that Web site.

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony offers a group discount for the purchase of 10 or more tickets to a single concert. The Orchestra also makes a limited number of free tickets available for students 18 years and under; tickets for accompanying parents are $10 each. Reservations are required for the free tickets and may be made by calling 888-846-8600.

PODCASTS

Podcasts for the season preview, previews of each concert, and for special MSO events are available on the MSO Web site at midatlanticsymphony.org. Podcasts are posted on the site approximately 7 to 10 days before a concert or event.

MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about the 2022-2023 season, or to order tickets, please visit www.midatlanticsymphony.org. Tickets may be ordered by telephone at 888-846-8600.

ABOUT THE MID-ATLANTIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is the only professional symphony orchestra serving southern Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore with a full season of programs. The MSO is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council; the Talbot County Arts Council; the Worcester County Arts Council; the Sussex County, Delaware Council; and the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, Inc.

A complete schedule of the 2022-2023 season’s Masterworks and Ensembles programs, venues, times, and other information is available at www.midatlanticsymphony.org

AAM Announces Winners for the Annual Members’ Exhibition

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1) Best Landscape Award (sponsored by the St. Michael’s Art League): Nancy Tankersley, Lovely Intruder, 2022, oil. 2) Trippe Gallery Award for Best Work on Paper: Barrie Barnett, Michele, 2022, pastel. 3) Nancy South Reybold Award for Contemporary Art: Christopher Harrington, Blue Triangle, 2022, resin

The Academy Art Museum is pleased to announce the annual Members’ Exhibition Award Winners. The Museum’s annual Members’ Exhibition invites artists to submit imaginative, traditional, and experimental works in any medium made between November 2021 and November 2022. Each year, the Museum invites a judge to award prizes through a blind jurying process which are awarded on the evening of the opening reception. Many of the pieces in the exhibition are for sale, and can be purchased at the Museum. The exhibition is free to the public and open through December 7, 2022.

This year’s judge is Jinchul Kim, an artist and Professor at Salisbury University. He holds a BFA and MFA from King Se-Jong University in Seoul Korea, and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has exhibited his work internationally, including shows in Korea, Japan, France, Spain and the U.S. Kim has had over 20 solo exhibitions and over 300 invitational group exhibitions. He is the recipient of the Phyllis H. Mason Grant from Art Students League of New York, the George Sugarman Foundation Grant, the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award, the Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Salisbury University Distinguished Faculty Award in Teaching. He was most recently commissioned to paint the official portrait of the First Lady of Maryland, Mrs. Yumi Hogan.

“The Members’ Exhibition is an annual tradition at the Museum that dates back to our founding in 1958. We are fortunate to have many talented artists living in the area and for the Museum’s adult class program, in many cases, to have played a role in helping hone their skills. The exhibition is a testament to our wonderfully creative community and the Museum’s exceptional teaching artists,” states Director Sarah Jesse.

The winners of awards given for this year’s Members’ Exhibition include:

Best in Show in Honor of Lee Lawrie: Michael Iandolo, The Madness of Plein Air Easton, 2022, oil on board

Nancy South Reybold Award for Contemporary Art: Christopher Harrington, Blue Triangle, 2022, resin

M. Susan Stewart Award for Best Collage: Sheryl Southwick, My Collapsing House, 2022, collage

Trippe Gallery Award for Best Work on Paper: Barrie Barnett, Michele, 2022, pastel

Jane Shannahan Hill Offutt Memorial Award for Painting: Linda Perry, Aqualung, 2022, mixed media on canvas

Academy Clay Award: Kathy Bodey, Forgotten, 2022, clay

Best Landscape Award (sponsored by the St. Michael’s Art League): Nancy Tankersley, Lovely Intruder, 2022, oil

Arielle Marks Award for Best Print (sponsored by Amy Haines and Richard Marks): Judith Wolgast, Assateague Marsh, 2022, etching and aquatint

Excellence in Photography (sponsored by Tidewater Camera Club): Sahm Doherty-Sefton, Eastern Shore, 2022, inkjet print

Also on view at the Museum: Earth Abides: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Cheryl Warrick: Abstract Surge and Hoesy Corona: Terrestrial Caravan.

Best in Show in Honor of Lee Lawrie: Michael Iandolo, The Madness of Plein Air Easton, 2022, oil on board

Pictured are winners of awards for the 2022 Academy Art Museum Members’ Exhibition. Left to right (top row): Sahm Doherty-Sefton, Michael Iandolo, Sheryl Southwick, Barrie Barnett, Nancy Tankersley, Juror: Jinchul Kim. Bottom row: Judith Wolgast, Director Sarah Jesse, Curator Mehves Lelic. Not pictured: Christopher Harrington, Linda Perry, and Kathy Bodey.

About the Academy Art Museum

As the premier art museum on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Academy Art Museum presents high-quality exhibitions and a full range of art classes for visitors of all ages. Past exhibitions have featured artists such as James Turrell, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Pat Steir and Richard Diebenkorn. The permanent collection focuses on works on paper by American and European artists from four centuries including recent acquisitions by Graciela Iturbide and Zanele Muholi. Arts educational programs range from life drawing lessons to digital art instruction, and include lunchtime and cocktail hour concerts, lectures and special art events, as well as a Fall Craft Show celebrating 25 years. AAM also provides arts education to public and private school children from the region and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

Location: 106 South Street, Easton, Maryland
Hours:  (starting December 5, 2022) Tuesday-Wednesday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, Thursday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, Friday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm (free admission), Saturday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, and Sunday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Closed Mondays and Federal holidays.
Admission: $3, children under 12 free, AAM members free.

Celtic Group Harp and Soul Present Songs for the Season at The Mainstay

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On Sunday, December 11, the Mainstay, in partnership with the Hedgelawn Foundation, presents perennial musical favorites Harp and Soul, in a program they have titled “Harp and Soul: Songs for the Season.”  The group consists of Meredith Hadaway (harp and concertina), Ben Bennington (guitar and vocals), Rebekah Hardy (oboe), Bob Ortiz (percussion and vocals), and Nevin Dawson (viola), They will be joined by special guests, singer/songwriter Pam Ortiz (who will lead the group in new original compositions, one written for the occasion) and vocalist Sue Matthews. This year’s program will include songs in Spanish, Ukrainian, and Hebrew. As usual, the British Isles will be well-represented with some lively Celtic tunes and traditional English carols. This year’s concert aims to usher in the winter solstice with songs that inspire hope and courage as well as joy.

Harp and Soul

Showtime for the live concert event is 4 pm. Tickets are $20 in advance of the show and can be purchased online at mainstayrockhall.org. Phone reservations are accepted by calling (410) 639-9133 (tickets reserved by phone are $25 when paid at the door). The Mainstay is located at 5753 N Main Street in Rock Hall, Maryland. Its regular calendar of local, regional, and nationally touring artists features a live performance every week of the year (February through December) in a variety of music genres.

The programs of the Mainstay are also supported in part with funding from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Kent Cultural Alliance.

Easton Choral Arts Society Announces Christmas Concert

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Under the baton of our new Artistic Director Alexis Ward, ECAS will provide Christmas with both new and familiar songs to warm your heart and begin your Christmas season. The magic of Christmas from around the world will be captured in exciting Christmas music from Europe and America. Included are long-time favorites like “We Need a Little Christmas,” “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and a choral telling of “The Night Before Christmas” poem by Clement Moore, complete with illustrations on two large TV screens.

A portion of the concert will remind guests that Christmas is celebrated in many places and many languages around the world. This includes the earliest versions of “Stille Nacht” (Silent Night), the Austrian carol that turned from obscurity to a major classic, along with “Twas in the Moon of Wintertime” – one of the oldest Christmas songs of Canada which tells the Christmas story through the eyes of the indigenous Huron people. Also included will be a traditional carol from Catalonia in Spain, “Fum, Fum, Fum,” and the haunting Catalonian work, “El Cant dels Ocells” (Carol of the Birds) by Chris de Silva. “Brightest and Best,” in the American Shaker tradition, will feature a lively bluegrass-style fiddle solo, and “Hurry Now to Bethlehem” presents a new spiritual for guests. Pianist Becky Zinser will be joined by diverse instrumentalists playing strings, oboe, and flute. The choristers will close the program with “Christmas Day,” the rousing medley of Christmas songs by Gustav Holst.

Pictured is Easton Choral Arts Society, an auditioned choral ensemble, that will present its Christmas Concert, “Christmas Around the World,” on Thursday, December 8 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, December 11 at 4:00 p.m. at Christ Church Easton.

“I am both thrilled and honored to now serve at the helm of this excellent concert program. It includes not only holiday favorites but some stunningly gorgeous, lesser-known carols as well. Paired with a professional instrumental ensemble and the beautiful acoustics of Christ Church, our singers’ voices will truly soar and touch the hearts of many that weekend. Join us to jump-start your holiday season,” says Alexis Ward, Artistic Director of the Easton Choral Arts Society.

Tickets for each concert are $25 a person. Students are free with a reservation. Tickets can be purchased at eastonchoralarts.org or phone the ticket hotline at 410-200-0498.

Easton Choral Arts Society, Inc. is a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization funded in part by the Maryland State Arts Council, Talbot Arts, and the Mid-Shore Community Foundation.

The Easton Choral Arts Society is an auditioned choral ensemble that believes in the power of music to enrich the cultural life of the Eastern Shore. Under the direction of Artistic Director, Alexis Ward, ECAS brings a commitment to deliver excellence to our singers, audiences, and supporters. While the group is based in Easton, its singers come from all areas of the Eastern Shore.