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.

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.

Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1917. His parents Jacob and Rosa Lee Lawrence divorced in 1924. Jacob and his two younger siblings grew up in Harlem with their mother. She enrolled him in the Utopia Children’s Center, an arts and crafts settlement house in Harlem, to keep him busy. He learned to use tempera paint, a water based medium, which he would continue to use throughout his career. As a child, he copied the rug patterns in his house: “people of my generation would decorate their homes in all sorts of colors…so you’d think in terms of Matisse.” When his mother lost her job, Lawrence dropped out of high school before his junior year and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, part of the New Deal, where he planted trees, drained swamps and built dams.

Returning to Harlem after his stint in the Corps, he enrolled in the Harlem Community Art Center, then under the leadership of African-American sculptor Augusta Savage. Impressed by Lawrence’s talent, Savage obtained a scholarship for him at the American Artists School and a paid job with the Works Progress Administration. Lawrence was able to continue making art, which he did at an astonishing rate. An important influence on his work was Professor Seifert, whom he met playing pool at the Harlem YMCA. Seifert had a large collection of books on African American history. He offered Lawrence the use of his books and encouraged him to go to the Schomburg Library in Harlem to read all he could about African and African American culture. He also took Lawrence to see the 1935 exhibition of African Art at the Museum of Modern Art.

‘Toussaint L’Ouverture”, DC Moore Gallery, NY City (2019)

Lawrence began his career with three series of works illustrating the lives of African American icons: “Toussaint L’Ouverture“ (1938) (41 images); “Harriet Tubman” (1938- 1939) (31 images); and “Frederick Douglas” (1939-1940) (40 images). The original “Toussaint L’Ouverture” series was created in 1938 with tempera on paper, but with age became fragile, and Lawrence recreated in the 1990’s fifteen of the original images in silkscreen. He recreated several images from many series in silkscreen in his later years

Raised as a slave on a plantation, Toussaint L’Ouverture had been educated and was literate. He was freed when he was given a position of trust as a carriage driver. He rose from there to become Commander-in-Chief of the Haitian army in service to the French. However he was aware of the horrendous living conditions of the black slave population, and led the slave revolt in 1800 against Napoleon Bonaparte’s occupying troops. He helped draw up Haiti’s democratic constitution. On August 29, 1793 Toussaint declared to the black population at St. Dominique, “Brothers and friends, I am Toussaint Louverture, perhaps my name has made itself known to you. I have undertaken vengeance. I want Liberty and Equality to reign in St. Dominque. I am working to make that happen. Unite yourselves to us, brothers and fight with us for the same cause. Your very humble and obedient servant, Toussaint Louverture”

“Toussaint L’Ouverture, No. 13, Deception” (1997)

“Deception, no. 13” (1997) (22’’x 34’’) (silkscreen) depicts the 1802 event when Toussaint was invited by French General Brunet to a parlay. It was a deception; Toussaint was captured and taken to Paris, where he died in prison in 1803. He is known as the “Father of Haiti.” Lawrence’s original title for the image of Toussaint from the 1938 series summed up his impressions of Toussaint and his achievements as “Statesman and military genius, esteemed by the Spaniards, feared by the English, dreaded by the French, hated by the planters, and revered by the blacks.”

Lawrence calls his style Dynamic Cubism. In “Deception” we see Toussaint attacked by five French soldiers, all with drawn swords. The colors are limited but effectively used. The black shapes of coats, boots, hats, chair, and wall panels surround and secure the edges and angle diagonally toward Toussaint. A brown floor panel in the center of the composition leads our eyes to the seated Toussaint. The remainder of the floor on which the soldiers stand is ochre in color, and it ends just behind Toussaint’s shoulders an effective contrast to the black and white uniforms of the soldiers. A dark green wall completes the room, and a small contrasting turquoise rectangle in the center of the wall effectively highlights Toussaint’s upper torso. By the position of his turned head we see the surprised look on his face. His is the only clearly seen face. Whether painted with brush and tempera or silkscreened, the of solid and simple, but elegant, shapes are easy to understand and highly effective.

Migration Series“ (1940-41)

Lawrence’s “Migration Series” (1940 to 41) (60 images) brought him to national prominence when it was exhibited in 1941 at the Downtown Gallery in Greenwich Village in New York City. Lawrence was the first African American to be represented by a New York gallery. The series was quickly purchased by the Philips Collection in Washington, D.C. and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Fortune Magazine ran an issue with 26 illustrations from the series, and the series was also published in 1941 in a book funded by the Works Project Administration. Plate No. 1 of the series was named “During the World War there was a great migration north by southern Negroes” (1938); however in 1993, Lawrence changed the title to read “During World War I there was a great migration north by southern African Americans” (1993). In this image we again see Lawrence’s use of limited but effective colors. African American figures flood toward the three bright orange doorways labeled Chicago, New York, and St. Louis. The scattered use of orange shapes throughout the composition begin at the bottom and are strategically placed to lead the viewer’s eye to the three doorways.

Lawrence continued his career creating such series as “John Brown” (1941-1942) (32 images); “Harlem”(1942) (30 images); “War” (1946-47) (14 image), during his service in the US Coast Guard during WWII; “Struggle? History of the America People” (1953-55) (30 images); “Great Ideas of Western Man” (1958); “Hiroshima” (1983) (8 images); and “Genesis” (1989), based on his memory of Sunday sermons given by Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr. at the Abbyssinian Baptist Church in Haarlem. Lawrence drew subject matter from his life and experiences in Harlem, from his extensive reading of history, and from his deep interest in current events.

Great Ideas of Western Men” series (1958)

“Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.”(1958) (21’’ x17’’) (oil on fiberboard) is a work from the series “Great Ideas of Western Men”. The title of this piece is a quote from Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, VIII: 59. A very large male figure of indeterminate race sits on a rock and is surrounded by children who reach out to him and listen to him. On first seeing the piece, we see three large black cracks running through the figures and the rock. After very close observation we see the man is holding a small tree with a root ball, ready to be planted. The title of the work tells us humans need to exist together, and we either need to be taught how to live together or to learn how to be tolerant of each other. The three tree branches create an interesting enigma; first they are hard to distinguish, and second they cross in front of the three of the figures as if creating divisions between the people and cracking the rock.

“Confrontation at the Bridge” (1976)

Lawrence was invited to create a work for the 1976 American Bicentennial celebration. “Confrontation at the Bridge” (1976) (19.5’’ x 26’’) (silkscreen) described the March 7, 1965, march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on route from Selma to the Alabama state capital in Montgomery. Led by Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lewis, the marchers were protesting for equal voting rights. To represent the brutal police attack, Lawrence has substituted a viscously snarling dog. Six hundred protestors were turned back. Lawrence does not elect to show the famous leaders of the march; he depicts instead the frightened mass of African Americans exerting their first amendment right to peaceful protest. Later in 1965 the US Congress passed and President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.

In 1976 Lawrence added to the “Great Ideas of Western Men” series a piece titled “In a free government, the security of civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other, in the multiplicity of sects.” a quote from James Madison’s Federalist Papers (1788). Lawrence’s works were carefully chosen to expose the viewer to vast set of images intended to be informative, educational, and thought provoking.

“Exploration” (1980) is a forty foot-long mural of porcelain and steel installed in the Blackburn Center at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The mural presents 12 consecutive images depicting the study of religion, political science, theater, law and agriculture, fine arts and philosophy, astronomy and music, medicine, math and history. Lawrence’s last commissioned public work “New York in Transit” (72 foot long, composed of Murano glass) was installed a few months after his death at the Times Square subway station.

Other Lawrence projects include children’s books containing his images. His first was Harriet and the Promised Land (1968), included in the list of that year’s best illustrated books by the New York Times and praised by the Boston Globe. Books John Brown and the Great Migration followed. He created a new series of work on eighteen Aesop’s Fables (1970) and another set of twenty-three Aesop’s Fables (1998). He was invited to participate in several community projects and received commissions from several private sources. Lawrence also taught at such prestigious institutions as Black Mountain College in North Carolina, The New School for Social Research in New York City, the Art Students League in New York City, the Pratt Institute in New York City, Brandeis University in Massachusetts, and the Skowhegan School in Maine. From 1971 until 1986, he taught at the University of Washington in Seattle.

After visiting Lawrence’s first exhibitions in 1938 at the Harlem YMCA, Charles Alston, one of his teachers wrote in an essay that Lawrence “has followed a course of development dictated by his own inner motivations…. Working in the very limited medium of flat tempera he achieved a richness and brilliance of color harmonies both remarkable and exciting…. Lawrence symbolizes more than anyone I know, the vitality, the seriousness and promise of a new and socially conscious generation of Negro artists.” Alston’s thoughts on Lawrence have proved accurate. Exhibitions of Lawrence’s art are numerous, and they continue to excite and enlighten us.

NOTE: The Mitchell Gallery, St John’s College in Annapolis is presenting free of charge an online exhibition of three of Lawrence’s series.
September 2 – October 6, 2020 -“Genesis” (1989) October 7 – November 1, 2020 – “Toussaint L’Ouverture” (1938, 1997) *******October 15, 2020: Online lecture “Toussaint L’Ouverture” series, FREE  November 18 – December 18, 2020 -“Hiroshima” (1983) *******November 18, 2020: Online lecture “Hiroshima “series, FREE.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning.  She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.