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April 5, 2025

Cambridge Spy

Nonpartisan and Education-based News for Cambridge

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Spy Theater Review: ‘Never the Sinner,’ Leopold and Loeb by Steve Parks

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Max Brennan as Loeb and Roegan Bell as Leopold

If a whodunnit is your murder-mystery cup of tea, “Never the Sinner” may not be up your alley. But if the psychology of a pair or murderous lovers who kill a teenage boy just for the thrill of it – for sport if you will – will always beg the question: “Why?”
The senseless murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks by a pair of intellectual and amoral snobs – “supermen” they thought of themselves – Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold Jr. – shocked and appalled the nation just over 100 years ago. It was widely considered the “Crime of the Century” in 1924. Today, I fear, we are beyond being shocked by anything or anyone. Which makes an excellent argument for why now – why now does this 1985 play by John Logan seem so strikingly relevant? As directed by E.T. Wilford for The Factory Arts Project at the Waterfowl building in Easton, “Never the Sinner,” makes us wonder how some people – men mostly – with power and sheer chutzpah get away with anything. Not that Loeb and Leopold got off scot free for murder. But they did not hang as public fury and a zealous prosecutor demanded.
 The sinister pair, played by Max Brennan as Loeb and Roegan Bell as Leopold, are almost sympathetically charming, aside from their hideous crime and “supermen” arrogance that seems to absolve them of any sense of guilt. The other two principals in this true-story drama are the opposing counsels, prosecutor Robert Crowe, played with convincingly judgmental outrage by Alex Greenlee, and Ray Nissen as the famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow, takes on the bold strategy of pleading his clients guilty at the outset of the trial with a daring strategy of sparing them the noose. The legal back-and-forth between the two makes for a morality play on its own merits quite aside from the guilty clients.

As Loeb, the one who actually struck the murderous blows on the defenseless teen, Brennan effusively appears to lack any sense of remorse, while Bell as the more introspective Leopold tries to hide his regrets, perhaps even from himself. As gay lovers, their homosexuality is underplayed except near the end of the trial and the verdict that is never revealed.  Only then does their affection for each other become vividly apparent.

Their dress-alike earth-tone suits chosen by producer/costumer Cecile Storm and matching bright red tennis shoes set them apart from the rest of the cast, although each player also wears tennis shoes of more muted tones – even Clarence Darrow.

The set and lighting design by director Wilford is a rather busy shuffling of chairs and tables between scenes on a slightly raised stage on the floor of the huge Waterfowl space with seating on three sides, making for a relatively intimate setting. Depending on where you were seated, especially front and center as I was, the too-bright lighting was at times quite distracting – a condition that can easily be corrected in upcoming performances this weekend.
Loeb and Leopold were only about five or six years older than their victim – a fact that Darrow deployed in his argument for leniency by calling them “kids.” As a juror, I’m not sure I would’ve fallen for that, even though in general, I don’t favor the death penalty.
‘NEVER THE SINNER’ 
By John Logan, performed by The Factory at the Waterfowl building in downtown Easton through Sunday, March 16. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday. thefactoryartsproject.org
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Music Review: An Ascendent Interlude Concert by Steve Parks

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“The Lark” not only ascended but soared to the top of the program of Chesapeake Music’s Interlude matinee concert at the Ebenezer Theater Sunday, starring violinist Stella Chen and pianist Janice Carissa whose youthful exuberance was surpassed only by their extraordinary talent and technical virtuosity.
Until just the night before, the concert was to be led off with Eugene Ysaye’s Sonata for Solo Violin. But for whatever reason – perhaps that the opening number should better reflect the skills of each musician or that there should be one more familiar piece on a program of boldly challenging works rarely performed in concert (not a bad thing at all) – the players settled on English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ romantic “The Lark Ascending,” inspired by a late 19th century poem by George Meredith. The piece opens with a quivering violin trill of a bird taking flight, accompanied by a weepingly tender piano suggestion of the lark’s song before settling into a confidently soaring melodic flyover.
A world premiere performance of American composer Robert Paterson’s Adagio for Solo Violin, written in 2021 as a birthday gift for his violinist friend Adam Abeshouse, opens with a quite modern – call it post-post modern – approach with dissonance and sudden shifts in tempo and attitude from folky to furious. Chen handles it all deftly. Then, almost admittedly in her remarks, Chen shows off her technical acuity and dexterity on Rachmaninoff’s notoriously difficult Prelude in G Minor, Op. 23, No. 5, attacking the strings throughout with astonishing speed. Fortunately, it’s a relatively short piece or her right arm may have gone numb.
Robert Schumann’s Bunte Blatter (English translation from German to English is Colorful Clouds), including all 10 short pieces written or rewritten late in his life and career when he resided in a sanatorium where he died at age 46 after periodic bouts with mental illness. The frenetic switches from short to short in Colorful Clouds, most of them artfully introduced by pianist Carissa, reflect a man of myriad moods and personalities. The pieces go from placidly melodic to rambunctious and a bit of a rumble to a lullaby for the sleepless and onto a galloping finale.
With barely a pause, Chen and Carissa switch the musical script to something completely different in Bach’s tender Prelude and Fugue in B Flat Minor with its somber opening which morphs into a declarative statement of resolve for an emotional soft landing.
Following intermission, Cesar Franck’s Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano, from its reflective opening allegretto to its stormy allegro and beyond, offers the finest melding on the program of piano and violin parts complementing each other. Musically, the players don’t seem to be arguing with each other over whatever it is that torments them so much as agreeing on a source of their consternation. Never quite resolved, the fourth movement allegretto comes to a torridly satisfying finish nevertheless.
Again without pause, after the second of two standing ovations during the Franck sonata, Chen and Carissa launched into the finale to the concert with Ravel’s equally torrid Tzigane, which translates in English as “gypsy.” Described by the French composer as a “Hungarian rhapsody,” his single-movement piece builds from concern to impatience reflected in a feverish succession of exchanges by Carissa and Chen in tonalities, staccato notes and trills. It’s never clear to me within the context of the piece whether the implied agitation is on the part of gypsies or about their presence that historically reflects much of the current antipathy toward immigrants. Whatever. Within this musical statement the issue is never resolved. No fault of the composer nor certainly these stellar musicians who earned still another standing ovation. Bravo.

Violinist Stella Chen and pianist Janice Carissa perform a program of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninoff, Robert Schumann, Caesar Franck, and Ravel, plus a world premiere by Robert Paterson. Sunday, Feb. 16 at Ebenezer Theater in downtown Easton. For upcoming Interlude concerts: chesapeakemusic.org
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

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Elizabethan and chamber music virtuosity by Steve Parks

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The Baltimore Consort performs a trio of concerts on or near Valentine’s Day – two of them on the Eastern Shore and one in Columbia. The subject is romance,  some of it drawn from the consort’s most recent album, “The Food of Love: Songs, Dances, and Fancies for Shakespeare.” That’s because the consort musicians are all about playing music using period instruments of Will Shakespeare’s time and before.
The musicians, time-traveling virtuosos, are as extraordinary as their instruments, from the treble viol, a forerunner to the violin described as “sultry,” or the “ethereal” flute, a recorder, as well as the “noble” lute, “cheerful” cittern and “stately” bass viol, a forerunner to the cello.

Shakespeare did not write musicals as we know them in the Broadway or West End form, closer now to his English roots. But incidental music, most often played and not sung, was very much a part of Elizabethan theater. Unlike in Shakespeare’s time, women are allowed – no, encouraged, to play in this 21st-century consort format – unlike in the Oscar-winning film “Shakespeare in Love,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow as the forbidden female Juliet.

Before the Baltimore Consort embarks on a California tour in March, it will perform at 8 p.m. Feb. 14 at Howard Community College’s Smith Theater in Columbia, 2 p.m. Feb. 15 at the Avalon Theatre in Easton, and 4 p.m. Feb. 16 at The Mainstay in Rock Hall.

The instruments of the period include some made from maple, boxwood, snakewood, sheep’s gut, horse’s tail, crow’s quill, elephant’s tusk, ram’s horn, and shells of tortoises – as if, according to Baltimore Consort’s website, composed from a sorcerer’s potion. Credentials, however, of these musicians who play such period instruments are exemplary.

Besides the Baltimore Consort, Mary Anne Ballard performs with Galileo’s Daughters, drawing on music from the then-controversial astronomer’s lifetime in Italy, a contemporary of the Bard, and with Mr. Jefferson’s Musicians, creating “Soundscapes of Jefferson’s America” at Monticello in the 18th and early 19th century.
Mark Cudek chairs the Peabody Conservatory’s Historic Performance Department of Johns Hopkins University, and is founder of Peabody’s Renaissance Ensemble. Larry Lipkis is composer-in-residence and director of Early Music at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and music director for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.
Ronn McFarlane has recorded 40-plus  CDs, including solo collections, duets, music for flute and lute, Elizabethan music and poetry, lute tunes written by Vivaldi, as well as Baltimore Consort albums. A founding member of the Baltimore Consort, Mindy Rosenfeld plays historic and modern flutes, recorders, whistles, bagpipe and early harp.
In addition, two vocalists sing with the consort. José Lemos is known for his concert and opera performances since receiving first prize in Belgium’s 2003 International Baroque Singing Competition. Danielle Svonavec, a 1999 University of Notre Dame graduate, became a soprano soloist for the Baltimore Consort during its nine-concert Christmas tour that year. Since then, she has also toured with the Smithsonian Chamber Players and now serves as cantor for the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Notre Dame at her Indiana alma mater.
It’s a sure bet that the Baltimore Consort playlist will not be that of your usual classical concert fare.
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The good news here is that if you want to take in both the Baltimore Consort and the latest Chesapeake Music Interlude concert, featuring up-and-coming candidates for classical music super-stardom, you can see them both. But only if you see the consort in Columbia on Valentine’s Day or at the Avalon in Easton the day after. The Chesapeake Music recital overlaps with The Mainstay’s Rock Hall consort performance on Feb. 16, itself a fine venue for this event.

Violinist Stella Chen won first prize in the 2019 Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition – named for the Dutch queen, not the late queen of the United Kingdom. And in 2020 Chen won an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. Pianist Janice Carissa, who will be accompanying Chen, is a Gilmore Young Artist once-in-four-year award winner and a Salon de Virtuosi prize grantee who debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age 16.

Together they will perform a challenging program starting with Sonata for Solo Violin, Op. 27. No. 5, by Belgian violinist and composer Eugene Ysaye (1858-1931), followed by a modern piece, Adagio for Solo Violin, written by Robert Paterson, born in 1970. Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5, Robert Schumann’s Selections From Bunte Blatter, Op. 99 and Bach’s immortal Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor brings the duo to a well-earned break. After intermission, Cesar Franke’s Sonata in A major for Violin and “Tzigane,” described by its French composer Ravel as a “virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody,”wraps up the program.

Quite the chamber classical-music duet smorgasbord.|

Baltimore Consort Period-Instrument  Concerts
8 p.m. Feb. 14, Howard Community College’s Smith Theater in Columbia, 2 p.m. Feb. 15, Avalon Theatre in Easton, and 4 p.m. Feb. 16 at The Mainstay in Rock Hall. baltimorecosort.com
Chesapeake Music Interlude Chamber Concert
2 p.m. Feb. 16, Ebenezer Theatre, Easton. chesapeakemusic.org

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

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

MSO International Concerto Competition and more by Steve Parks

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The trio of finalists in the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra’s annual Elizabeth Loker International Concerto Competition have been chosen to play in concert with the full orchestra to be judged for first, second and third places. The concert will be held at Chesapeake College’s Todd Hall for the Performing Arts on the Wye Mills campus at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 23.
“I am deeply excited to work with these extraordinary young musicians,” said Michael Repper, music director of the MSO who will be conducting them along with the orchestra for the finalist concert. “The energy and talent they bring to the stage will be a powerful reminder of the next generation of classical musicians.”The finalists competing for top honors are bassoonist Christopher Chung of New York City, who will perform Villa-Lobos’ Ciranda das Sete Notas; pianist Jonah Kwek of Singapore, performing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, and Britton-Rene Alyssa Collins, also of New York, playing Concerto for Marimba, her instrument, by Sergei Golovko.

Although there are cash prizes in the competition, the real top prize goes to each of the finalists, no matter their order of finish: Each one gets to play as a soloist accompanied by a full and fully professional symphony orchestra. Many of the applicants, from 27 states and at least nine countries, have never experienced that opportunity before. In most competitions, the finalists compete accompanied only by a pianist. But the cash prizes are worth competing for as well: $5,000 for first place, $2,500 for second, $1,000 for third and $500 for audience-choice favorite.

Christopher Chung and Jonah Kwek

As for the contestants, Christopher Chung is a Juilliard School student who has performed with such distinguished ensembles as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. As a bassoonist, he is known for his collaboration with Sonarsix, a woodwind quintet, and contributions to the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices, which promotes performances by composers whose careers and lives were cut short by Hitler’s Nazi regime

Jonah Kwek is a graduate of Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory now studying for a master of music at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. Already he has become a frequent soloist or contributing pianist on worldwide gigs. He also won the MNTA (Music Teachers National Association) Stecher and Horowitz Award for two-piano competition with a keyboard partner.

Britton-Rene Alyssa Collins

Britton-Rene Alyssa Collins, a percussion virtuoso on marimba – similar to a xylophone – earned a prestigious Princeton University Hodder Fellowship and has performed at Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall among other top global venues. She says part of her mission as a musician is to promote percussion as a means of celebrating black culture and identity.

The MSO competition is named for the former Washington Post executive who helped bring the newspaper into the digital age. In retirement, Elizabeth Loker moved to Royal Oak and became a symphony board member and supporter before her death of cancer at 67 in 2015.

                                                            ***
You don’t have to wait until March to hear some of the Mid-Atlantic Sumphony’s finest musicians. As part of its Ensemble Series of chamber concerts, Kimberly McCollum, violinist and concertmaster of the MSO, leads a string quartet that includes first or second-chair musicians  including violinist Celaya Kirchner, violist Yuri Tomenko and cellist Katie McCarthy. Together they will play Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 in F major and Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 6 in F minor at 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8 at Epworth United Methodist Church in Reboboth Beach and at 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9 at the Academy Art Museum in Easton.
Mid-Atlantic Symphony Concerts
Ensemble Series String Quartet, 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 8, Epworth United Methodist Church, Rehoboth Beach; 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 9, Academy Art Museum, Easton.
Elizabeth Loker International Concerto Competition, 3 p.m. Sunday, March 23, Todd Hall for Performing Arts, Wye Mills. midatlanticsymphony,orgSteve Parks is a retired New York arts critic and editor now living in Easton.

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Cars as movie co-stars and museum artworks by Steve Parks

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And just when you thought drive-ins were a thing of the past – particularly in the dead of winter –  Easton’s Academy Art Museum launches a monthly Drive-In Film Series in conjunction with its current “Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection” exhibition running through April 13.
Cars play significant roles in each of the movies in the four-part series starting with the 1924 French silent picture “L’Ihumaine,” directed by Marcel L’Herbier, which predate even a few of the classic Grand Prix race cars and sleek roadsters parked for showroom viewing in the museum’s two main galleries. The 1922 Rolland-Pilain Two-Litre Grand Prix racer acts as a motorized French Formalist prop in the film that kicks off the series on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
French Formalism was the dominant response to Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art until the 1960s. The Formalist movement focused on the structure and visual aspects of a work rather than its content, including in this case, performance, too. The subtitle of the original release of “L’Inhumaine” was histoire feerique, which translates as “story of enchantment.” In its time, the film was a controversial avant-garde collaboration of leading practitioners in experimental decorative arts, architecture, engineering and music. Opening night in Paris reportedly drew an audience of such icons as Pablo Picasso, Erik Satie, May Ray, James Joyce, Ezra Pound and the Prince of Monaco. Some adored it. Many more hated it. But the film received better receptions when re-released in 1968 and shown again in 1975 at the 50th anniversary of the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in Paris and in 1987 at the Cannes Film Festival. Finally, a 2015 restoration featured a new musical accompaniment score by Aidje Tafial. The original score by Darius Milhaud was lost over time.
The Roaring ’20s Grand Prix racers on display at the museum during the run of this film series were designed by Italian mechanical artists Ettore Bugatti and his son Jean. Like the French Rolland-Pilain race-car, they are also hand-cranked from the front, dating them as authentic automobile antiques.
The cinematic journey of the series traces the evolution of the automobile from early Grand Prix classic cars to the harrowing high-speed chases of “The French Connection.” Other films in the series include the first film-noir movie directed by a woman, “The Hitch-Hiker,” released in 1953. Ida Lupino, herself a star in several film-noir narratives featuring her either as villain or victim, directed this true-story tale based on a 1950 killing spree by Billy Cook who held two friends hostage during his murderous driving trip to Mexico. Co-starring Edmond O’Brien, William Talman and Frank Lovejoy, it was selected in 1998 for preservation by the U.S. National Film Registry as “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant.”
“The French Connection,” the highest profile feature in the series, won the 1971 Oscar for Best Picture and the Best Actor prize for Gene Hackman, it tells the semi-fictional tale of New York Police Department detectives led by Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Hackman) in hot pursuit of French heroin smuggler Alain Charnier. It conspicuously intensifies high-speed chases framed beneath tight above-ground commuter train tracks. No margin for steering error.
The final film in the series introduces another four-wheel co-star known as the “Bluesmobile,” a battered former police car. Blues singer and petty crook Joliet (John Belushi) is released from prison and picked up by his brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) who demonstrates his driving skills by running the light on a raised drawbridge and leaping the gap. Their supposedly altruistic mission is to save a Catholic orphanage from being shut down by paying their $5,000 property tax bill. Aretha Franklin, it should be noted, soars even higher than the airborne Bluesmobile.
Film passes for the “Drive-In and Unraveling Narratives” series are available for $25 for museum members and $35 for non-members. A pass includes access to all four films with free popcorn at beer or non-alcoholic beverages for members and $5 for non-members.
Drive-In Monthly Film Series
Jan. 21: “L’Inhumaine” (1924)
Feb. 18: “The Hitch-Hiker” (1953)
March 18: “The French Connection” (1971)
April 8: “The Blues Brothers” (1980)
Admission to the series: $25 for museum members or $5 for individual films, $35 non-members, $10 per film. The movies, all on Tuesday nights, start at 7 in the Academy of Art auditorium, 106 South St., Easton; academyartmuseum.org
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts writer and editor now living in Easton.

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Presidential pasts and an impending future by Steve Parks

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Former president and now president-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated again – this time to a non-consecutive second term. (The first since Grover Cleveland, elected in 1885 and 1893.) Although I was disappointed, to say the least, about his victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November, it is clear that Trump was elected fair and square by millions of Americans I disagree with regarding his fitness for office.
Despite my severe doubts based on his first-term presidency – two impeachments resulting in party-line acquittals and four felony charges: two blocked by judicial stall tactics, another by a prosecutor’s personal indiscretion, plus one conviction with no penalties allowed – I had no choice but to respect the results and give the winner the benefit of aforementioned doubts. I say “no choice” because without evidence of anything but a straight-up electoral Trump victory meant to me – as it should to any American who believes in democracy – that he is our once and now-again president. Others I respect on the losing side upheld that rightful interpretation of constitutional law. Harris conceded the next morning. And she fulfilled her constitutional duty as vice president and president of the Senate to confirm the electoral count on Jan. 6. Remember that date, anyone? Hakeem Jeffries, minority leader of the House of Representatives, gaveled his announcement of the final count to the applause of mostly the winning side. Nothing wrong with that. But compare this entirely peaceful transfer of power to that of the MAGA mob, egged on by Trump, on the same date four years ago.
Still, Trump is about to be our next president. And he was among a rich and rare assemblage of colleagues on another historic day just last week. Trump and three other former presidents, plus President Joe Biden, sat together as a far more exclusive club than the “Saturday Night Live” five-timer host club. But it was the centenarian of the hour, 39th President Jimmy Carter, whose funeral stood as a still-living memorial to the great man in the flag-draped casket – a fallible human of unassailable character, decency, integrity and the belief I have now and always did that Jimmy Carter never lied to us. All the eulogies were authentically moving and real. No embellishment necessary. One of my favorites was the bipartisan tribute read by Gerald Ford’s son Steven because these former presidential election rivals and best friends for the rest of their lives, agreed to write each other’s eulogies. Carter outlasted Ford by 18 years.
I can apply none of those accolades to the man about to take his second oath of office I doubt he will keep for a minute. I say that because I’m certain he will never take the step that could redeem himself and his idolaters: Tell the truth about the 2020 election. Are we to just pretend that he’s not the one who tried to “steal” an election? – campaigning before and after the votes were counted that it was “rigged.” It’s an impossible feat considering all the states, counties, and municipalities, not to mention the thousands of precincts you’d have to line up to pull off a stolen national election. And never mind there is zero evidence of such a widespread possibility in 2020. If Donald could bring himself to announce, or at least imply, at his inauguration in front of the president who once defeated him that, yes, Biden won that election, just as he – Trump – won this one, he could obliterate the fact-free obsession that has divided America for more than five years. Confession is good for the soul and would be for the country he now leads. Again. But Trump will never do that.
Too bad for all of us on either side of his contagious lie. You won in 2024, Mr. Trump. Mr. President. And no one seriously challenges that. Why would you contribute to keeping the country divided against itself as you did when you lacked the simple courtesy of attending Biden’s inauguration? Sore loser, for sure. Why would you now be a sore winner as well? Just to get even? Surely, you can’t expect to run again. Make the best of this term for yourself, your legacy, and for all the rest of us.
Jimmy could be watching you, Donald. But you don’t seem to care. You think Carter was a loser. But so were you in 2020. Be a man and admit it. Put an end to all the personal strife you brought upon yourself as a result. And all of us fellow Americans, too. Then get on with being the best president you can be for a more united USA.
Make America Grateful Again – grateful to be who we are when we’re all working together.
Steve Parks is a retired journalist now living in Easton.

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Spy Art Review: Start your engines at AAM by Steve Parks

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Now and for the next few months, Easton’s Academy Art Museum’s main galleries are transformed into automobile showrooms – except these vehicles are historically artistic expressions of engineering on wheels that you could never afford even if any of the few such cars left in existence were for sale.
But while Concours d’Elegance – vintage auto shows of great prestige – are the highlight of the “Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection” exhibition, curated by Ken Gross and running through April 16, cars are but one medium of fine art produced between the two 20th-century world wars by Italian family patriarch Carlo Bugatti and his sons Rembrandt and Ettore Bugatti and grandson Jean.
Although he never traveled beyond Europe, Carlo drew on Asian, African and Islamic cultural influences in creating fin-de-siecle furniture designs of which two examples – one from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, the other from Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts – are displayed in the hallway separating the auto “showrooms.” One is an armchair, possibly of Turkish inspiration, that like most of his works – including a hallway bench and an armchair, neither of which you’re allowed to sit on – combine exotic materials: ebonized wood inlaid with copper, brass, ivory and mother of pearl accented with leathery and painted flourishes.
His eldest son, Rembrandt, followed with an explicit art discipline rather than highly refined craftsmanship. In his short life ending in suicide at age 31, he devoted his talents to bronze sculptures of animal figures, none of which, presumably, posed for him. “Three Cow Grazing,” “Asian Elephant Begging” (perhaps for water?) and “Sacred Hamadryas Baboon” on all fours, are arrayed opposite the furniture pieces and a black-and-white photo gallery of the Bugatti family of artists.
Separated from the other sculptures is Rembrandt’s “Leaping Kangaroo,” displayed in the gallery featuring Ettore and Jean Bugatti’s Grand Prix race cars, Roaring ’20s forerunners to what we now call Formula 1 racers. A blue-grey Bugatti Type 45 Grand Prix with exhaust piping running from front to rear reveals its vintage with a front-end crank to start its explosive engine. A silver Bugatti Type 37A Grand Prix antique masterpiece with its red leather two-seat interior and spare tire strapped to the long front end that encompasses a powerful for-its-time engine. You can see a model of that engine outside its handsomely designed housing. It stands right next to the “Leaping Kangaroo.” And for sound effects you can press a couple of buttons to hear the roar of each Bugatti Grand Prix racer.
But for sheer engineering artistry, it’s hard, perhaps impossible, to beat the elegantly sleek designs of the Bugatti roadsters of the 1930s. These cars and the others in this exhibit are from the collection of Judge John C. North of Easton, and have never before been exhibited in a museum setting.  Lee Glazer, AAM’s Senior Curator, curated the exhibition, and Ken Gross is the guest Curator
You can see that the Bugatti Type 57 Atalante coupe on display at Academy Art shows was previously owned in that the driver and passenger seats are a bit cracked, while the classic exterior lines are so captivatingly authentic that they rise above minor seat imperfections. The companion virtuoso vehicle, the Bugatti 57SC Atlantic sports model, gleams in showroom fresh splendor, with its pristine interior and peek-a-boo peek into its awesome engineering artistry. Surely, the Bugattis – Etorre and his son Jean – knew how to make beautiful cars way back then. But imagine trying to insure one. Not to mention mileage. Way better to experience these Bugattis as museum artifacts. Admission is free.
                                                                  ***
To accommodate this never-seen-before exhibition at AAM, the annual museum members show has moved to the next-door Waterfowl Building.

The first object you encounter on arrival is Loretta Loman’s “Organic Farm” glazed stoneware ceramic that, to me, deserved an award. But Loman compensated as hers was one of the first  artworks sold. Just to the right of her piece is Anne Sharp’s Best in Show oil portrait “Eunice” of a woman in a red turban. Best painting went to James Plumb for his nearby still-life, “Three Garlics and Water” oil on canvas.

Anne Sharp’s Best in Show “Eunice”

Other winners include Stephen Walker’s Best Eastern Shore Scene primitive-style oil, “Smoke Break”; Best Landscape, actually a seascape by James Sharf, for his “Normandy Coast Gale” oil; Liam Swadler’s Sporting Award for his “Dock Dog” digital photo of a pooch fresh from a Waterfowl Festival water dive; Best in Ceramics for Karen Bailor’s “World View,” an odd-shaped mouth to a vase; Judy Wolgast’s Best Print winner for her “Snowscape” aquatint reflection of trees on an icy surface; Bridget Sullivan’s Best in Mixed Media for her “Ancestral” allegory; the Trippe Gallery Work on Paper Award to Barrie Barnett’s “Sheep in Winter,” in need of a shearing; Excellence in Photography award to George Sass’ soft-focus “Rolling Tide”; Best in Wood to Terance John for his enigmatic “Memories #19”; Best in Fiber to Susan Fay Schauer of Zebra Gallery for her “Ajidamoonh,” squirrel with a paisley tail; and Best Contemporary Art for “Serengeti,” a collage-and-acrylic abstract by Susan Thomas.
All the framed images are within the 12-by-12-inch limits or variable computations therein. Considering the ample space inside the Waterfowl Building, those limits seem, well, limiting as compared to available space in the museum galleries. Better coordination next year, should the members’ show return to the Waterfowl Building, evacuated after the annual mid-November festival, could work better for all concerned.
‘Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection’
Through April 16, 2025, Academy Art Museum, 6 South St., Easton.
Also, Annual Members Exhibition, through Dec. 29, Waterfowl Building, 40 S. Harrison St., Easton. (Both shows are closed on Mondays.)
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.

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Spy Concert Review: MSO’s Joy to the Season by Steve Parks

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A “Holiday Joy” concert by the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, led by maestro Michael Repper, is a lot more than Jolly St. Nick, “Joy to the World” and carols galore. This season, you’ll also hear arias about character assassins and deadly ones, too – both in French – plus an English poetry reading with symphonic sound effects.

We all know what to expect in a holiday-season concert. But Repper, despite his ironic Santa hat, seems determined to give us more. So he brought along an accomplice or two – besides, of course, his usual orchestra cohorts. The show opens as you might expect with a medley of the usual upbeat Christmas-time suspects – from “Winter Wonderland” to “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” But you know something is up with that piano at center stage facing the orchestra and no pianist in the program. That role, here and there, is filled by Repper himself, declining to sing as if it might be a crime against humanity.

No, he leaves that role exclusively to guest soloist and up-and-coming opera tenor Jonathan Pierce Rhodes.

The evening’s holiday fare is split more or less evenly between orchestral favorites of the season and classic carols – both sacred and secular. These are sung by Rhodes. Mostly. (The audience is under “mandatory” obligation to sing along at the end.)

A recent graduate of Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program, Rhodes is one of the most recognized new tenor voices in opera, having made his leading-role debut in “Fellow Travelers” by Gregory Spears with San Francisco’s Opera Parallele. He’s also performed with such prestigious companies as Lyric Opera Chicago in Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s “Blue,” and for three summers at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, New York, where he played the title role in Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide.”

At MSO’s opening night of “Holiday Joy,” Rhodes delivered an ironically resounding “Silent Night” with a range seemingly from near-soprano to baritone tenor. Switching to opera, he sang Verdi’s most famous aria from “Rigoletto” with such expressive ownership as if it was written just for him nearly a century and a half ago. His connection to Verdi’s greatest hits felt just as apparent in Alfredo’s Aria from “La Traviata.” Yet, somehow, he dug deeper personally into “Deep River,” an African song popularized in 1916 by Henry Burleigh. Rhodes exuded still deeper meaning into how a spiritual can move him and his audience.

Reappearing a few numbers after intermission, Rhodes sang a decidedly un-Bing Crosby “White Christmas.” (Despite the famous title, this song and one other came closest to a Hanukkah reference in that it was written by Irving Berlin, a Jewish refugee. “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Gustav Holst was more hopeful than it sounds, while “O Holy Night,” including verses rarely sung in caroling, reflected an intensity of belief. But my personal holiday favorite, “The Christmas Song,” written by another Jew, Mel Torme, struck me as a stylistic salute to the great Nat King Cole. No one ever sang it better. But Rhodes comes very close. My only quibble with Rhodes’ performance outside the three unamplified arias, is that he sang the rest with a microphone, which put unnecessary distance between him and the audience, however slight that may be. He’s the last person in the room who needs a microphone, so powerful is his natural singing voice.

Thus, my award for best use of a microphone must go to John Sisson for his dramatic reading of “ ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to the incidental accompaniment of the orchestra, much in the way such music reflects the emotional energy of a motion picture.
Among other highlights of the orchestral side of the evening was another music-in-movies reference for anyone who remembers the somewhat bawdy film “10.” “The Little Bolero Boy” takes off on “The Little Drummer Boy” and Ravel’s “Bolero” that became a sexual theme in “10.” The unrelenting throb of his orchestral composition builds to a climactic finish as each section of the orchestra gets in on the act. But it’s the repetitive beat of the snare drum, played over and over by Dane Krich, plus a clarinet solo portion by Dennis Strawley, that keep “Little Bolero Boy” marching forward.

A trio of musicians who are not usually lead players throughout any orchestral piece are featured with brassy gusto early on in the concert by trumpeters Josh Carr, Ross McCool and Steven Bailey. They perform starring roles in Leroy Anderson’s irresistibly cheerful “Bugler’s Holiday.”

Surely, it was a “Holiday Joy” for those three as well as for the rest of us enjoying or playing in this seasonal symphonic celebration at Chesapeake College.

‘HOLIDAY JOY’ CONCERTS

Opening night:Thursday, Dec. 5, Todd Hall Performing Arts Center, Chesapeake College. For more “Holiday Joy,” see one of these reprise performances: 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7 at Cape Henlopen High in Lewes, Delaware, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 8 at Ocean City Performing Arts Center. Or check out the MSO Holiday Brass Quintet concerts Dec. 20 in Ocean Pines, Dec. 21 in Rehoboth Beach, or Dec. 22 in Easton. midatlanticsymphony.org

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

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

The growing art scene in Easton by Steve Parks

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Jennifer McBrien’s embroidered”Subversive Thread” fabrics at the Academy Art Museum

The visual art scene in downtown Easton – also known as the Arts District – is now more so than ever before. From three fine-art galleries barely more than a year ago, Easton will soon have seven within strolling distance from Talbot County Courthouse, Academy Art Museum, Tidewater Inn, and Avalon Theatre.

On Friday afternoon, I took in one of the current exhibits at the Academy Art Museum and a show at the new Zach Gallery in the Prager Family Center for the Arts – also home to the Ebenezer Theatre and Chesapeake Music. Then I checked out the inaugural show at Talbot Resident Artists Gallery that opened just this month across the street from the Avalon, two shows featuring new artists at the dual Zebra and Spiralis galleries around the corner, plus a walk-through of the long-established Troika and Trippe galleries on Harrison and Studio B on Goldsborough. All in about an hour and a half. The range of artworks I encountered on my whirlwind tour was astonishing.

Although there are many, many, many times seven art galleries in Manhattan, given just a 90 minutes to tour a few I might not see such a plethora of styles and techniques – from simple charcoal-on-paper portraits to fabric-and-thread concoctions incorporating everything from photography to dollar bills and paintings made of molded clay – claymation stills. All this and the usual assortment of land- and seascapes capturing the natural beauty of the Chesapeake region.

I began my matinee tour at the Academy Art Museum where the next big show, “Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection” was about to be installed in the two main galleries for the Dec. 5 preview. The two smaller galleries down the hall from the main entrance host a most unusual show meant to expand the horizons of craft art, the subject of the popular annual weekend-long craft show and sale in October. “The Subversive Thread” will expand your imagination of what fabric art entails far beyond quilts and machine-stitched creations that have long been the purview of homemakers who do not necessarily consider themselves artists. In this thread show, four artists stretched the concept of fabric art to new and, at times, extravagant dimensions.

Han Cao repurposes what look to be family photo album images – a few in color, others black and white – in a “Self-Reflection” series, including “Wedding Day,” a 2021 photo with the happy couple looking at a mirror that reflects an embroidered window into an altered state of being.

Jennifer McBrien riffs on domestic art with her series of vintage lace napkins embroidered with images of endangered bird species. But more impressive is her 2024 laundry line of freehand embroidery on tea-dyed organza hanging like sheer curtains – all with nude female images from “Ruff Warrior Woman” to “Golden Warbler Woman.”

Stacey Lee Webber has cash on her mind with 2022 “Two Dollar Fire” and similar pieces with actual dollar bills interspersed with a hand-stitched cotton-thread motif. Michael-Birch Pierce anchors the quartet of fabric artists with his mixed-media on velvet pieces in circular and rectangular frames, including floating soft-focus “Ghosts.”

From there, I walked to Washington Street, past the Talbot Historical Society, to Zach Gallery in the Zachariah half of the Prager Arts Center shared with Ebenezer. The current exhibit, running through the end of November, features works by Paton Miller and Scott Bluedorn. Miller, a painter based in the posh Hamptons on Long Island’s East End, dominated the space with his large oils that emulate his 20 years of painting in Fairfield Porter’s Southampton studio. Most notable to me, raised as an Easton-area farmboy, is “Farmer.” A black man seated with a wheelbarrow behind him appears to be looking directly at the viewer – to me in this case – creating a personal connection.

Bluedorn, also from the Hamptons and whose work I have mentioned in Parrish Art Museum reviews during my Newsday career, spans painting, drawing and printmaking – all represented at the Zach. His “Ode to . . .” series of birds-and-fish watercolors with visible wavelengths emanating from their aura typifies his natural-world oeuvre.

The newest gallery in Easton opened with works by a trio of artists who are not represented by other galleries in town. The Talbot Resident Artist Gallery, just across Dover Street from the Avalon, is their chance to show and sell their art. Three artists inaugurated the new space through the end of November. Scott Sullivan’s charcoal-on-paper portraits display his drawing skills with, among several other images, an immediately recognizable likeness of Pete Lesher of the Talbot County Council and the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. Other portraits include a clarinetist that I mistook for the late Benny Goodman. (Sullivan said others have made the same misidentification.) Also showing at TRA is Joan Cramer, whose watercolors range from colorful abstract to representational, and Marianne Kost, whose oils include a highly recognizable Harrison Street scene as well as architectural paintings.

The TRA Gallery will soon have a new neighbor. Just around the corner on Harrison Street, the Zebra and Spiralis galleries are breaking up after a year of living together in the same space. It’s not a divorce but more like an amicable separation that benefits both galleries. Depending on how long it takes for the ink on the paperwork to dry, Spiralis will move two doors up on Dover Street from TRA in the shop formerly occupied by Swan Antiques. For now, they continue to share space that will become Zebra’s gallery alone.

Currently, one of the new artists you might want to check out is Joseph Barbaccia, a Delaware painter who deploys polymer-based clay as his medium instead of, say, canvas or various types of paper. His self-portrait looks a bit like a series of tiny beads that are painted over, giving the image a textured depth not readily achievable on flat surfaces.

If you’re looking for art to buy, Ingrid Matuszewski’s “It’s a Shore Thing,” is off the market. The abstract of, presumably, a stretch of Oxford waterfront, just sold for $4,200. But it’s still up on the gallery wall for now. Among the Spiralis artists of note is James Stephen Terrell, whose patterned-abstract “Think” may have you scratching your head with curiosity.

The old-guard galleries, of course, still have plenty to offer. The Troika Gallery on Harrison celebrates its 27 years in business with a retrospective of works by surviving artists for an anniversary group show of “new masterpieces” through the end of the year, with a First Friday reception Dec. 6.

The Trippe Gallery is observing “Another Side of Jill Basham,” one of its most prolific, not to mention popular artists, through November and beyond. The paintings include urban scenes and abstracts that are atypical of the Trappe artist’s familiar land- and seascapes of the Eastern Shore.Around the corner on Goldsborough, Studio B Gallery paintings by owner Betty Huang go further afield and abroad to capture the “Splendor of Provence,’ where she painted lush French scenes last summer. Awesome, or charme in Francais.

Easton Arts District

All addresses in Easton:
Academy Art Museum, 106 South St., academyartmuseum.org
Avalon Theatre, 40 E. Dover St., avalonfoundation.org
Ebenezer Theatre, 17 S. Washington St., chesapeakemusic.org
Zach Gallery, 17 S. Washington St., zachgalleryeaston.com
Zebra Gallery, 5 N. Harrison St., thezebragallery.com
Spiralis Gallery (new venue pending), 35 E. Dover St., spiralisgallery.com
Talbot Resident Artists Gallery, 41 E. Dover St., talbotarts.org
Troika Gallery, 9 S. Harrison St., troikagallery.com
Trippe Gallery, 23 N. Harrison St., thetrippegallery.com
Studio B Gallery, 78 Goldsborough St., studiobartgallery.com
Talbot Historical Society, 25 & 30 S. Washington St., talbothistory.org
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts writer and editor now living in Easton.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Spy Concert Review: MSO Performs Beethoven’s 5th by Steve Parks

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Michael Repper conducting the MSO.

If there are any four notes in all the classical music canon that almost everyone recognizes – even those who wouldn’t know Mozart from Muddy Waters – it would be the bah-bah-bah-BOHM of Beethoven’s Fifth. But how many aficionados would recognize the first few bars of his “rookie” symphony No. 1 as Beethoven’s?

When it premiered in 1804, the Fifth was called the “Fate Symphony,” which accounts for the title of the November concert series of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, “Fireworks of Fate,” continuing through Sunday’s matinee at Chesapeake College’s Todd Performing Arts Center. The four notes, it is said, denote “fate knocking at the door.” Should you answer?
Accompanying the pair of Beethoven symphonies on the program are two appetizers by 19th-Century French composer Louise Farrenc, both concert overtures, which means these six- or seven-minute pieces were never intended as part of a larger work, such as an opera.
Her Overture No. 1 pays homage to Haydn, Beethoven’s most important mentor. The gravity of the solemn opening adagio is quickly overtaken by a restless allegro that becomes more relaxed as it grows into a bold thematic statement and an authoritative finish. Farrenc’s Overture No. 2 takes a similar form but in a different frame of mind. Possibly traumatic opening notes give way to a celebration with a richly melodic and cheerful vibrance. Together these pieces leave you wishing Farrenc had added another movement or two for each. Sadly, symphonies were not in fashion with the French in her time and, in any case, women composers anywhere in the world struggled to be recognized.
Unlike Mozart, a child prodigy, Beethoven did not complete his first symphony until 1800 at age 29. Mozart died nine years earlier at age 35 with 41 symphonies to his everlasting credit.
In keeping with symphonic tradition, set largely by Mozart and Haydn, Beethoven’s First is composed in sonata form. But he throws in a bit of a trick by toying in the opening notes with the C Major key that dominates the piece. He then throws in an innovation with woodwinds playing a prominent role intertwined with the string instruments in introducing a second theme. Taking the lead for the MSO woodwind section are Mindy Heinsohn (flute), Dana Newcomb (oboe), Dennis Strawley (clarinet) and Terry Ewell (bassoon).
The second movement opens with what amounts to a fugue that gradually morphs into a darker mood with the rhythmic throb of timpani beats by Barry Dove. While the third movement is called a minuet, it comes off as more of a scherzo teaser that suggests bolder dancefloor strides. The final movement of Beethoven’s First toys with a trio of mellower notes before it gains momentum toward a confident landing that encompasses previous themes as well as Beethoven’s soon-to-be signature orchestral beats.
If you think that Beethoven’s Fifth is the meat-and-potatoes of classical music by long-dead European composers, ho-hum, think again. It’s at the very least the steak frites or filet mignon with truffles of the classical catalog’s all-time menu. And it’s not played as often as you might think considering its thematic presence in everything from movies to video games. So here’s your chance to hear it played live in full by a fine professional regional orchestra spurred on by a Grammy-winning music director, Michael Repper.
Here’s what I thought of the opening night performance in Rehoboth Beach Friday night, Nov. 8.
The opening four notes heard round the world and through the centuries are echoed in clarion calls from the back-row brass section led by Daniel Coffman (trombone), Luis Engelke (trumpet) and Michael Hall (horn). The orchestra played with a cohesive and deliberate temperament of an ensemble performing as one, led on strings by concertmaster Kimberly McCollum, Dana Bevard (second violin), Yuri Tomenko (viola), Katie McCarthy (cello) and Chris Chlumsky (bass).
New themes are introduced in the next two movements with a more reflective cadence followed by a lighter scherzo that culminates in a fond recollection of the Fifth’s opening flourish.
The fourth and final movement tests the musicians’ stamina with extended pianissimo riffs for strings while reeds and horns herald the breathless close to the Fifth’s fabled fate as one of, if not the greatest, symphony in classical music history. GOAT they call it in ironic athletic terms. (Greatest of All Time). And there is athleticism, even while seated, to do performance honor to Beethoven’s greatest hit. The MSO is fit for the occasion.
Mid-Atlantic Symphony’s “Fireworks of Fate” Series

Premiering Nov. 8 in Rehoboth Beach with Michael Repper conducting, followed by a 3 p.m. performance on Saturday, Nov. 9 at the Ocean City Performing Arts Center. The finale is at 3 on Sunday, Nov. 10 at the Todd Performing Arts Center, Chesapeake College in Wye Mills. midatlanticsymphony.org

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

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.