Spy Review: Two Mid-Shore Classical Music Celebrations by Steve Parks
It’s hard to say whether the current musicians who play under the celebrated banner of the Juilliard String Quartet are more in demand as virtuoso ensemble players or as elite teachers on the strings and chamber music faculties of their namesake Juilliard School. Violinist/violist Catherine Cho, co-artistic director of the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival along […]
Spy Concert Review: National Music Festival Opening Night by Steve Parks
The National Music Festival opened its 13th annual season with a rousing full-house concert that may prove 13 is a fortunate number for the festival and for music connoisseurs in attendance Sunday evening at Washington College. The concert began auspiciously with a pair of piano-and-string ensemble pieces – a quartet and a trio – followed […]
Spy Concert Review: MSO Season Finale by Steve Parks
The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra winds up its 2024-25 subscription season with a cello concerto masterpiece and a Mendelssohn double feature. The concert got off with a bang, though it’s almost tragic to think about a time when women, no matter their talent or even genius, were under-recognized or, worse, ignored because of their gender. Fanny […]
Spy Art Review: Photorealism at the Academy by Steve Parks
“Urban Landscapes,” the subtitle of the new photorealism exhibit at Easton’s Academy Art Museum, has been the subject of Richard Estes’ lifelong career as a fine art painter.’ Estes, now 92, studied art at the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago, starting in 1952 when his family moved to Illinois. By the early 1960s, the art-world […]
Spy Theater Review: ‘Man From Earth’ visits Oxford by Steve Parks
To understand where a play entitled “The Man From Earth” comes from – aren’t we all men and women, etc. from Earth? – look to the author of the book on which the screenplay and subsequent stage drama was drawn as source material. The play evolved in stages from the mind of Jerome Bixby who […]
Spy Theater Review: ‘Never the Sinner,’ Leopold and Loeb by Steve Parks
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 […]
Spy Music Review: An Ascendent Interlude Concert by Steve Parks
“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 […]
Elizabethan and chamber music virtuosity by Steve Parks
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 […]
MSO International Concerto Competition and more by Steve Parks
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 […]
Cars as movie co-stars and museum artworks by Steve Parks
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 […]