The Roberts Wesleyan University Brass Quintet will perform a free concert at the Bergen Evangelical Presbyterian Church at 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 10.
The Roberts Wesleyan Brass Quintet performs various styles ranging from early Baroque to modern music. It regularly performs at special events on and off campus, including commencement, accompanying the Chorale, and performing in departmental recitals.
The quintet is directed by and performs with Dr. Paul Shewan, professor of instrumental studies, who teaches conducting and trumpet. Dr. Shewan is a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra trumpet section and has been a guest conductor numerous times. He has also performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
The concert is part of a series the church offers to celebrate the renovation of the historic Viner pipe organ installed in the sanctuary in 1907. “We want to share a variety of music with our community, so we have planned a spring series of concerts in celebration,” said Alden Snell, church organist.
The evening’s performance will include a performance of a hymn on the organ.
Other concerts in the series are:
Jaclyn Breeze, flute, April 14, 6 pm. Ms. Breeze, from North Chili, is an American composer and flutist crafting pieces and programs that foster community between artists and audiences. Her works have been commissioned and performed by groups in North America, Europe, and Asia.
George Collichio, guitar, special Door of Hope Coffeehouse event at the church, April 27, 6 p.m. Mr. Collichio is a national recording artist, performer, educator, and private guitar instructor from Rochester. He has nine national CD releases and plays over 100 shows per year. He is a college professor (guitar and music theory) and founder of "Collichio School of Music" with two locations and hundreds of students.
An organ recital featuring students from the Eastman School of Music will be held on Sunday, May 5, at 6 p.m.
All concerts are at the Church, 38 South Lake St., Bergen. A free-will offering will be accepted.
Giovanni Morant, lead singer of LoVeSeXy, a Tribute to Prince. Submitted photo.
Prince is a rare form of rock star, according to Chris Botelho, drummer and leader of the LoVeSeXy, which plays at Batavia Downs on March 9.
He was admired by peers and fans alike in his lifetime, and his legend has only grown since his untimely death at 57 in 2016.
LoVeSexy was formed in 2008 as a Tribute to Prince, who is ranked #27 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time, and Botelho has seen firsthand how Prince continues to attract new fans and old fans who hunger to hear his music performed live.
"He's pretty much a real rock star when there's not a lot of those types of people around any more," Botelho said. "He was someone who was real special, like just the type of person who would walk in the room and everyone would just stop and be quiet and kind of like be like, 'Can I talk and I say hello.’ Like they would be that afraid to even speak. You don't get that from other people, even other stars. And that was with everyone, not just regular people but movie stars and top musicians."
There are several quality Prince tribute acts, Botelho noted, a level of reference that is seemingly missing from the legacy of other dead megastars of the era, such as David Bowie and Michael Jackson.
"Michael Jackson, I would think, would have big tributes, and there are some tribute shows, but there's really not as much talk about him as much as you would think. It's weird. But Prince, if you go online and search 'Prince,' there are fan sites, Facebook pages, and media coverage like this. There are so many fans all over the world, so many people still, every day, posting and talking and sharing his music. It's kind of amazing."
Prince was born Prince Rogers Nelson, the son of a father who was a jazz pianist and composer and a mother who was a jazz singer. He grew up in Minneapolis, Minn., and never did forsake his hometown, maintaining Minneapolis as his base and where he recorded most of his music until he died of an accidental fentanyl overdose.
Signed by Warner Brothers when he was only 19, Prince released 40 studio albums during his life -- playing all of the instruments on some -- covering a range of musical genres, from funk, R&B, new wave, soul, jazz, blues, and hip hop. He sold more than 100 million records. His biggest hit singles included “When Doves Cry,” “Let's Go Crazy,” “Purple Rain,” “Raspberry Beret,” “Little Red Corvette,” and “Kiss,” among his 19 Top 10 hits.
For a time, Prince was known by a symbol, or The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, or just The Artist (because of a contract dispute with Warner Brothers), and it is said that he has enough unreleased material in his vault that his estate could continue releasing new albums of new material for the next 100 years.
That means there's a lot of material for a Prince tribute act to pick from, and for the 90-minute set at Batavia Downs, LoVeSeXy will concentrate on the hits, but if needed, LoVeSeXy can dig deep into the Prince catalog -- deep enough to cover two 90-minutes sets if needed, Botelho said.
"We've played shows that are, you know, entirely Purple Rain (the album) or 1999, but there's so much more to him in just that era that we feel like people already know what is there, so we like pushing out other stuff to them that maybe they've never heard before," Botelho said. "It's kind of bring the music of Prince for Prince. It's one little thing to kind of keep his memory and music alive."
And the music is the thing to LoVeSeXy, Botelho said. There are a lot of Prince tributes that concentrate on the showmanship and the craft of creating a Prince concert. For LoVeSexy, the goal is to bring the music alive. The entire six-piece band is comprised of top-tier musicians, Botelho said, and they all get their moment in the spotlight.
"It's a team sort of situation," Botelho said. "It's not about just the lead singer and a bunch of players behind. It's like the six of us together, creating and making the sound of the band. We have four lead singers in the band, so the vocals are extremely strong."
It's not that showmanship isn't there -- the primary lead singer does look like Prince, after all -- but Botelho said the band really wants to put on a show that lives up to Prince's musical legacy (if you haven't seen it, check Prince's lead guitar on this performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps (at about 3:30 into the song.)
"His live shows, I think, was a big part of why a lot of people really feel that he was above the rest as far as a performer," Bothelo said.
The LoVeSeXy lineup is:
Giovanni Morant, Lead Vocals, Guitar, Keys & Trumpet
Anthony C. Grant, Sax, Keyboards, Flute, Vocals & Percussion
Jodee Frawlee, Lead Guitar & Vocals
Brian Eggleston, Keyboards & Vocals
Jeffrey Gilman, Bass & Vocals
Chris Botelho, Drums & Samples
It's amazing, Botelho said, to see how much love the world had for Prince when he died and how that love and appreciation has just continued to grow.
"It is a testament to how strong it was around the world when he passed," Botelho said. "All the celebrations, the purple lights that were put on all the buildings around the world. It was kind of unbelievable, really, after all these years since 2016 that now the audiences are getting bigger and bigger for all of the Prince tributes."
LoVeSeXy performs at Batavia Downs on March 9. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. For more information and tickets, click here.
Stephen Van Valkenburg, in Love Lines at Main St. 56 Theater. Submitted photo.
Friday and Saturday evenings, and Sunday afternoon, theater goers can take a special Valentine's moment to explore along with Batavia Players the nuances of love.
The play "Love Lines" was written by Patrick D. Burk, who is also the director of the production, and Vincent M. Gauteri.
The production is described as "a celebration of love and how people fall in love currently or in the past; there are special moments from real people and real-life situations."
Show times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, at the Main St. 56 Theater in Batavia City Centre.
Melzie Case, a member of the Genesee Symphony Orchestra and president of the board of directors. Photo by Howard Owens.
Music has been a big part of Melzie Case's life since she was four years old when she first started piano lessons at Roxy's Music Store.
Along the way, she's had teachers and mentors to guide her, and one of the most important was Roxie Choate, the former president of the Genesee Symphony Orchestra, herself a retired teacher, who died in October.
Case, who first served on the GSO board as a high school student, has stepped in to lead the GSO.
"Roxie was a passionate and unabashedly determined leader," Case said. "Under her guidance, I learned how to positively steer the GSO Board and how to be a leader in music ministry. We connected and bonded over music, from appreciating classical music to playing piano and organ duets together, and forged a seemingly unlikely friendship through our love for music in the community. Her influence continues to serve me well on a daily basis."
In addition to working together on the GSO board for a number of years, Choate and Case became well acquainted with one another musically at the Batavia First Presbyterian Church, where Coate was an organist, and Case played piano.
Coate had been a music teacher in Oakfield-Alabama. After graduating from Batavia High School, she earned a degree in music education from Buffalo State University. The 30-year-old Case is now a music teacher at Batavia Middle School.
Her musical journey has prepared her well for both roles. Starting with those piano lessons at Roxy's Music, she participated in musical theater as a child, was a member of the chorus in middle school and high school, and along the way, she became a percussionist to go along with singing, playing the piano, and organ. She first joined the GSO as a percussionist while still a teen, and then Choate asked her to be a student rep on the GSO board. Following a break for college, Case rejoined the orchestra and the board as she wrapped up her education in 2016.
"I like GSO because you meet so many people in the community, people from all ages and backgrounds. That is what really drew me in," Case said.
The orchestra, she said, is comprised of “local folks, people from surrounding counties, music teachers and people with jobs outside of music. It’s such a wonderful group of people. We have a wonderful time rehearsing together and putting on concerts together.”
Obviously, Case is passionate about music. She thinks music helps bring people together.
"Music has a unique way of connecting people like nothing else. Music is healing, exciting, joyful, engaging," Case said. "I see every day the impact that music has on people of all ages and how it is a creative outlet in so many ways. Music is a part of nearly every moment of my day, whether I’m singing, playing, teaching, or listening."
One reason GSO has thrived in recent years is the leadership of music director and conductor S. Shade Zajac, Case said.
“I enjoy working with Shade," Case said. "The whole board does. We appreciate that he comes to board meetings when he can or gets on a call with us and that he brainstorms with us about concerts. We really have a great time working with him. He has a great vision when it comes time to select repertoire. The music he picks pushes us all as musicians, and we feel grateful to have him at the helm.”
As president of the board, Case, of course, has a role in ensuring the GSO continues to build on its success, and she that can happen through collaboration with other arts groups in the community and making connections with young people who are interested in music.
Entertaining programs, such as the one Zajac has programmed for Saturday at GCC, will also help garner growing support for the orchestra.
"The program is a blend of emotions," Case said. "There are some familiar pieces and some new ones that people will enjoy."
One of the new pieces is a composition by Paul McCartney. Yes, the former Beatle writes more than pop songs. He has composed a number of classical pieces, including Spiral, which the GSO will perform at the concert.
"I'm a huge Beatles fan, so I'm excited to play one of Paul McCartney's lesser-known works," Case said.
The rest of the program is comprised of pieces by other English composers, as Vaughn-Williams and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
The anchor piece of the program is Elgar's “Enigma Variations.”
"It's one of my favorite pieces in the entire literature," Zajac told The Batavian at the start of the season. "It's a very special piece. I've conducted only one movement from it (previously). It's a remarkable piece of music. Every note and every bar sounds like English music, which is incredible because you can trace every note to some other composer. You can hear the influences of Beethoven and Bach and Wagner. But somehow, he makes it all sound like English music."
Choate is, as they say in show business, a tough act to follow, Case acknowledged. She led the board. She often handled concert publicity. She was also the personnel manager.
"Roxie did so much. We find things all the time we didn’t even know about," Case said. "As a board, we say all the time, 'Oh, Roxie did that, and she did this, and she did that.' She was a huge advocate for GSO and for music education.”
The GSO, with what it has achieved and how it can yet grow, will carry on because of a lot of people over the past eight decades, but Choate certainly contributed to GSO's success.
"I have so much pride in GSO," Case said. "We have a professional orchestra right here in Batavia. We can offer to our community that experience. You can go to Buffalo and Rochester and hear those orchestras, or you can stay right here in Batavia and hear a professional orchestra."
The GSO concert on Saturday at GCC begins at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors, and students with an ID can get in for free.
Opening at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, the Batavia Players bring to life Scrooge and his ghosts in a performance of Charles Dickens's “A Christmas Carol” at Main St. 56 Theater in Batavia.
There are also performances on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Tickets are $18 for adults and $16 for seniors.
The musical is directed by Patrick Burk, with music directed by Kathy White.
From Medieval times through the Renaissance, the classical period, and into modern carols, Christmas music has changed to reflect the times. On Saturday, at St. James Episcopal Church, the Genesee Chorale will take listeners through that journey in a program entitled "Christmas Through the Ages."
"We're going to go through the process of the beginning of Christmas carols back in the 1400s and then work our way up," said Musical Director and Conductor Ric Jones. "It's a wide mix of styles and in music, a lot of things that will be familiar, some that there'll be new."
Jones said he expects the audience to find the performance as entertaining as it is beautiful.
"The whole concert begins with Gregorian chants so that's really cool," Jones said. "We have four instrumentalists. They're gonna be joining us on about six different pieces, so they'll really liven things up. We have some great, really cool arrangement of "Jingle Bells." It's a rearrangement of the Barbra Streisand version of Jingle Bells written for choir. That's a lot of fun. And then "Joy to the World," "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending" -- there's some really beautiful, large moving pieces as well."
The concert also isn't without its challenges for the choir, which should also impress listeners.
"The biggest challenging piece is probably "Here We Come A-wassailing," which is a traditional song, but it's super challenging for the choir," Jones said. "It's seven verses, and every verse gets more and more intricate. So it begins with the choir in unison and as we progress, it gets more and more integrated, and it breaks out into eight different parts of one point. So they're going to do great on that."
Jones said he always looks forward to the traditional Christmas concert because, for him, it signals the beginning of the season.
"You get into the mood and the spirit," Jones said. "Also, they're always well attended. They're always popular concerts because people just people want to hear great music at Christmastime."
The Genesee Chorale will perform Christmas Through the Ages 4 p.m. on Saturday at St. James Episcopal Church. For more information, click here. To purchase tickets, click here.
An image of Julie Lambert's Genesee Country Museum, handmade paper courtesy of Genesee Community College.
Press Release:
The Roz Steiner Art Gallery at Genesee Community College is excited to announce its latest group exhibition, Handicraft Habitat. This invitational explores the world through the eyes of artists. It aims to showcase the beauty of both the natural environment and the manufactured realm.
This exhibition plays with the dichotomy between abstract art and realism, as well as being a multi-media experience. The gallery is excited to be working with three incredibly talented artists from Western New York to bring this stunning new show to life.
David Burke is a lifelong resident of the Rochester area where he raised and homeschooled is two children. He began his artistic journey by drawing, painting, and taking photographs sporadically while doing other work. In 1999, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from SUNY Brockport, where he studied ceramic sculpture and painting.
In 2015, David realized making art was his passion and what he wanted to pursue for the rest of his life. His focus since then has been acrylic painting. His artwork is inspired by nature, and to a greater extent, his connection to the life of the earth and the mystery of the world. David uses light, shadow, color, and composition to evoke memories and emotions.
In the past few years, he has been getting away from purely figurative painting to explore different ways of applying paint and experimenting with abstraction. This enables him to express the subtle, intangible energies of life. A collection of David's abstract expressionism and his realism paintings will be part of this exhibition.
Julie A. Lambert is a master papermaker; creating, transforming, and exhibiting the unusual art of handmade paper. The artist has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from SUNY Oswego. While attending Oswego, a professor introduced the artist to papermaking; a medium she spent over 25 years enhancing her techniques and understanding both her perspective and relationship with her surroundings.
Nature has become her muse. Her work explores the natural and mankind's created impacts on the landscape. The pieces she creates are based on landscapes that convey a mood that speaks to the artist. To the surprise of the viewer, Julie A. Lambert's works are often first mistaken for paintings. But as the viewer is drawn in, they realize that the works of art are individual pieces of handmade paper, dyed, textured, cut, torn, and layered by the artist to express how she sees the world. The viewer steps back with a greater understanding of the complexity required to render her visions.
Originally a native of southeast Kansas, Steve Piper moved to the Finger Lakes region in 1978 to pursue his graduate studies in photography at RIT. He is a freelance photographer (Gelfand-Piper Photography), specializing in photographing people and events for publications and annual reports. Major clients have included Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Mr. Piper taught photography at St. John Fisher College and is currently an adjunct instructor of photographic arts at the Rochester Institute of Technology. His artistic vision is greatly inspired by his rural life growing up in the mid-west. Through color, texture, and composition, he is able to take a recognizable image and create something representational. The viewer finds meaning and emotional response through the sumptuous color and intriguing lines. Steve's colored abstract photographs of railway cars will be on exhibit in Handicraft Habitat.
The Handicraft Habitat exhibition will run from Dec. 7 to Feb. 1. Gallery hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and 3 - 5 p.m., as well as Wednesdays from 9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Don't miss the chance to attend the opening receptions on Dec. 7 from 12:30 - 2 p.m. and 5 - 7 p.m. Stay tuned to the gallery's social media pages for any updates or changes to the schedule.
For more information contact Jessica Skehan at the Roz Steiner Art Gallery by email at jeskehan@genesee.edu, gccgallery@genesee.edu or (585) 343-0055 ext. 6490
For those who love murder mysteries and comedies, the Batavia High School Drama Club is staging The Alibis, a collection of eight interconnected 10-minute plays that revolve around the murder of eccentric billionaire J. Leslie Arlington.
There are plenty of suspects in the murder, and all have alibis, which none of them want to admit to because they were all committing other ridiculous crimes at the time. The suspects include disgruntled chefs, teen detectives, and vengeful divas.
Performances are at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday on the stage of the Batavia High School Auditorium, 260 State St., Batavia.
Genesee Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Julia Plato. Photo by Howard Owens
It's that time of year when the Genesee Symphony Orchestra rosins up the bows and gets crackin' on holiday chestnuts such as “Christmas Festival,” “Sleigh Ride” and selections from “The Nutcracker.”
The annual holiday concert is at 4 p.m., Sunday, at Genesee Community College.
GSO's concertmaster, Julia Plato, is looking forward to taking the solo on another holiday favorite, the winter movement from Vivaldi's “Four Seasons.”
She's excited about it, she said, because "I think it's insanely easy to make it sound modern, even though it was written through like 300 years ago. It still has so much excitement and vigor and, yeah, personality that you would never know that it was written in the 1700s."
Plato, who is originally from the Hershey area of Pennsylvania, is in her second year as the first chair of the GSO, under the direction of conductor S. Shade Zajac.
She's been involved in orchestra performance since she was a child, participating in the youth orchestra in her hometown.
"That's kind of where I fell in love with playing music," she said. "I went to school for music education in Ithaca and wound up teaching in Pittsford."
Through a friend, she heard about GSO during the pandemic, when the orchestra was still finding ways to perform, and that piqued her interest.
"I was so excited because I just wanted to have a group to play with, and it just lined up really well with the time that I moved to the area, and I found a good group of people to perform with," she said.
She's found it inspiring to work with Zajac.
"He has got such a great taste and repertoire," she said. "He selects very nice, well-rounded programming from all the modern works that you may not have heard to the classics that everyone hopes to hear."
Genesee Symphony Orchestra Music Director and Conductor S. Shade Zajac Photo by Howard Owens.
Cara Williams, grade 11, performs "She Used to Be Mine" from Waitress. Photo by Howard Owens.
The Oakfield-Alabama Music Department presented its annual Cabaret night before a packed house in the school's auditorium.
The night's theme was 'Leave your troubles outside, with dozens of students performing solo or in ensembles.
Shane Coast, grade 9, performs Weird Al Yankovic's "I Love Rocky Road," a parody of "I Love Rock and Roll" by Joan Jett. Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Emily Gould, grade 9, performs "A Million Dreams" from The Greatest Showman. Photo by Howard Owens.
Kaylle Merkel, 9th, Allison Wiliams, 9th, Teagan Falk, 10th, Emily Szplyman, 10th, Jessica Sosnowski, 11th, Cara Williams, 11, and Rachael Wight, 12 (order from the program not necessarily the order on stage), perform "Vienna" by Billy Joel. Photo by Howard Owens.
Amora Mabon, 10th grade, performs "Don't Rain on My Parade" from Funny Girl. Photo by Howard Owens.
The cast of the one-act play, Mr. Icky by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Photo by Howard Owens.
This month's night (or afternoon) of theater at Main St. 56 Theater at Batavia City Centre consists of three one-act plays performed by members of Batavia Players.
The plays are:
"The Bear," by Anton Chekov
"Mr. Icky," by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Verbatim," by Albi Gorn
Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $16 for adults and $14 for students and seniors.
Jaclyn Breeze of Chili during one of her flute concerts. She will be performing at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Batavia First Presbyterian Church. Submitted Photo
While the thought of composing a song with indigenous birds may seem intriguing, doing so for two violins, which at first blush don’t quite seem to fit the mode of a tweet or cackle, and for seven minutes, sounds even more daunting a task.
Yet songwriter Jaclyn Breeze of Chili, who obtained her master’s in music composition this May from Syracuse University and bachelor’s in flute performance from Roberts Wesleyan College,described it as anything but.
“A teacher in Wisconsin at St. Norbert College was having a bird-themed recital this fall, and she was familiar with my work. And she said that she wanted to use the calls of the birds in her area kind of as a basis for the piece. And so from there, I was free to do what I wanted. Just with that idea in mind,” Breeze said during an interview with The Batavian. “It was fun. It’s going to be premiered in November.”
Breeze’s primary focus while pursuing her master’s degree was composing music, which she does on a commission basis for groups and individuals, but then she began to miss the performance aspect of her work, she said, and so she promoted her flute concerts to area churches and organizations.
“I loved going for my master's degree doing composition. But I found that I really missed performing, which, you know, I got to do a lot as a performance major in my undergrad,” she said. So after I graduated, I decided that was something that I was going to make a priority in my life, make sure that I was still getting my performance.”
She will be part of the Fall Concert Series at Batavia First Presbyterian Church, with a concert at 6 p.m. Wednesday at 300 E. Main St., Batavia.
As many kids do in elementary school, Breeze began her instrumental career. When asked why she picked the flute out of all the possible instruments, Breeze wasn’t entirely sure.
“I don't know, I just enjoy it. It's fun to work on. I'm not really sure why I chose that. I guess when I went to college, I kind of was deciding between doing flute and going for vocal performance. And I just started on flute,” she said. “And that was kind of that. I had taken lessons for both in high school. I don't really know when this decision was made, or why I made it.”
She also plays piano and saxophone, and comes from a musical family — her mom always sang with Breeze as a child, she said, and her great-grandpa played a lot of different instruments.
“He was always trying to get different instruments and getting new things. He usually had a harmonica with him. And I remember him playing just different string instruments. I'm not sure exactly. You know now I can't remember what they all were,” she said. “When it came time to pick an instrument in fourth grade, I was really excited about it. I think by the time I was in high school, I knew that music was what I wanted to do.”
Breeze has taught music at the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University as a teaching assistant and was a guest lecturer at the University of Kentucky for Intro to Music and Jazz History.
She has collaborated on new music compositions with the Society for New Music in Syracuse the last two years and has also had several commissioned works with groups including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Rococo Quartet.
Self-described as a “composer, collaborator and creator” on her website, she’s a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, an age group winner of the 2022 Warren County Summer Music School’s Promising Young Composer Competition and received Honorable Mention in 2021 for the Hypotenuse Trio COVID Commission.
When asked about the difference between playing the flute and clarinet, two woodwind instruments usually found near each other in a band, she said that all of the air has to be blown into the clarinet, versus the flute, which gets about 70 percent of the air, meaning that 30 percent of the air is lost.
“So it definitely takes a good amount of air to get that going, get the sound going, and keep it,” she said, addressing prospective concertgoers. “I don’t want them to see a flute concert and think ‘Oh, this is going to be boring.’ The program that I have set up is music of pretty much the last 100 years. And some of that is really beautiful impressionist music, and some of that is rock music that was written six months ago. The program is varied and there is stuff that anyone who likes going to a strictly classical concert will enjoy. There’s also stuff that people who don’t typically enjoy classical music will enjoy.”
Her portion of the concert will be about 45 minutes, and local musician Melzie Case will lead a hymn sing for another 15 minutes. The concert is free and open to the public.
Breeze is also scheduled for a free concert at 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 22 at Le Roy Presbyterian Church, 7 Clay St., Le Roy.
S. Shade Zajac conducting the Genesee Symphony Orchestra during a rehearsal in 2018. Photo by Howard Owens.
Audiences can be unpredictable, suggested Genesee Symphony Orchestra Music Director S. Shade Zajac while discussing how he's programmed the 2023-24 season and especially the season's opening show next Sunday, Oct. 22.
"Sometimes you think something is really going to connect with people, and it receives a lukewarm reaction," Zajac told The Batavian. "And sometimes you think, oh, boy, this is going to be tough for people to grasp, and then they go wild for it. You never really know."
The lineup for the opener for next Sunday's concert:
Romanian Dances, by Béla Bartók
Háry János Suite, by Zoltán Kodály
Trail of Tears Concerto for Flute and Chamber Orchestra, by Michael Dougherty
Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A Major, by George Enesco
Zajac thinks audience members will find the music of the concert both challenging -- because some of the selections might be unfamiliar to many people -- or engaging -- either because of the dynamics or sheer beauty of the selections.
"I'm always trying to bring things that the audience really will connect to and also maybe give them something a little new," Zajac said.
The program selection is built around the Trail of Tears Concerto, which will feature Rebecca Gilbert, principal flutist of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Composed by Dougherty in 1989, the piece commemorated the 150th anniversary of the forced march in 1838-39 of Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws and the Seminoles off their land in the Southeastern U.S. more than 1,500 miles to what is now part of Oklahoma.
"It's a very, very interesting piece," Zajac said. "It's got some really beautiful and emotional moments in it. And it's got some unbelievable virtuosic playing for the solo flute. He (Dougherty) asks her to do a lot of different kinds of techniques to sound like a traditional Native American flute, so what we call breath tones and pitch bends and slides. It sounds very, very authentic, ethnic, which then kind of ties the rest of the program together."
The ethenic theme of the program is set up by the Bartók and Kodály (pronounced co-die) pieces. Both Bartók and Kodály were composers, but they were also ethnomusicologists, perhaps the first ethnomusicologists, something that wasn't really possible before the invention of machines that record voices and music. They both traveled to Transylvania with a Thomas Edison invention, a wax cylinder recorder and recorded the music of the towns and villages in that part of Romania. They then incorporated the unique musical elements of those songs into their own compositions.
"The Kodály is a really wild piece of music," Zajac said. "Again, I've never conducted it before. And it calls for a very large orchestra, I think, like six trumpets and a smattering of percussion. We're just we're having tons of fun doing it. And it's a very colorful, colorful piece of music."
The final piece of the program returns to a Romanian setting.
Enescu, born in Romania in 1881, building his fame as a composer in the early 20th Century, was often compared to Mozart. This piece was composed in 1901 and is perhaps his most famous work.
"It's really virtuosic and showy for the orchestra features a lot of people," Zajac said. "After our last two seasons with the 75th season, which was two seasons ago, and then last season, you know, doing all this Brahms and all this heavy dramatic music, I kind of wanted to go in a completely different direction. When you finish a monumental project like that, you're like, 'Okay, what do we do next?' And this seemed like a different way to go. And the orchestra is really enjoying it. I think the audience will really like this program."
Earlier in the conversation, discussing the challenges of selecting pieces for an orchestra concert, Zajac compared some pieces of music to "comfort food."
"It is called comfort food for a reason because, you know, mom's chicken pot pies always gonna taste good," Zajac said. "So if she asked someone what they want to eat, they're gonna say, chicken pot pie. It's scarier to go out and try something new. You're gonna take a chance. There's a chance you really like it, and you find something that you really like, and there's a chance that this is going to be terrible. And now you feel like you've just wasted dinner. So I think there's a human need to feel comfort. I know how this is gonna go. I'm not going to be surprised."
Zajac said comfort food on a program helps the less familiar pieces go down a little easier for audiences.
“Romanian Rhapsody” is perhaps the comfort food on the first program, Zajac said.
"Whether or not you know, if you sit down and you listen to this piece, there is no way, if we do our job, and the GSO always does its job, there's no way you're gonna be in your seat because it's just, it's one of those pieces. It's a showpiece. There's fireworks and fast playing and all sorts of things. So that's probably the comfort food, but the Bartok and the Kodály, even though they may be unfamiliar, they're just excellent pieces of music, and they're wild."
After Sunday's concert, the GSO has five more performances this season -- three concerts as part of its regular season and a performance at the GCC Foundation's annual Encore event.
The holiday concert will, of course, include the ultimate in comfort foods, "Sleigh Ride," by Leroy Anderson.
The program will also feature a solo by GSO's concertmaster, Julia Plato, on the winter movement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
"She's a wonderful, wonderful leader and an excellent musician, so we're excited to feature her," Zajack said.
The Dec. 15 Encore event will also be filled with holiday music but not all the same pieces as the GSO's annual Holiday Concert.
In February, the GSO's theme turns British, with English composers being featured, including Sir Paul McCartney. The former Beatle has written -- even some of his biggest fans aren't aware of this -- a number of classical pieces.
Zajac predicts his mom will especially like the concert.
"My mom is like the world's biggest Paul McCartney fan," Zajac said. "I know every fan says that they're the biggest Paul McCartney fan. My mom is like the biggest Paul McCartney fan. In fact, when she met my father, she goes, 'Well, just so you know, there is one other man, and that man is Paul McCartney.'"
The anchor piece of the program is Elgar's “Enigma Variations.”
"It's one of my favorite pieces in the entire literature," Zajac said. "It's a very special piece. I've conducted only one movement from it (previously). It's a remarkable piece of music. Every note, every bar sounds like English music, which is incredible because you can trace every note to some other composer. You can hear the influences of Beethoven and Bach and Wagner. But somehow, he makes it all sound like English music."
The GSO will close out the season with a concert comprised entirely of works by American composers.
"I'm a sucker for American music," Zajac said. "I wish we did more American music here in America, aside from, you know, Copeland, and there's nothing wrong with Copeland. Indeed, we're doing Copeland's Appalachian Spring, which is a great piece of music, but there's so many other things.”
The program will include pieces by David Diamond, a contemporary of Copeland's, and is from Rochester, along with an often overlooked black female composer, Florence Beatrice Price.
"Her music has been enjoying a revival these days," Zajac said. "A lot of people have been doing her first symphony and those big pieces. I decided to program this little piece called Dances in the Canebrakes. It's just really fun, beautiful. It just reeks of America. You hear it, and it's like, yes, that is an American sound."
Also on the program is William Grant Still, another black American composer with ties to Rochester. The orchestra will perform “Summerland.”
And just like an American program probably must include Copeland, it will also include Gershwin's Piano Concerto, featuring the winner of GSO's Young Artists competition.
Perhaps the most familiar piece on the program is Appalachian Spring.
"I've never had a chance to do the piece before though I've known it for many years," Zajac said. "I've studied it. The orchestra hasn't played it in a very long time. It's a beautiful piece, and it ends quietly. Sometimes I like to end programs quietly. It's great to end with fireworks and huge standing ovations and sometimes it is really meaningful and really poignant to end a concert quietly, and indeed ending the season quietly."
That ending, Zajac said, will be a tribute to Roxanne Choate, the former GSO board president who passed away this past week at age 80.
On the topic of performing American composers, The Batavian asked Zajac if he would consider Duke Ellington.
"I've been thinking about doing a jazz-inspired program at some point because there's some really great pieces," Zajac said. "Of course, there's Gershwin, An American in Paris. I'd love to do it with the orchestra. I've only gotten to do the piece once. But Duke Ellington, I'm so glad you said something because I know there are things that we can do, but I haven't really thought about him. That might be an excellent addition if I ever get around to doing this program. That would be really cool."
Teressa Hirsch, playing Juror #7, doesn't hide her anger after Juror #8 refuses to join the other 11 jurors for a quick unanimous guilty verdict in the Batavia Players presentation of 12 Angry Jurors. Photo by Howard Owens.
A simple plot -- 12 ordinary people deliberating the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of murder -- became a riveting drama on Sept. 20, 1954, when it first aired on CBS's Studio One.
In the 1950s, women couldn't serve on juries, so the title was to the point: 12 Angry Men.
A lot has changed over the past seven decades. Women have been able, for example, to serve on juries for decades, so now the play is called 12 Angry Jurors (12 Angry Men was also an award-winning movie in 1957 starring Henry Fonda).
And a lot hasn't changed. Not all is equal just yet. Society is still beset by prejudices, and people still have biases and personal histories that color their views of events.
So juries can still sometimes find it hard to agree on a verdict.
That's why the play originally written by Reginald Rose is still performed all over the country, is taught in schools, and is the subject of scholarship.
"It's still relevant," said Director Kristy Walter. "It's like one of those timeless plays that speaks to justice, it speaks to humanity, it speaks to people's prejudices and biases. And that's, I think, what makes it so compelling because when you watch the play, you see yourself in those characters. So I think that's what makes it worth seeing."
The first Batavia Players performance is at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, followed by 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The play begins with an off-stage charge from a judge in a murder trial: The jury must reach a unanimous verdict.
Once in the jury room, Juror #7 (the jurors are only identified by their numbers until the close of the play), played by Teressa Hirsch, says, “Yeah, lets vote. Who knows, maybe we can all just go home.”
She has someplace else to be, she reveals.
And the vote? It's 11-1. Not unanimous.
The lone holdout, Juror #8, played by Steven Coburn, confesses, “It's not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.”
The jury decides it's up to them to convince him why they are right -- that the young man on trial stabbed his abusive father and killed him. A guilty verdict would send the kid, from an impoverished background, to the electric chair.
The disagreements erupt for the jurors to confront their own morals and values, their own histories and beliefs.
You can probably guess the resolution -- if you've never caught the movie on late-night TV -- or better, no matter how well you know the story, you can join Batavia Players at 56 Main Theater this weekend to see how it plays out. The play holds up over decades of changing cultural norms and multiple viewings.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Photo by Howard Owens.
Steven Coburn, as Juror #8, cast the lone "not guilty" vote at the start of Batavia Players production of 12 Angry Jurors. Photo by Howard Owens.
Here's a slide show of photos from over the Labor Day weekend in Oakfield of the Labor Daze Music and Food Festival, including many previously unpublished photos.
All photos by Howard Owens.
The Batavian provided the community with the most comprehensive, daily coverage of Labor Daze. If you appreciate what we do, please sign up for Early Access Pass.
The Floyd Concept, a Pink Floyd tribute band from Buffalo, closed out the third and final day of the Oakfield Labor Daze Music and Food Festival with a show that brought the legendary progressive rock band's most iconic recordings to life.
