Count Basie
Theatre, Red Bank, NJ. Orchestra (Seat
M10, $35).
Program
Joy to the World: A Christmas Suite
Concert Program
This concert was
suggested by the Homs as our annual birthday “celebration,” Lorinda and I share
the same birthday on the 22nd.
Their daughter – whom we have known since she was a small child – sings in
the chorus.
The concert was
quite well-attended. There were about 100
choir members (per the emcee), accompanied by a 40-member orchestra. Our seats, while giving us a good view of the
stage, didn’t have the best acoustics, so the voices often sounded a bit weak,
although we had no problem picking out the singing.
The program consisted
of a variety of music, ranging from Bach to favorite Christmas hymns and
songs. A few poems were read accompanied
by music, including several by a chorus member (Bob Kelly, who did his own reading); some of them were poignant, some humorous. Soprano Kaura Kosar sang a couple of
selections, and chorus members Gerald Metz and Kenneth Wasser also did a solo
each – with Wasser singing at a microphone.
Kosar’s voice is very good.
Selections from Handel’s Messiah included the Hallelujah Chorus which
concluded the first half of the program, and a Joy to the World/We Wish You a
Merry Christmas medley that ended the program.
The audience clearly enjoyed the concert, giving the artists a standing
ovation afterwards.
Brandau arranged
a lot of the music for the program, generally to good effect. He also wrote a two-page “Director’s Note” on
the program. One random sentence from
the note: “Pausing, to listen, to sing and to enmesh ourselves in a community
of musicians and listeners lets us cut through the din of our noisy recent
discourse and tune in to the shared feeling flowing between us.” Anne and I can’t decide whether it was
great-wordsmithing or bad verbosity. For
the record, Brandau has an undergraduate degree from Princeton, and a doctorate
from Yale.
We had tickets
to NJSO’s Messiah at NJPAC that we had to give up because of conflict with
choir practice. This wasn’t a bad
substitute.
After the
concert we headed out to China Buffet in Hazlet to complete the day.
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