Celebrating Mozart's Contributions In Concert

This column was published in the Tribune & Georgian newspaper on Wednesday (2.15.06).

Announcements and reminders first: if you help with sound and lighting at a church, a civic group or a local performing group, Arts Camden and Crooked Rivers, Sisters Three is offering a one-day stage lighting and sound workshop Saturday (Feb. 18) from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the CCHS Auditorium. Technical staff from the CCHS Auditorium will conduct the workshop, which will include information about stage lighting, sound instruments and their use in performance settings. The cost is $20, payable at the door; lunch is included. Call 729-7463 to make a reservation.

A second event to remember are the “participation gatherings” to recruit and inform potential Crooked Rivers Sisters Three participants on Saturday and Sunday (Feb. 25 & 26) from 2-4 p.m. at the CCHS Auditorium. If you want to get a sense of the spirit of the event and determine your level of interest in performing or volunteering in some other manner, attend one of these “gatherings.”

There are many arts-related thoughts that I considered sharing this week: another opportunity to see my angel-voiced son as Valjean in Les Misérables, this time with my sibling’s family and his grandmother in Minneapolis/St. Paul, a city with more performance space seats than any U.S. city other than NYC (he is maturing in the role, the youngest ever to have played it at 29); the artistry and beauty of the opening ceremonies of the XX Winter Games in Torino, Italy (I had never imagined skating trees or fire spouting skaters!); and a nod to the longest-running show in Broadway history, “The Phantom of the Opera,” which comes alive May 17th at the Times-Union Center.

But what remains with me most after this weekend spent with family and at performances, is the delight shared on Saturday night in St. Luke’s, a remarkable old church in St. Paul, MN, when more than 200 students, alumni, parents, friends and faculty of the St. Paul Academy performed their annual choral and orchestra Winter Concert. After accomplished performances by student musicians and singers, came this culminating event. The nave of the sanctuary, filled with singers of all ages (including my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew), strings, woodwinds and percussion, projected the magnificence of Mozart’s final musical accomplishment, “Requiem.” The history of this piece is remarkable in itself, but its power and ability transcend space, time and history is what I came away remembering. And contemplating this too: how significant must a person’s accomplishments be for the whole world to celebrate your art for an entire year, 250 years after your death? In the program for the Winter Concert, Burt Pinsonneault wrote, “(Mozart’s) work has become seminal to the art and culture of our civilization.” How significant indeed!

Opportunities for this week and upcoming weeks: brilliant political satire from the Capitol Steps at FCCJ’s South Campus Wilson Hall, 2.15-19, 7:30 p.m.; get “doo-wopped” with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, 2.19, Florida Theatre, 8 p.m., let Edward Albee’s “A Delicate Balance” get under your skin, Players by the Sea, 2.17&18, 8 p.m.; direct from Broadway, “Forever Tango” at TUC, 7 p.m.; consider Cirque du Soleil’s “Delirium” at the Veteran’s Memorial Arena on April 6&7;

If you have ideas or events you want me to share with readers, send me a note at pkraack1@tds.net.

2.12.06