Just got back from the concert at Monmouth's Buchanan Center for the Arts, where all was well. Not in chronological order:
Mari Hauge performed a challenging Paganini solo on her cello (she says it was composed for violin, but cellists are notorious for poaching virtuoso pieces from the upper range strings to prove their own skills on the bigger instruments). She needs to work on her poker face. I doubt anybody except another hypersensitive artist would have noticed where her bow work was "iffy"... but she has the funniest little grimaces, during a beautiful performance.
Her mother, Donna Hauge, emceed the program, as well as played the violin for a solo and in support of 2 of Lionel Marcoux's songs. They gave us a sampling of the French music on the program for April 30 at the Lutheran Church in Monmouth. Marcoux was in fine voice... difficult to be, in a room where the walls are lined with carpet, the floor is carpeted, and the ceiling is covered with accoustical tiles. For people with an ear for music, an art gallery is seldom anything but a dead room, and he managed to bring real life into its air. His finale of the Lord's Prayer had Mom in tears (she admitted she was recalling Uncle Cecil -- the man who raised her -- singing that same song, which is a gigantic compliment to Lionel).
Rosa Julstrom played beautifully, on piano -- one of my favorite pieces -- Clair de Lune. She made that intricate and complex work sound simple and reflexive. As Debussy should sound. That melody will be wafting around my rafters for the next few days, again.
What makes this concert more intriguing, in the background are hundreds of drawings, paintings, sculptures, etc. by the region's school children -- the 37th annual Town & Country Amateur Art Show was completely in place and ribbons abounded. Our schools' art programs have much to offer, many reasons to be proud.
And, at last, it appears the BCA is again attracting folks from outside of town: I sat next to a couple of ladies who had driven across 20 miles of prairie (okay, it was just Galesburg, but around here, that's a really big step, socially) to hear the performance, and who expressed interest in joining the arts group who co-sponsored this concert, OFTA (Old Friends Talk Art). We talked about the need for our fiscally fragile communities to stand together and maintain this high-quality arts program, keep the music coming, keep the kids painting, and so on... Maybe there will be regional cooperation, yet.
Mike DiFuccia, Exec. Director of the BCA, promises he will be updating the website soon... he has his hands pretty full, this spring, & he's trying really hard to keep up with bureaucratic demands of a healthy art community. I've promised him I will try to blog what I can, as well.
The Arts are a worthy cause. They saved and ruined my sanity, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment