On Thursday night, soprano Jeanine De Bique told the story of a woman torn between her loyalty to her family and her love for a man whose family ties made him enemy to her own. She asked that the gods strike her down with lightning, “because it’s better to be dead, I guess, than to be in love,” said Ms. De Bique. She told another story of a woman who found herself unexpectedly pregnant by a cold, cruel man, and the heartbreak that ensued.
Reflections of Shakespeare, a concert of music, poetry and dance, will be presented by Boston’s Row Twelve Chamber Music Ensemble free to the public on Saturday, Oct. 16, at 5:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Community Center.
The performance is a gift from Row Twelve to the Island community, and supported in part by the Martha’s Vineyard Cultural Council in collaboration with the Massachusetts Cultural Council and by MPRI, in memory of Robert Hansen.
The thing Martha’s Vineyard NAACP branch president Laurie Perry-Henry likes best about the jazz band Pieces of a Dream was their sense of togetherness and common purpose.
“That’s our theme for the NAACP, is One Nation, One Dream,” said Ms. Perry-Henry in an interview this week. “It’s almost prophetic in nature,” she said of the common values shared by the national civil rights group, and the smaller, musical one.
It’s just a few nights before the darkest day of the year, at least in the earthly sense, when along comes this amazing experience, full of light in every way. It’s free buoyancy. It’s a way to put your sense of isolation in isolation. A way to get out of the noise of The Holidays and into the rhythm of your heart.
It may be a cliche on the radio, but around the piano at a Circuit avenue barroom sing-along on Monday night, the audience sang the old Billy Joel lyrics with nuance and exuberance: “Sing us a song, you’re the piano man, sing us a song tonight.” David Crohan was playing his Kurzweil electric piano.
What could be better? Well, soonafter Mr. Crohan was accompanied by his old friends Hugh Taylor and Merrily Fenner and more.
There was a sacred energy on stage last Saturday at Nectar’s when John Forté took the stage alongside his good friend Ben Taylor, Ben’s sister, Sally Taylor, and their mother, Carly Simon. It was a little like peering into someone’s living room. There was a banter on stage that you didn’t want to interrupt and yet wanted to be part of, hoping someone would clue you in on the inside jokes and sideways glances.
The night Brad Tucker approached saxophonist Brian Nelson at the Ritz Cafe in Oak Bluffs, guitar slung over his shoulder, Mr. Nelson rolled his eyes. “Oh no, not another guitar player,” he thought to himself. Mr. Tucker only had to strum a few strings and sing a few bars for Mr. Nelson to understand that he meant business.
They’ve played for the Queen and now they’re playing for you.
This Saturday, Oct. 23 at 5 p.m. the London Gold Group will be performing at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown. This group of violinists and viola players is comprised of London’s finest musicians, aged 9 to 15 years old that is. But don’t let thoughts of callow youths dissuade you. These kids have been rosining up their bows since they were four years old.
Billed as An Evening of Fun, a sing-along with Dorothy Bangs and guest performers promises to be an old-fashioned social, with refreshments and fellowship, on Wednesday, Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Baptist Parish House in Vineyard Haven.
Donations are welcome for the First Baptist Church Building Fund; the restoration of this old church is about completed, but paying for it is not.