FLY ME TO THE MOON

COMING UP THIS WEEK

JEWEL THEATRE opens Karen Zacarias’ The Book Club Play at the Colligan in Santa Cruz. CHAMBER MUSIC MONTEREY BAY  hosts the veteran Kalichstein, Laredo, Robinson Trio at Sunset Center in Carmel. Mike Ryan of Santa Cruz Shakespeare narrates Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals with the SANTA CRUZ SYMPHONY at Santa Cruz Civic. See all of this week’s events on our CALENDAR

TRUMP WANTS TO AXE TINY NEA

NEH and PBS budgets. Since it wouldn’t make a dent, divot or even a ding in the national budget, is that just mean-spirited showboating? Click HERE

THE OTHER SCHUBERT ‘SERENADE’

FEATURING AMERICAN baritone Thomas Hampson. Franz Grillparzer verse, Op post. 135. D920, “Zögernd, leise” (Linger, softly) is nothing less than enchanting.

SAY WHAT?

BROUGHT DOWN BY INTERNAL abuse and an incompetent board of directors, the long-cherished Monterey Bay Blues Festival just might resurrect its original vision. Click HERE

THE GREAT ROBERTA PETERS DIES AT 86

SHE WAS CONTRACTED by the Met before ever setting foot on an opera stage. For her audition she was asked to sing the fiendishly difficult Queen of the Night’s second aria four times in a row. She also had an acting career in film and for television. For her obit, including links to her singing, Click HERE

GOBLIN MARKET

STRANGE AND FASCINATING, spooky supernatural poem by Christina Rossetti (sister of Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti) about two sisters, timid Lizzie and bold Laura, the market in the glen where the goblins sell sweet fruits, all quite sensual and suggestively erotic. Pulitzer-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis—and multiple Cabrillo Festival composer in residence—set it to equally fantastical music in 1995, now available on a Signum CD with Santa Cruz native Rebecca Miller conducting The New Professionals orchestra of London and celebrated mezzo-soprano Mary King speaking the Rossetti verses. Kernis’ music here is no stroll through a pastoral landscape, but rather a complex, mercurial score of dazzling effects brilliantly orchestrated. Some passages are downright creepy, while others are warm and gorgeously lush. At 46 minutes, Kernis takes his time giving each verse the kind of musical reflection the words invite. Behind the surface of the narrative the goblins are an ever-menacing presence. Finally, Kernis ends with an epilog that lets you know the sisters are going to be all right and kids can safely go out to play. Completing the CD is Kernis’ Invisible Mosaic II, the second of three orchestral impressions of the late-Roman mosaics the composer discovered in the churches of Ravenna. Here, too, Kernis’ imagination and skill, on both the large canvas an in miniature, dazzle. And it’s a tribute to Miller’s talent and artistry that she navigates this quicksilver music with finesse and style. Highly recommended to the adventurous listener!

CHRIS BLISS’ MASTERPIECE

JUGGLING PERFORMANCE to the Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers” medley.

https://vimeo.com/84678143

FRESH REVIEW

PIANIST MAN-LING BAI, Carmel Music Society competition winner. Click HERE

Scott MacClelland, editor; Rebecca RC Brooks, associate editor