March into April
The NCMC/ Nantucket School of Music and the Nantucket Arts Council celebrate Spring with a weekend of madrigals and a renowned Classical Trio
BY MARLI GUZZETTA INDEPENDENT ARTS EDITOR
"In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours."

COURTESY GRACE NOYES NCMC/ Nantucket School of Music Chorus members will perform madrigal selections this weekend.

So wrote Mark Twain once, and between the snow and sun we've had within the same time frame, it seemed a prescient quote to remember.

In parallel to the surfeit of weather that spring provides, the NCMC/ Nantucket School of Music and the Nantucket Arts Council have combined efforts to bring you 136 different kinds of musicians inside of 48 hours. Okay, "136" is an exaggerated number. But with a Renaissance Celebration by the

NCMC Chorus and other instrumentalists on

Friday and Saturday as well as an island appearance by a globally respected Classical Trio, you can "March into April" with a weekend of great music.

Directed by Barbara Elder, the NCMC Chorus is performing madrigals, songs from the Renaissance period and even the occasional contemporary piece, celebrating eating and drinking and loving and dying. The contemporary songs, like The Beatles' "Ticket to Ride," have been arranged for a Renaissance feel, while some of the Renaissance pieces might be recognizable to fans of contemporary music. On his last album, Pop musician Sting covered Dowland's "Come Again." These tracks are matched by an airy and light selection of songs by Renaissance composers, such as Morley's "Sing We and Chant It" and Gibbons' "The Silver Swan."

Members of the NCMC/ Nantucket School of Music Chorus rehearse madrigal and Renaissance selections. They will perform this weekend, under the direction of Barbara Elder, at a "Renaissance Celebration" that tips its hat to "eating and drinking and loving and dying." The Nantucket Arts Council hosts the respected Classical Trio's performance this weekend as well. COURTESY Grace Noyes

Elder originally heard the Beatles arrangement at a madrigal performance by a college chorus; she liked the rendition so much, she contacted the chorus' director at New Mexico University seeking permission to use it here.

This concert has made many members of the chorus nostalgic, according to Grace Noyes, because they performed many of these same selections in the early 1980s.

Vocal soloists include Greta Feeney (singing songs by Campion and Dowland, accompanied by James Sulzer), 2006 Nantucket Junior Miss Connie McDonough-Thayer (who is now a freshman at Hartt School of Music) and chorus members Craig Spery, Patty O'Connor and Sandy MacDonald. Marcia Hempel will accompany the chorus on piano. And, to lend the performance an even more traditional Renaissance flair, Dorothy Thompson, Joyce Van Vorst, Ilse Sangree and Claire Hemenway will perform on recorder - one of those trademark instruments of Renaissance music. In Renaissance films, scenes of royals at court or at feast almost always include the music of a recorder. It was impossible to have fun then without them.

The Classical Trio is comprised of Oleh Krysa on violin, Julian Milkis on clarinet and Sima Kustanovich on piano: "Three remarkably talented, world renowned" musicians, according to NCMC/ Nantucket School of Music Executive Director Gerry Mack, who has worked with the trio's "outstanding Russian pianist" in Worcester for 10 years. "She and her husband escaped from Russia. The other two are renowned. …They travel all over the world, so we are very lucky to have them. I explained to Sima that we'd love a classical program on island, and they're playing some beautiful things."

Their set includes Bach's "Chaconne," Raykhelson's "Destined Road" and "Mirage" Gabaye's "Sonatine" and Milhaud's "Suite, Op. 157b."

All three members hail from Eastern Europe, where the approach to classical music is "one of total dedication," Mack said. "They're tremendously gifted in interpretation and

technique." I
When: Friday, March 30, 8 p.m. and Saturday,
    March 31, 4 p.m.; Classical Trio: Sunday,
    March 31, 4 p.m.
Where: Coffin School, 4 Winter Street
Cost: Suggested admission for the Renaissance
    Celebration is $10 for adults; $5 for students
    and seniors; free for under 12.
For more information, please call 228-3352.
SPRING   MUSICAL   CELEBRATION