Pianist Simone Dinnerstein offers mesmerizing recital for Music Worcester
By Richard Duckett
WORCESTER Putting together a concert program is obviously something classical music pianist Simone Dinnerstein puts a lot of thought into.
You might also say she has delighted in doing it, especially when the end result in performance works as well as she thought it would. It actually ended up sounding how I envisioned it sounding, Dinnerstein said about a program she put together two years ago and performed a few times while touring last year.
Featuring works by Baroque composer François Couperin, 19th-century Romantic Robert Schumann, late 19th/early 20th-century French avant-garde Erik Satie, and contemporary American Philip Glass (born 1937), the program is very diverse on one level and yet Dinnerstein has striven to build it into a coherent, even mesmerizing, whole.
Worcester Magazine
Although, Lima, Peru, is on the Pacific coast, guitarist and composer Carlos Odria said he is not aware of being close to the practice of fishing while growing up there.
Walking the beaches of New England and seeing the sea was another matter, however, and something came together, perhaps a memory, that inspired his new composition Fisherman.
The number will have its world premiere when the Carlos Odria Trio is featured in a live streamed recorded concert A New Year s Eve Special presented by Mechanics Hall on YouTube and Facebook at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 31.
The concert, which will continue to be available on the Mechanics Hall YouTube Channel after Dec. 31, is part of the new Mechanics Hall Concerts Plus series.
With almost two dozen concerts a year in large venues like Mechanics Hall, and in smaller venues like cafes and care facilities an extensive community strings program, and a free Music on Main concert for more than a thousand music lovers, the Worcester Chamber Music Society typically maintains a hectic calendar.
But 2020 caused a shift in activities.
After canceling all its spring programs, WCMS created an @Home series of free concerts that was sent out to followers during the summer. Eventually, for the fall, a series of six live-stream concerts was produced. But the shift from in-person to online took time.
Dan Gabel said he envisioned a classic, vintage-inspired holiday television show just like the ones you used to know.
It s online rather than on TV, but Happy Holidays with Dan Gabel and The Abletones is a reality live from The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts.
Actually, the first number, It s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, shows Steve Gagliastro, in excellent voice, and the tuneful Moon Maids vocal group of Annie Kerins, Sarah Callinan and Emily Greenslit making their way from Worcester Common and outside Worcester City Hall to The Hanover Theatre.
Inside, Dan Gabel and the Abletones Big Band and the Moon Maids begin with Happy Holidays.
In these current days of COVID before mass vaccination, live performance outlets are still extremely limited or nonexistent with the state s recent return to Phase 3, Step 1.
Fortunately, many artists, musicians, actors, producers and others in related areas here and with Worcester area ties were determined to keep going. Often that meant finding innovative ways to express themselves and to continue to engage and entertain us.
O Donovan brought us GBH Presents A Christmas Celtic Sojourn ONLINE with Brian O Donovan. The Hanover Theatre engaged its new THT Rep and the BrickBox Theater for A Christmas Carol Reimagined, while Music Worcester presented a Virtual Messiah Sing. New voices emerged.