Virginia Symphony celebrates America at Forum
BY PETER HUMMERS | SENTINEL STAFF

The twenty-fourth season of the Outer Banks Forum for the Lively Arts was crowned Sunday with a brilliant performance by the Virginia Symphony led by guest conductor David Amado.

An emotional afternoon's entertainment was preordained by the excellent program material, the orchestra, which was in fine form, and Maestro Amado's enthusiastic musical evangelism.

In days when many feel unsettled and worse about America's role on the world stage, Maestro Amado gave the audience at the First Flight High School plenty to celebrate. From the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 to New York's lower west side in 1957 and including a Czech composer's 1893 love song to the New World, the orchestra thrilled and delighted its listeners.

Jamestown was evoked with James Hosay's six-minute extended fanfare “1607 — The Dream Comes Alive,” in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the colony's founding. It started with tympani introducing a traditional brass fanfare that segued into a cinematic passage: Strings handed the theme to the cellos, which expanded it into a strong melody, backed by the strings and driven by the tympani. The horns returned in the background, and took the piece to a triumphant coda.

The orchestra was assured; the music was seamless and very present. Maestro Amado took the microphone to reveal a charismatic appreciation of music, and a natural teaching bent. (He was the Music Director for the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra while conductor for the Saint Louis Symphony.)

He gave informative remarks throughout the program, and a detailed commentary on the final piece. About “1607” he said, “It's good to be in North Carolina. I'm from Wilmington — Delaware. We northerners hear about how friendly you folks are, and I'm impressed” with North Carolina's toleration of the celebration of Jamestown. “You have every right to lord it over [Virginia] and say ... ‘Roanoke Island!’ It's very sweet; thank you. We appreciate it.”

Leonard Bernstein's overture to West Side Story, his take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, was introduced as an example of the diverse cultural influences that helped make America great: “Here's an Elizabethan talking about Italy, which gets picked up by some Americans writing a story about Puerto Rican immigrants in New York, with music by a Jew! How great is that?” The velvety strings teased all of the emotion from the dramatic, dynamic music.

A fine orchestral arrangement by Bill Holcomb of three New Orleans staples, “Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey,” “Saint James Infirmary” and “When the Saints (Go Marching In),” was followed by a gift not on the program, John Philip Sousa's crowd-pleasing ur-march, “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The piccolo player was applauded after her section and Amado controlled well the ritard that slowed down the piece for its tire-screeching three-point landing, which had the audience on their feet.

After the intermission, Maestro Amado led the audience, and the orchestra, through Antonín Dvorák's Ninth Symphony, “From the New World.” Before each movement he talked about the programmatic elements, having the orchestra illustrate each. Dvorák was familiar with Longfellow's epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha” in English and Czech, and wrote of the second movement of his Ninth as a “sketch or study for a later work, either a cantata or opera ... which will be based upon Longfellow's Hiawatha” and that the third movement scherzo was “suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance.”

This is the symphony that contains the Black spiritual “Going Home,” which Amado averred was written by Dvorák first, and not the other way around. It's a sign of his talent, Amado said, that Dvorák, a Czech, could write an authentic Black American spiritual.

The orchestra's reading of the symphony, in light of the illumination that Maestro Amado lent to it, was beautiful, powerful, nearly perfect. The orchestra played snippets for the conductor's narration like they were on a compact disc, and the actual movements like angels. The audience had no choice but to return a standing ovation. After three curtain calls it was all over save the joy.

Peter Hummers covers entertainment events at Outer Banks Onstage.
© 2007 Peter Hummers

Feminism comes down 
home to roost with 'Girls'
BY PETER HUMMERS, SENTINEL STAFF


Jodi Beck, Amanda Blackburn, Bianca Carragher, Julie Oliver, Katherine Rogers and Meme Simmons are the Good Ol' Girls. Photo by Gerald Belton 

At the back of the stage was a trellised front porch, under which might be kept gardening implements-or a surfboard, a sunfish-or all of the above. There might be a case of Pepsi-Cola, or even Jack Daniels under there. It's too hard to tell from outside what-all is under a porch.

As the audience in the Kitty Hawk Elementary School studied the guitars, drums and other instruments set on the porch, a commotion arose from the doors to the gymnasium, and a group of women burst in, as if they had just put in a hard shift at the plant and were bent on liberating a bowling alley.

After greeting audience members loudly and familiarly, they collected on the stage. In front of the porch were six folding chairs, three floor microphones and another guitar on a stand.

The women were of all shapes and sizes, and quite attractive. They swarmed around brave Bill Teague of the Outer Banks Forum for the Lively Arts as he thanked the friends of the Forum and the underwriters of the evening's performance, Albemarle Eye Center, Regional Medical Center and Mollie Fearing & Associates, and greeted their representatives.

Jodi Beck, Amanda Blackburn, Bianca Carragher, Julie Oliver, Katherine Rogers and Meme Simmons were dressed casually, as women might dress to shop for groceries anywhere from Manhattan to Manteo. There was no big hair tonight, although they expressed their willingness to wear it, and a philosophy of it, to wit, with your hair piled up you feel closer to God.

The front porch had filled with musicians, who were prepared for an evening of pickin' and plenty of grinnin'. Nathan Logan, Pete Lucey, Don Raleigh, Byron Settle and Mark Simonson wielded drums, piano, an upright bass and guitars respectively.

The women began to talk and sing, alone, in pairs, in groups; at times the whole ensemble stood at the mics. Their funny, tragic stories concerned living as females in the South, but they were ecumenical stories in that northerners and other foreigners could understand, empathise and laugh along, too. 


The tales were adapted from the stories of Lee Smith and Jill McCorkle, punctuated by the songs of Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman. They encompassed everything from black eyes in Johnson City to revenge fantasies dreamed in BMWs driving around the New South.

But there was an appreciation of all that makes life wonderful, too, from perfect mates to the glory of childbirth, dissaproving mamas notwithstanding.

The other end of life was also covered. "When the kids are gone, they're gone like fog from the mountain." A woman, with her younger self, complains in a nursing home, and a beautician has to make up the corpse of her mother.

The music ranged from Applachian-style ballads to blues, country and even a little calypso: all the music of the South. The expert performances were full of space and light.

The ensemble went from strength to strength; the stories were marvelous, and the music was terrific. These strong, emblematic women reprised the first songs of the two acts, "Good Ol' Girl" and "All I Want is Everything," for the raucous end of the show, but this time the audience was on their feet.

Peter Hummers can be reached at production@obsentinel.com 

Outer Banks Sentinel, Aug. 1, 2003

Forum Growth Opening New Opportunities, Audiences

Twenty years ago, the Outer Banks Forum for the Lively Arts started as a low-budget neighborhood organization that brought local talent to its makeshift stage. Now the Forum attracts national and international performers. 
The upcoming season is set to start with a fusion of bluegrass, jazz and Latin elements performed by the Grammy Award-winning Alison Brown Quartet at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7. That show will be followed by five others, including the musical act 1964, which will present a tribute to the Beatles on Oct. 6. All performances will be at the Kitty Hawk Elementary School. 

Most Forum organizers agree that the volunteer-powered group has persevered and grown because of unusual determination and patience. 

"It unique to have a group do this sort of thing and sustain it for 20 years," said Connie Brothers, Forum director of development. "We are just people who give some of our time to this and care a lot about it. There are people running up and down the beach distributing tickets, getting programs, making sure there are flowers, directions and playbills. We are trying to keep up with the times." 

In its early days, the Forum catered to an older crowd. But now it is working to reach a younger audience. 

Brothers said that the shift was a result of an overall mission conceived by Forum volunteers during a strategic-planning session last year. 

"I think the goal is to see our audiences grow, continue to be funded by the businesses ... establishing partnerships with [other arts organizations and] being able to bring other types of art here," said Sue Meyer, who is in charge of attracting performers. 

Building larger audiences requires more variety, which Brothers said was a gamble for the volunteer group. 

The crux of that mission is moving away from the Forum's traditional classical-music offerings into jazz, comedy theatre, country-western music and other things. 

"You are always hoping you made the right choice, and it seems we have," Brothers said. 

"We believe the performing arts are for everybody. We believe the same music can excite a 7-year-old and a 70-year-old, like me." 

After ending the first season of its three-year strategic plan, Brothers said that Forum volunteers seem to be on the right track even though one of the primary stumbling blocks is trying to find acts that satisfy every age group. 

"It's always guessing. If we get this, can we pay that?" Brothers said. 

"We win some, we lose some. But it's the best bargain in town," she said, adding that the cost of the $45 season ticket breaks down to roughly $7 per show. 

Admittedly, Meyer added, this sort of fine-tuning has increased the need to do more than merely guess. They have conducted research by reading trade publications, using results of patron questionnaires, joining the North Carolina Presenters Consortium and consulting with others in the business to bring bigger names and more variety to the stage. 

Climbing attendance is evidence that these methods are working, Meyer said. 

But ultimately, bringing these performances to the area doesn't happen without local financial support. 

"We've gotten together a budget to try to meet the costs," said Forum President Vic James, a volunteer since 1994. 

This year, the budget anticipates a total income of $60,100. Of that amount, $33,750 will pay performers and $10,200 is set aside for general administration and other costs associated with fund-raising. Advertising, which concentrates on local audiences, is budgeted for $7,000. 

"We've come along way. It was started by Charles Hermann and a few volunteers who started out with no money trying to bring culture to the Outer Banks," said Peggy Shea, whose 10 years of service have earned her the title of president emeritus. 

"We used local talent and charged a very low price at the door. We started at the then-KHES [Kitty Hawk Elementary School] cafeteria. Volunteers would house and feed performers. Over the years, we have evolved to bringing outstanding artists to entertain people here," Shea said. 

After the Forum endured a variety of growing pains, Shea said, "the bar has been raised." 

"We are in a position [that] we can bring [performers] in from all over," she said. "Last year, we brought them in from Ireland, California and Texas." 

Shea said that the number of performances has averaged about six a year for as long as she can remember. And that number won't likely change unless the venue does. Scheduling and space constraints limit performances mainly to musical acts because of the school gymnasium's limited stage and poor acoustics. 

The blessing of audience growth also brings the added worry of future coping with the constraints of the performing space. 

"We did want to have a larger auditorium with the new high school going up. Maybe one day we will have a performing arts center," Shea said. 

But all in all, volunteers are thankful for the space they have, and Shea said that the Forum has a "wonderful relationship with the schools" and looks forward to nurturing what has become a fruitful partnership into the future. 

"We are looking for the biggest season we've ever had," James said, adding that this season's performances are a mix of the old and new to pay homage to the Forum's milestone. 

Outer Banks Sentinel, Aug. 31, 2002