This year's Arts Alive concert lineup — a combination of four Classics in the Garden and six non-classical Tillett Garden Series presentations — is the most ambitious in the 13 years that concerts seasons have been staged in Tillett Gardens.
"It's our 13th season," producer Rhoda Tillett says, "and the way requests are already coming in for season tickets, it's looking like a year of good fortune for music lovers."
That's partly because of the desire of many regular season subscribers to keep the same reserved seats year after year. But it's also partly due to the continuing growth of the Arts Alive concert offerings in terms of both quantity and quality. This season, the number of events booked at Tillett Gardens is the same as the number at the Reichhold Center for the Arts. And for classical music lovers, there is no comparison: The Reichhold has one offering — the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra on Oct. 30 — and Tillett Gardens is offering four, including pianist Awadagin Pratt, whose two previous performances on St. Thomas were at the Reichhold.
Until two years ago, the Arts Alive "season" consisted of four Classics concerts – invariably on Wednesdays, except for one year when Thursdays were tried — and then abandoned.
The separate non-classical series was created, with three performances for 1997-98. Last year, a fourth non-classical event was added on Wednesday, and the Paul Oscher Blues Band was booked for a second gig in the garden, a later Friday nightclub-style event.
"That Friday we had a great crowd," Tillett reflects. "The band played 'til 1 a.m. and nobody wanted to leave. So we're doing it again this year — not just one Friday night, but two."
Both nights will feature vintage blues groups — the Siegel-Schwall Blues Band on Jan. 14 and the Charlie Musselwhite Band on Feb. 18.
There's one other change for the new season: Bill Grogan, longtime musical impresario and owner of the late Barnacle Bill's in Sub Base, has come aboard as technical and musical director.
Here's the chronological lineup of classical and non-classical events together:
Wednesday, Oct. 27 — Russian-born classical cellist Nina Kotova, accompanied on piano by Patrice Koenig
Wednesday, Nov. 17 — Junior Mance Trio, jazz
Wednesday, Dec. 29 — Dennis Koster, classical and flamenco guitarist
Wednesday, Jan. 12 — Siegel-Schwall Band with Sam Ray on drums, Chicago blues
Friday, Jan. 14 — Siegel-Schwall Band, blues nightclub
Wednesday, Jan. 26 — Awadagin Pratt, classical pianist
Wednesday, Feb. 16 — Charlie Musselwhite Band, blues
Friday, Feb. 18 — Charlie Musselwhite Band, blues nightclub
Wednesday, March 15 — Mary Cleere Haran (vocals) with Richard Rodney Bennett
(piano, vocals), Gershwin music cabaret
Wednesday, April 12 — The Gryphon Trio, classical piano trio
What's what:
Tickets are $25 per concert. Buy tickets to all eight Wednesday concerts and they're discounted to $20 apiece; buy any six and the price drops to $22. (These discounts don't apply only to the Friday shows.)
Each Wednesday, a three-course pre-performance dinner with concert seating at tables is offered at an additional $30, excluding bar service and gratuity. The dinners, catered by Polli's Restaurant in the garden complex, feature the ethnic cuisine of the evenings' artists. The incentive here is that those buying dinner packages for two persons to all eight concerts get a $50 gift certificate from Polli's, and those buying packages for two to any six concerts get a $25 certificate.
Tickets are now on sale, exclusively at the Arts Alive office in the Tillett Art Gallery. Purchases may be made by credit card by calling the office at 775-1929. Anyone wishing to receive a season preview brochure and ticket order form may request it by mail or fax by calling the same number.
Special arrangements may be made for music students to attend concerts. Music teachers should contact Tillett at the same number or by fax to 775-9482.
Who's who:
Here's some brief biographical information on the artists:
Russian-born Nina Kotova began studying cello at the age of 7 at the Moscow Conservatory. She continued studies in Cologne, Germany, and then at Yale. For financial reasons, she dropped out of Yale and took up a new, temporary career, fashion modeling, that soon netted her exactly what she needed: money.
After five years on the runway, she was in a position to resume her musical career. Her debut performance, at London's Wigmore Hall, featured the premiere of a work she composed that was inspired by her modeling experience. She called it "Scenes from the Catwalk."
In the last four years, Kotova has performed throughout the United States and Europe, including a tour last year as soloist with the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra. Last summer she performed at the opening gala concert of the Palaces of St. Petersburg International Festival, and this month she makes her debut at Carnegie Hall. She also has a CD on the Philips Classics label due out this fall.
Jazz pianist and band leader Julian Clifford "Junior" Mance played in an Army band in the '50s with Cannonball Adderley, and when Nat and Cannonball Adderley formed their first professional band, Mance was a member. He also played with Dizzy Gillespie's band and was accompanist to Dinah Washington. In 1961, he formed his own trio, which backed singer Joe Williams for a couple of years.
Since 1988, Mance has taught in the jazz and contemporary music program at the New School University in New York. In 1997, he was elected to the International Jazz Hall of Fame.
Solo guitarist Dennis Koster is something of a rarity in the world of serious music in that he has made a name for himself as a performer of both classical and flamenco music.
His first training was in the flamenco genre; as a youth he had the rare opportunity to study under Augustin Castellon, the legendary "Sabicas." In his twenties, he decided to take up classical guitar as well, creating his own transcriptions and arrangements of works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and other masters.
Koster appears regularly at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Merken Concert Hall in New York and has performed throughout the nation and abroad, including a recent tour in Japan.
He has a recording contract with the Musical Heritage Society's Music Masters label, with international distribution through BMG Music.
The Siegel-Schwall Band brings the irrepressible harmonicist, pianist and vocalist Corky Siegel back to Tillett Gardens for his third appearance, but now for something different. His two previous appearances were with his Chamber Blues string and percussion ensemble as part of the Classics series. This time he's coming with the Chicago blues band that made him a name in the world of music back in the '60s.
The band disbanded in 1974 but reunited for a fund raiser in 1987 — and it's been re-reuniting every few years since. Today it consists of three of the four original members — Siegel, Jim Schwall on guitar and vocals, and Rollo Radford on bass and vocals. In place of Shelly Plotkin, the original drummer, legendary Chicago drummer Sam Lay has been aboard since the first reunion.
To appreciators of classical piano music, Awadagin Pratt needs no introduction on St. Thomas. As a youngster living in Normal, Ill., he began studying violin at the age of 9, after three years of piano lessons. He ended up graduating from the Peabody Conservatory of Music as the first student ever to receive diplomas in three fields — piano, violin and conducting. And when his first CD was released, it carried the clever title "A Long Way from Normal."
Appearances count for a performer, and Pratt's have attracted attention. Tall with huge hands and long, flowing dredlocks, he sits at the piano on a low bench that positions him to h
over over the keys. But his credentials are flawless. He won the Naumberg International Piano Competition in 1992 and received an Avery Fisher Career Grant two years later. Successful tours have taken him to the nation's top concert halls, as well as to Europe, Japan, Israel and South Africa.
According to blues musician Charlie Musselwhite, who was born in Mississippi, grew up in Memphis and got into the music scene in Chicago, "whether it's Chicago blues, Mississippi blues, Memphis blues or West Coast blues, it doesn't matter. They're all like accents" of the same language.
As a teenager in Chicago, Musselwhite played with the likes of Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf. Later he played with Big Joe Williams and spent his nights checking out the music at jazz clubs. Known as a harmonicist but accomplished on many instruments, he says his musicianship consists of "following the will of the music." He prefers the harmonica, calling it "the most voicelike instrument — you can make it wail, feel happy or cry."
Bringing an evening of Gershwin classics in a cabaret setting will be the duo of vocalist Mary Cleere Haran and pianist/vocalist Richard Rodney Bennett, backed by Linc Milliman on bass. Haran and Bennett won raves for this show at New York's Algonquin Hotel lounge last year and in London over the summer.
A chanteuse in the true sense of the word, Haran has appeared in Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals as well as at the legendary supper clubs of New York — Sardi's, The Russian Tea Room and the like. She was hailed for her one-woman show on Dorothy Parker in 1993, the centennial of the writer's birth. Bennett, who previously appeared on the Classics stage as an accompanist, has many credits as a classical and film score composer and was knighted last
year by Queen Elizabeth II for his service to music.
Named for a mythical creature that is half lion, half eagle and said to symbolize the convergence of psychic energy and cosmic force, The Gryphon Trio returns for its second Classics appearance to close out the 1999-2000 season. The Canadian ensemble comprises Annalee Patipatanakoon on violin, Roman Borys on cello and Jamie Parker on piano.
Collectively, the musicians have studied at the University of British Columbia, the Curtis Institute, Indiana University, the Banff Centre, Yale University and the Juilliard School. All teach as well as perform. Formed in 1993, the trio has a track record for integrity in interpreting the classical repertoire. But it is also known for its commitment to commissioning and performing new works, especially by Canadian composers.
For more information about the Arts Alive concert season, click on www.tillettgardens.com
