Tag: Irving Berlin

Pre-Valentine’s MUSIC FOR THE HEART Performed by Members of Cape Ann Symphony and CAS Chorus and Great American Songbook selection by Jazz Dynamics 💖🎼 | St. Paul Lutheran Church Lanesville #GloucesterMA

Posted on by Catherine

Enjoy works for solo instruments and piano

Cape Ann Symphony Musicians Unleashed Concert Series

LIVE ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6

MUSIC FOR THE HEART

Works for Solo Instruments & Piano

at

Gloucester’s St. Paul Lutheran Church

Performed by Members of the CAS Orchestra and Chorus

Cape Ann Symphony proudly announces a Musicians Unleashed pre–Valentine’s Day Concert, Music For the Heart at 3:00 pm on Sunday, February 6, 2022 at the St. Paul Lutheran Church, 1123 Washington Street, by Rebecca’s Playground, Gloucester, MA. The ticket price for Music For the Heart is $40. Call CAS at 978-281-0543 or go to www.capeannsymphony.org to purchase tickets.

Eight musicians will perform 12 works by 10 composers, including works ranging from Fritz Kreisler and Claude Debussy to Rogers and Hart and Irving Berlin.

“The Musicians Unleashed program on February 6th will feature a wide range of romantic music starting with selections for violin, flute, cello and piano and ending with some well-known favorites from the Great American Song Book. The musicians are from the Cape Ann Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and they are amazing. Come with someone you love, and get an early start to your Valentine’s celebrations!”

Maestro Udagawa

The program: The Music For the Heart concert program includes works by Austrian/American violinist Fritz Kreisler, French composers Cecile Chaminade and Claude Debussy, Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla and a finale featuring beloved classics from the Great American Songbook. Maestro Udagawa and the musicians will introduce each piece of music to offer audiences insight and little-known facts about the composers and their music.

The CAS musicians: Sven Skiveris, violin; Tianhong Yang, piano; Rosemarie Hinkle, flute; and Johnny Mok, cello are performing Kreisler’s Liebesleid for Violin and Piano; and Schön Rosmarin for Violin and Piano; Chaminade’s Concertino for Flute and Piano; Debussy’s Syrinx for Solo Flute; Piazzolla’s Grand Tango for Cello and Piano.

Fr. composer Cecile Chaminade
Johnny Mok. Cello, Cape Ann Symphony performing Piazzolla’s Grand Tango for Cello and Piano

The American Songbook pieces will be performed by the Jazz Dynamics: Byron Winn, vocal; Jeffrey McKeen, piano and vocal; Saul Cohen, sax; and Nick White, bass. The Jazz Dynamics program includes favorites from the Great American Songbook: Berlin’s Blue Skies. Rogers & Hart’s Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered, Arlen & Mercer’s Accentuate the Positive, Webster & Burke’s Black Coffee, Watts & Wyche’s Alright, Okay, You Win, and Thielman & Norman’s Bluesette. Byron Winn and Jeffrey McKeen are members of the Cape Ann Symphony Chorus, while Saul Cohen and Nick White have backed up Chorus members at a number of events. Cape Ann Symphony Chorus Director Rockport’s Wendy Betts has worked with the members of Jazz Dynamics, “Byron, Jeff, Saul and Nick are all highly accomplished individuals in their own professions AND they are incredible musicians. The perfect choice to be the first jazz quartet to perform in the Musicians Unleashed series.”

More about Jazz Dynamics, Manchester residents: A group of Cape Ann professionals, the Jazz Dynamics include dedicated music educator Jeffrey McKeen of Gloucester; former USAF fighter pilot Byron Winn; Radiocarbon dating doctorate physicist Nick White; and emergency room physician Saul Cohen, all of Manchester-by-the-Sea. All members of the Jazz Dynamics have had extensive training in music as well as in their chosen professions.

Jeff McKeen earned his BA in Music Education at Trenton State College and his MA from Grand Canyon University in AZ. After being a public-school music educator for 38 years in NJ he moved to Gloucester. As a bass-baritone professional Jeff has sung with the CAS Chorus and many other organizations and venues. He volunteers with Cape Ann Animal Aid and The Open Door, where he and his wife were the 2018 recipients of the Helen Muise Community Service Award.

Byron L.Winn, Ph.D, is a globally-ranging management consultant and former USAF fighter pilot. Prior to the Cape Ann Symphony Chorus, he performed as a soloist and member of the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum and the US Air Force Academy Cadet Chorale (among others). As a young teenager, he was in the University of Texas String (instruments) Project at the same time as Maestro Udagawa, but they were not aware of each other.

Nick White studied music at Oxford. He taught high school music in England before switching to physics, earning a Doctorate in Radiocarbon dating. He co-founded Diamond Semiconductor in Gloucester to design equipment, which is still in use, for Applied Materials. He met famed New Orleans jazz musician Henri Smith from New Orleans, now living in Gloucester, and got back into music playing bass in many styles and venues.

Physician Saul Cohen is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied jazz performance with George Garzone. Dr. Cohen met Byron, Jeff and Nick as a member of the Rat Pack which was a larger ensemble including a number of Cape Ann Symphony chorus members. Saul is an emergency physician at Beverly and Addison Gilbert Hospitals.

—Seating at this Musicians Unleashed event will be limited thanks to Covid restrictions.—

CAS Board of Directors President Fran White points out, “The lovely St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Gloucester is a wonderfully intimate yet socially distant setting for Music For the Heart. And it will be even more intimate with socially distant seating guidelines in place for the performance including patrons seated in every other pew, and occupied pews with socially distancing between parties. Given current conditions regarding Covid 19, all attendees will be required to show proof of Covid 19 vaccination and will be required to wear a mask. If you were vaccinated in Massachusetts and have a QR code either printed or on your phone we will have a scanner available to validate your status.”

The Cape Ann Symphony’s Musicians Unleashed programs were launched in 2019 and have become a wonderfully popular series with overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience response.

Ticket prices for Music For the Heart are $40. Call Cape Ann Symphony at 978-281-0543 or go to www.capeannsymphony.org for tickets.

  • Photo 1: The Jazz DynamicsPhoto
  • 2: Jazz Dynamics Saxophone player and Emergency Room Physician Saul Cohen of Manchester Photo
  • 3: Jazz Dynamics Vocalist and former USAF fighter pilot Byron Winn of Manchester Photo
  • 4: Jazz Dynamics Pianist/Vocalist and Music Educator Jeffrey McKeen  of Gloucester Photo
  • 5: Jazz Dynamics Bass Player and radiocarbon dating doctorate physicist Nick White of Manchester Photo
  • 6: Johnny Mok. Cello, Cape Ann Symphony performing Piazzolla’s Grand Tango for Cello and Piano. 
  • 7: French Composer Cecile Chaminade 

GOD BLESS AMERICA

Posted on by Kimsmithdesigns

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God Bless America – In thinking about our beautiful country of immigrants and wondering, how does it feel to be a new immigrant in the America of today? History is again repeating itself in the horrendous mistreatment of the Central American refugees.

“God Bless America” was written by Irving Berlin one hundred years ago (1918) while Berlin was serving in the Army, but he set the song aside at that time. Berlin, born Israel Baline, was the son of a Jewish cantor fleeing persecution in Russia. With the rise of Hitler, in 1938 Berlin felt the time was right to release “God Bless America,” as a peace song. The backlash was immediate. Critics said a Jewish immigrant shouldn’t get to celebrate America as his (Berlin also wrote “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” and the popular Thanksgiving song “Plenty to be Thankful For.”)

In 1940, an American Nazi sympathizer wrote in his organization’s pro-Nazi newsletter “(I do) not consider G-B-A a ‘patriotic’ song, in the sense of expressing the real American attitude toward his country, but consider that it smacks of the ‘How glad I am’ attitude of the refugee horde of which Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘We wish no further additions to the persons whose affection for this country is merely a species of pawnbroker patriotism – whose coming here represents nothing but the purpose to change one feeding trough for another feeding trough.”

Does this response to Irving Berlin’s beautiful, patriotic, and now much beloved song sound familiar? Whether emigrating from Europe to America to escape religious persecution (the Pilgrims), starvation from the great potato famine (Irish), abject poverty, exploitation, and violence (Southern Italians and Sicilians), oppressive legislation and poverty (Eastern European Jews), or gang violence and rape (today’s Central American refugees) America is a country of immigrants and refugees. This is our past, our present, and our future. Irving Berlin arrived in America when he was five years old, the same age as many of the children being torn away from their mothers and fathers, some without any hope of ever being reunited with their parents. Imagine if Israel Baline had been torn from his mother’s arms, would we have the beautiful musical legacy given this country by one of her most famous sons?

God Bless America!, a phrase of gratitude young Israel Baline often heard uttered by his immigrant mother.