For All Our Mothers
Just before Mother’s Day this year (2010), a concert series promotor, Positive Motions, under the artistic directorship of Ruslan Biryukov, presented a fascinating night at an extraordinarily-acoustic’d First Baptist Church in Glendale, California.
The first half was classical music for violin, trumpet, guitar, cello and piano and the second hour was an appearance by mezzo-soprano Ruby Hinds in her one-woman (with pianist) show on the late contralto, Marian Anderson.
The evening, which started late (an indication of some of the amateurish qualities of the event), featured mostly younger musicians, in new and older pieces, including Gianopoulos’ “Splashes of Spring,” from his Sonata for Two Celli (Ruslan Biryukov and Maksim Velichkin); Albeniz’ Cadiz for guitar (Iren Arutynyan); Dyens’ “Fuoco” from Libra sonatine for guitar (first movement), with Arutynyan); Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor (first movement, (Andrea Yu and Mary Au on piano); Alfred Reeds’ Trumpet Concerto, 2nd movement (Ilya Sergienko , trumpet, and Yana Reznik, piano); Rakov’s Humoresque (Sergienko and Reznikk); William Grant Still’s “Mother and Child,” (Danielle Belen and Yana Reznik) and de Sarasate’s Introduction and Tarantella (Belen and Reznik).
The playing was flawless by all concerned but Biryukov’s between-sets patter was off-putting, although he is handsome and does have his charms. Background on the unknown pieces would have been more appropriate for the audience pulled from the various communities surrounding the gorgeous Glendale Church.
The highlight of the evening was Ruby Hinds’ hour-long show on the professional life of contralto Anderson, whose career was made by the refusal of the racist Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, D.C. chapter, to allow her to sing in Constitutional Hall in 1939. It was an ungracious slap that was, indeed, heard around the world after First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the organization and President Franklin D. Roosevelt allowed her to perform an open-air concert, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, for 75,000 citizens.
Hinds’ play has Ms. Anderson nervously ruminating on her life just before her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1955, as Ulrika in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, a historic moment as it opened the doors to other African-American opera singers, conductors and technicians.
Ms. Hinds’ extraordinary sound – full bodied and amply sweet – played well in the Church environment for a full house. Her accompanist, Frank Fetta, supported her every note with self-deprecating style. The acting was solid and the show is a gem: succinct, persuasive and entertaining. See if it you ever have a chance.