{"id":6063,"date":"2020-01-27T17:25:33","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T17:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=6063"},"modified":"2020-01-31T17:30:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T17:30:26","slug":"review-apollos-fire-delivers-fun-frolicking-appalachian-gathering-at-tuckerman-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/review-apollos-fire-delivers-fun-frolicking-appalachian-gathering-at-tuckerman-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Apollo\u2019s Fire delivers fun, frolicking Appalachian Gathering at Tuckerman Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Worcester Telegram & Gazette<\/a><\/p>\n

By Jonathan Blumhofer<\/p>\n

Who knew that Baroque repertoire and Appalachian folk music were two sides of the same coin? The Cleveland-based ensemble Apollo\u2019s Fire did, apparently. And now, so does Worcester: On Sunday evening, Music Worcester brought the group \u2014 who\u2019d last been here in 2018 playing Telemann and Bach (among others) \u2014 back to Tuckerman Hall for \u201cSugarloaf Mountain: An Appalachian Gathering.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show, which shares its name with Apollo\u2019s eponymous 2015 album, offers a survey of music brought from Ireland and Scotland to the American southeast up through the 19th century. There it mixed with other musical forms \u2014 notably African spirituals and the blues \u2014 to become one of the distinct genres of American folk music.<\/p>\n

Semi-staged and winningly informal, \u201cSugarloaf Mountain\u201d celebrates what Apollo\u2019s artistic director Jeannette Sorrell describes as the four main facets of Appalachian music: singing, dancing, storytelling and prayer.<\/p>\n

For that first aspect, Sunday\u2019s concert was led by soprano Amanda Powell and tenor Ross Hauck. Both proved wonderful performers, singing with clarity, fine diction and warmness of tone \u2014 on top of which they exhibited an easy, natural chemistry in all their interactions.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

The rest of the evening\u2019s offerings showcased Apollo\u2019s Fire either as performers or as players and composers\/arrangers.<\/p>\n

Cellist Ren\u00e9 Schiffer was most impressively represented in the latter category with his variations on a pair of Irish reels, \u201cPretty Peg\u201d and \u201cFar from Home,\u201d which he and violinist Susanna Perry Gilmore dispatched with fiery spirit.<\/p>\n

Hammered dulcimer player Tina Bergmann took a stirring solo turn in a set of her own arrangements of \u201cPretty Betty Martin,\u201d \u201cKaty Did\u201d and \u201cRed Rockin\u2019 Chair,\u201d handling the lead vocals, too, on the last number.<\/p>\n

Brian Kay\u2019s mastery of an array of strummed instruments dazzled throughout the evening, but he left an especially strong impression with \u201cNottamun Town,\u201d both for the quality of his singing and the vigorousness of his playing of the long-necked hammered dulcimer.<\/p>\n

Flautist Kathie Stewart delivered some lively duets with violinist Gilmore in the night\u2019s opening set of reels (\u201cFarewell to Ireland\u201d and \u201cHighlander\u2019s Farewell\u201d), as well as \u201cGlory in the Meeting House,\u201d a rousing tribute to Appalachian hymnody and fiddle tunes.<\/p>\n

Sorrell ably presided over it all, either as harpsichordist (she had a lovely, if brief, solo moment in \u201cI Wonder as I Wander\u201d), emcee, arranger, or lyricist.<\/p>\n

In sum, Sunday\u2019s \u201cSugarloaf Mountain\u201d proved musically arresting, diverting (the cast\u2019s playing off of occasional hiccups in the narration, for one, was quite funny), and, ultimately \u2014 in its memorable treatment of timeless themes of love, loss, faith, and the like \u2014 touching.<\/p>\n

Read the full review.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Worcester Telegram & Gazette By Jonathan Blumhofer Who knew that Baroque repertoire and Appalachian folk music were two sides of the same coin? The Cleveland-based ensemble Apollo\u2019s Fire did, apparently. And now, so does Worcester: On Sunday evening, Music Worcester brought the group \u2014 who\u2019d last been here in 2018 playing Telemann and … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4032,4759,3655,4033,3910,3613,4030,3686,3612],"class_list":["post-6063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apollos-fire","tag-baroque","tag-chamber","tag-chamber-music","tag-classical","tag-conductor","tag-early-music","tag-orchestra","tag-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6064,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6063\/revisions\/6064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/4326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}