Symphony, San Diego Rep give socially distanced performances

By Eileen Wingard

Eileen Wingard

SAN DIEGO — Two San Diego downtown theaters were illuminated last weekend, with live performances streamed from their audience-less venues.

All the players, except the vocalists and wind players, were masked when performing, and all were seated at least six feet from one another.

On Friday evening, in Copley Symphony Hall, the San Diego Symphony, under the direction of its Music Director, Raphael Payare, presented Together Apart: Strings, Winds, and Brass, featuring the orchestra in smaller groups; and Saturday evening, at the Lyceum Theatre, the San Diego Rep’s Lipinsky Jewish Arts Festival presented Jews, Jazz and Justice, curated by Yale Strom. Both programs are still available for viewing.

Strings, Winds, and Brass opened with the brass section of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra standing and seated in various parts of Symphony Hall, recreating the antiphonal ambience of cathedral interiors. They performed two works written in Venice during the Baroque Period, Giovanni Gabrieli’s Sonata pian’ e forte and G Battista Buonamente’s Sonata a Six. The instrumentalists echoed and blended with majestic glory, reaffirming the fact that our orchestra has a most magnificent brass section.

Symphony #1 by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was performed by a chamber orchestra numbering two dozen players, mostly strings.  This little-known work was composed by a West Indies native who lived most of his life in Paris. Chevalier de Saint-Georges was the illegitimate son of a wealthy white plantation owner in the West Indies and his native Guadalupe slave of African descent.

The composer became famous not only as an outstanding violinist, conductor and composer, but also as a champion fencer.

His four-movement work was characterized by a light-hearted, airy quality which, although similar to Mozart and Haydn, possessed its own unique spirit.

The orchestra expanded with several more players to perform Fuga con pajarillo by Payere’s Venezuelan countryman, Aldemaro Romero. The fugue, utilizing Venezuelan waltzes with syncopated rhythm, created exciting fervor.

The final work of the evening was Antonin Dvorak’s Serenade for Winds, cello and bass.

The pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, three horns, one cello and one bass concluded the program with this four-movement work,  filled with folk-like tunes and romantic gestures that make Dvorak’s music so engaging.

This free program is still available on line.

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For Jews, Jazz and Justice, at the Lyceum Theatre

Yale Strom had his prize-winning five-piece band, Hot Pstromi, spread out on the stage, Trip Sprague on saxophone, flute and harmonica, Gunnar Biggs on String Bass, Kevin Cox on drums, Jeff Pekarek on guitar and Yale Strom on violin. After opening with a familiar klezmer tune and vocalist Elizabeth Schwartz singing her Yiddish signature song, they offered an unusual novelty, a Yiddish Suffragette song, Chaye, the Policeman. Although it is a Yiddish song, many of the words are English as it sings about Chaye becoming a policeman, a detective, a mayor, or even president.

With Hot Pstromi’s fine back-up, Rebecca Jade, San Diego’s outstanding jazz vocalist, sang Billy Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” and a stylized version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Next came the special treat of the evening, acclaimed actress, Tovah Feldshuh, streaming from her home in NYC, sang composer Moshe Milner’s Yiddish song, “Cheider.” Her detailed introduction made it easy to understand as she alternated between her portrayal of the teacher and his six-year-old student, learning Torah by first learning to read the Aleph Bet.

Elizabeth Schwartz returned to sing an original Hanukkah song, “The Fool Over Yonder,” from Yale’s  recent Hanukkah album. The clever lyrics continued: “many a lesson you should ponder.”

Schwartz and Jade harmonized in a rendition of “Lean On Me” before the show returned to Tovah Feldshuh. She told about her four meetings with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before portraying her in the Jonathan Shapiro play, Sisters In Law.

Tovah then donned black horn-rimmed glasses, a collar over her black gown and gave a convincing impersonation of RBG, in a clever ditty, with push-ups and all.

The closing song, with a map of blue and red states in the background, was “Georgia On My Mind.”

Cost for this delightful program is $18. San Diego Rep Box Office:(619) 544-1000.

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Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts.  She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com