The Old Song and Dance

From the Vault of the Distant Muses Dept.: Alongside the restaurant review I posted last week was a handful of other pieces of mine that appeared in Metroland in 1987. I chose three of them to illustrate the variety of goings-on in the Albany, NY, area back then. The Boys Choir of Harlem ceased operations in 2007, as Wikipedia is happy to inform you. Pianist Pola Baytelman continues to perform and record, and although Alvin Ailey died two years after my piece appeared (my writing had nothing to do with it), the dance company he founded continues to thrive.

                                                                                                 

YOU GO BACK TO 1968 to find the beginnings of the Boys Choir of Harlem, when Dr. Walter J. Turnbull and Ruth Nixon started a small choir in the basement of Ephesus Church in the well-known Manhattan district. Then the church burned down the following year.

The Boys Choir of Harlem

They moved to a local community center and had to endure a lack of heat in the winter. And their travels continued: in 1975 they were at the Church of the Intercession; in 1984 they got their first real home, an entire floor in what was P.S. 68, giving them classrooms, office space -- and proper performance areas.

An independent day school for girls was founded there in 1979; next year a similar co-ed program will be started.

But that’s hardly all that’s been happening with this active group. A year ago this month they performed on a TV special with Harry Belafonte. In June, Dr. Turnbull was given the Presidential Volunteer Action Award at the White House.

The boys sang at the Recommemoration Ceremonies last July for the Statue of Liberty, and they were heard with soprano Kathleen Battle in her latest album, a program of Christmas music. Plus they have their own album in the works, to be released shortly.

To remain in the choir places an even greater demand on the youngsters than a sports career: they must maintain a B average in school, but it’s a matter of record that every chorister over the past five years graduated from high school.

The Boys Choir of Harlem will give one performance at the Egg, Empire State Institute for the Performing Arts, Empire State Plaza, Albany, Sunday afternoon at 2 with a program as varied as the choir is versatile. Handel’s “Ode for St. Cecelia’s Day,” a Stabat Mater by Pergolesi and Mozart’s “Regina Coeli” start things off; there also will be songs by Irving Berlin and William Dawson, a South African freedom song by Miriam Makeba titled “Nonggonggo” and “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang.

Tickets for the 2 PM concert are $12 and $10, with $7 student rush tickets available a half-hour before showtime.
 

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LAST SPRING, pianist Pola Baytelman played a concert with soprano Anne Turner that included “The Party Songs” by Joseph Fennimore. This piqued her interest in the composer’s work. When she presents a recital at the Memorial Chapel, Union College, Union Street, Schenectady, Monday evening at 8, a Fennimore solo will be on the bill: “An Old Soft Shoe,” from a piano suite titled “Foxtrot.”

“I was going to put some Chilean dances on the program,” the Chilean-born Baytelman explains, “but this piece worked out just right.”

Pola Baytelman

She is meticulous about her programming. For this recital, she has been working on Schumann’s “Carnival” since the beginning of last year. “I like to have one piece as the core of a program,” she explains.  “Last year it was the Schubert B-flat major sonata. When I started to put this program together, I read through "Carnival’ in January, then stopped for a couple of months. Then I read everything I could find about the piece – I like to do that with all the pieces I play – and I memorized it over the summer.

“It’s a difficult work because it’s in so many episodes. Like the name says, it is a carnival, and each little piece within has its own special characteristics. It’s a parade of special characters.”

Also on the program are a sonata by Haydn and two short works by Schoenberg.

Baytelman made her debut with the Chilean Symphony Orchestra when she was 17. She was a Fulbright student at the new England Conservatory of Music, from which she graduated with highest honors.

She has appeared as soloist locally with the Albany Symphony and the Boston Pops. The concert on Monday is free.

– Metroland Magazine, 8 January 1987

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DR. WALTER J. TURNBULL founded the Boys Choir of Harlem in 1968 to give kids in the neighborhood something to do. “They look like angels, don’t they?” he asked the audience at the Egg last Sunday between songs. “Well, they’re devils underneath.”

Maybe so, but these devils can sing. And dance. And they took us from Pergolesi to Kool and the Gang in the course of one amazing concert.

The 41 boys of all sizes took to the stage for a three-part concert that began with a choral section of Handel’s “Ode for St. Cecelia’s Day” and continued with a Magnificat and Stabat Mater by Pergolesi and Mozart’s Regina Coeli. All were done with complete musical conviction with energetic accompaniment by a very accomplished pianist, Alva Nelson.

The choir performed everything from memory, which is hardly necessary but an impressive feat – and good for concentration.

Their costumes ranged from austere robes and sashes to scarlet blazers to colorful t-shirts – each befitting the mood of the particular material. From Baroque and Classical we journeyed to a set of American songs that began with “Shenendoah” and took us through spirituals and Irving Berlin’s setting of Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus,” a Statue of Liberty-related song that celebrated the choir’s performance at the Lady’s recent rededication in New York Harbor.

The stage for Act Two was set with keyboards and drums; Nelson was joined by Dan Glover (piano), Clyde Bullard (bass) and Tony Lewis (drums).

Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” featured well-executed choreography, part of a set that became a continuous sequence of rousing song and dance. The material ranged from the uplifting (Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” with a solo by Akin Cook) to the sentimental (“Grandma’s Hands,” another Withers number).

“Nonggonggo” is a freedom song by South African writer and singer Miriam Makeba, in a Howard Roberts setting that emphasized traditional rhythms and harmonies. It needed more attention, though: it was just sung through once, whereas it could have been explained a little, translated, sung again – and even sung by the audience. 

The foot-stomping “Goin’ Up Yonder” was the finale that brought the house to its feet. This is more than just a choir: there are wonderful solo voices (George Ewell deserved and got a big hand for his numbers), great ensemble work and a theatrical sense that could sell the most hard-hearted house. But who could fail to succumb to this kind of talent and charm?  

By the time they danced away to their encore, “Take the ‘A’ Train,” the Boys Choir of Harlem had the audience in its pocket.

– Metroland Magazine, 15 January 1987

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WHEN SYLVIA WATERS began her dance studies, a company like the Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble “absolutely didn’t exist. So the question was how do you get into a company? Not all of them hold auditions, so you just had to hang in there and make yourself accessible.”
  
Now, as Artistic Director of Ailey Rep, she oversees a program that gives young dancers the opportunity to study, to perform, to work with professionals. Waters, a former Ailey dancer, has held this position since the group’s founding in 1974.

Sylvia Waters and Dudley Williams 
in Steve Sarnasado's Metallics. 
Photo by Fred Fehl

We can get an up-close look at Ailey Rep when the company comes to the Egg, Empire State Plaza, Albany, Friday at 8 PM. The program comprises three works: “Streams,” “Knudsen Variations” and “Icefire.”

Ailey himself choreographed the first-named, first performed in 1970 when Waters was still a company member. “I was part of the original cast,” she says. “For the repertory ensemble, this is an interesting challenge even while it gives them an opportunity to do all the things they love.”

Czech composer Miroslav Kabelec wrote the “Eight Inventions” the work is danced to. “He’s not too well known in the West, but he saw us perform during a tour of Europe.

“It’s scored for a percussion ensemble. There isn’t really a story line. It’s austere: the 12 dancers wear unitards and tights.”

Another former Ailey-an, Warren Spears, choreographed the “Knudsen Variations” in 1982. “Warren is very much in demand now in Europe,” Waters explains. “He choreographed a commissioned score from Kenneth Knudsen. It’s an electronic, minimalist work, very high-energy, very “dancey.’ And he based the choreography on a fashion show: the dancers start with many layers of clothing that come off throughout the piece.”

The program finishes with a favorite program-closer, “Icefire,” described by Waters as “a jazz samba. The music is by Pat Metheney and Lile Mays. Fred Benjamin choreographed it and there are elements of ballet, jazz and modern. It builds to a an exciting, climactic finish.”

Waters describes the young dancers of Ailey Rep as “very serious about what they do. They’re very disciplined and dedicated. And they’re all hoping to be in the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, or some major company. They’re all here to make a career of dance.”

Tickets for the performance are $13 and are on sale at the box office and CBO outlets. Student rush tickets at $7 will be sold a half-hour before curtain time.

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“Ballet de France” comes to Proctor’s tonight for a single performance, dancing a popular story – ”Romeo and Juliet” – to a not-so-popular score, that of Hector Berlioz.

Not that nobody likes the Berlioz work – far from it. But it’s usually just played as a symphonic piece.

The 40-member ensemble was founded in 1985, established through the patronage of the City of Paris. Choreographer Gray Veredon worked with the music of Berlioz four years ago when the Metropolitan Opera asked him to set a dance in their production of the massive opera “Les Troyens.”

His work also has been danced by companies in Berlin, New York, Washington, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere.

Tickets for the 8 PM performance are $16, $14 and $10 with discounts for balletomanes under 18; they’re on sale at the box office and CBO outlets.
 
– Metroland Magazine, 15 January 1987