Power of music exemplified at concert to benefit NYC

Sometimes words just don’t suffice … Music just gets to the heart of it. – concert organizer Karen Eisenhower

CAMDEN – That’s what Tuesday night’s concert was like at the Camden Opera House. Inside the dark theater, a spotlight picked out the lone figure of bagpiper Doug Anderson high up in a box seat. The audience gazed upward, as if for benediction, as he played “Amazing Grace.”

The concert ended like this: With house and stage lights blazing, and the stage filled with the evening’s performers, the entire audience rose to sing “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America.”

From beginning to end, the benefit concert held for the New York City Disaster Relief Fund was a shining example of the power of music.

Organizers Janna Hymes Bianchi and Karen Eisenhower saw the concert as a means to deal with the helplessness so many are feeling so far from New York City after the Sept. 11 tragedy. The concert was pulled together in a week, a remarkably short period of time.

Eisenhower said the response was an immediate “Yes!” when she approached musicians about participating in the concert.

Other performers included pianist Dr. Phillip Silver, cellist Noreen Silver, Doug Anderson, mezzo-soprano Margaret Yauger, bass vocalist Malcolm Smith, the Da Ponte String Quartet, Maine State Poet Laureate Baron Wormser, French horn player Scott Burditt, soprano Jennifer Smith, pianist Baycka Voronietsky, soprano Amie Lavway, pianist Glenn Jenks, trumpet player Joshua Whitehouse, baritone John Adams, pianist Sergio Salvatore, pianist John Haskell, and the Camden Area Regional High School Chamber Singers, accompanied by Julia Morris-Myers, and directed by Kim Murphy.

Among the highlights of the concert were Chopin’s “Nocturne in C minor. Op. 48, No. 1,” performed with passion and flair by Baycka Voronietsky, and trumpeter Joshua Whitehouse’s clear, ascendant playing of “The Prayer of St. Gregory” by Alan Hovhaness. Poet Baron Wormser’s reading of “The Year I Thought the World Was Going to End – 1959” was a poignant reminder that children understand less and more than adults realize.

The young voices of the Camden Chamber Singers urged remembrance, with a setting of “Think on Me” by Mary Queen of Scots. This was followed by a pair of spectacular works. The first was “The Adagio for Strings” by American composer Samuel Barber, performed by the Da Ponte String Quartet. Da Ponte violinist Dean Arthur Stein said, “If this music cannot directly change what happened, it certainly can help in the healing. That, we felt, was our contribution, what we could do with our music.”

Last was “An American Underscore,” a reflection of the soul of New York City and of America. Sergio Salvatore’s improvised piano, with taped sound by Frederick Bianchi, incorporated percussion and layered voices from the past…”Richmond has fallen… One small step for man… I have a dream… Ask not what your country can do for you…” These snippets had the effect of placing the events of Sept. 11 into the continuum of history – a history with a future.

Throughout the evening, most musicians bobbled a note, voices wavered and bows trembled, but not from musical ineptitude. It was not a lack of musicality but an excess of humanity that caused these flaws. If a few performances were not perfect, one can say they were all soul-perfect. Bravos to all, and to the stage crew and volunteers who made a very complicated show seem to flow effortlessly. There are many heroes behind the scenes in these troubled times. May we all learn to work as tirelessly and for as little recognition.