Jazz concert to top off Old West End festival

5/31/2012

This weekend's Old West End Festival will include lots of outdoor music along with home tours, garage sales, art shows, and the Wamba Parade. The Toledo Symphony's 5K Stampede will have live classical accompaniment from porches of houses along the run route. A variety of acts will keep the Main Stage at Parkwood and Woodruff avenues lively.

And, to cap off Saturday events, the Cathedral Concert Series will feature local jazz artists Mark Lemle and Eric Dickey in a free concert at 7:30 p.m. in Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral, 2535 Collingwood Blvd.

The performance will be a debut for the duo's new CD, "Wind, Stone and Ivory," with an eclectic mix of jazz standards, works by Keith Jarrett and Jay Ungar, and original pieces.

●

A free performance at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in the Recital Hall of the University of Toledo Center for Performing Arts will represent Barbara Rondelli Perry's swan song as a professor of music. Now professor emerita from the department where she shaped dozens of up and coming singers, Rondelli Perry will be serenaded by 13 of those fledged students.

Singers will be Kevin Foos, Janet Brehm Ziegler, Jodi Jobuck, Scott Knueven, Michelle Perrine, Jo-Anne Chrysochoos, Ebone Waweru, Michele Marszalkowski, Sasha Noori, Joyce Rush, Sam Mason, Dusty Selman, and Anthony Ferrer.

On the program will be works from opera and oratorios as well as art songs by Mozart, Handel, Gounod, Puccini, Wagner, Rorem, Gershwin, Brahms, and more. Robert Ballinger and Phillip Clark will accompany the singers.

Joining the vocalists will be violinist Brenda van der Merwe, the honoree's daughter, who has a doctorate from Boston University.

●

Reminders from last week:

● "Movie Memories," the Toledo Symphony's family concert based on Hollywood hits will begin at 7 p.m. Friday at Centennial Terrace, the historic dance spot at 5773 Centennial Rd. at Erie Street in Sylvania. Resident conductor Jeffrey Pollock will lead the orchestra in music from movies such as Gone With the Wind, Jaws, Star Wars, and Jurassic Park.

General admission tickets are $15, with reserved seats $25. Children 12 and under are free, but the Sylvania Recreation District asks that reservations be made for all attending. For reservations, call 419-882-1500.

● "Melodies on the Maumee" will help kick off the War of 1812 Bicentennial in Perrysburg's Fort Meigs historical center, 29100 West River Rd., Perrysburg. The concert also will mark the 50th anniversaries of both the Perrysburg Symphony Orchestra and the Glassmen Drum and Bugle Corps, which will perform outdoors at 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

Newly appointed music director Robert Mirakian will lead the PSO in a program of patriotic and light classical music, concluding with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. The Glassmen Drum and Bugle Corps will perform throughout the concert, joining the PSO for the grand finale.

Admission will be $10 for adults and $5 for children. Attendees should bring chairs or blankets plus their own refreshments.

Concert tickets also will open the Fort Meigs doors throughout the day preceding. On hand will be War of 1812 re-creators in uniform with hands-on activities for kids, and weapons demonstrations. The Glassmen will provide martial sounds.

● Collage V, the collaborative concert organized by Masterworks Chorale, Ballet Theatre of Toledo, and other local performance groups, will introduce the first local "Idols" during the performance, to start at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Valentine Theatre.

Chosen a la American Idol audition style, the singers are Tommy Cobau, Grace Wipfli, and Ali Rose Hotz. They will be introduced and perform during the concert.

Tickets are $12-$35 at 419-242-2787 or at the door.

●

Get those rusty pipes cleaned out because it's time for Summer Sings again -- the University of Toledo series where amateur and professional vocalists come together to rehearse and perform major choral works in a relaxed atmosphere.

Coordinated by Stephen Hodge, professor of choral performance at UT, this 17th season will start June 5 with Arthur Honegger's "King David" oratorio (recently performed at St. Hyacinth Church). On June 12, Donna Tozer-Wipfli, artistic director of Masterworks Chorale, will lead the John Rutter Gloria. Hodge will return to conduct Mozart's Credo Mass on June 19.

All sessions will begin at 7 p.m., with sign up available starting at 6:30 p.m., in the Recital Hall of the UT Center for Performing Arts, near the Law School. Scores are provided for each work. Soloists will be on hand to enhance the songs. Cost per session is $9; purchasing all three sessions will be $25. For information, contact Hodge at Stephen.hodge@utoledo.edu or 419-530-4558.

●

June means the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, this year in its 19th edition, offering top-flight musicians performing classical works in select venues in the Detroit area and Ann Arbor.

Pianist James Tocco is artistic director, organizing several dozen soloists and ensembles such as the Eisenhower Dance Ensemble and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, into 18 distinctive programs.

The opening concert is set for 8 p.m. June 9 in the Seligman Performing Arts Center of Detroit Country Day School, 22305 West 13 Mile Rd., Beverly Hills, Mich. Works by Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky Les Noces are on the program.

Performers will include pianists Tocco, Sofja Gulbadamova, Pei-Shan Lee, Panayas Lyras, and Deborah Moriarty and cellist Paul Katz; sopranos Lauren Skuce and Molly Fillmore; tenor Jason Wickson; baritone Daniel Gross, the Michigan State University Chorale with conductor David Rayl, and the Michigan State Percussion Ensemble.

A 3 p.m. concert June 10 in Grosse Pointe Memorial Church, 16 Lakeshore Dr., Grosse Pointe Farms, will offer Arensky's Quartet for Violin, Viola, and two Cellos; Prokofiev's Excerpts from Romeo and Juliet transcribed for piano solo, and Brahms Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25. Performers will be be Gulbadamova, Tocco, Katz, and members of the Ariel Quartet.

Further subscription concerts are set for June 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, and 23. Subscriptions are available for three, five, or seven concerts with prices from $$90-170. Individual concert tickets start at $25 with student prices $10. A surcharge of $5 is added for purchase at the door.

For more information and tickets, call 248-559-2097 or toll free 877-884-5263 or visit greatlakeschambermusic.org/scripts/_order.asp.

A non-subscription series runs June 15, 17, and 24 at Kerrytown Concert House, 415 North Fourth Ave., Ann Arbor. For specific information on those concerts and for tickets, call 734-769-2999 or kerrytownconcerthouse.com.

Items for News of Music should be sent to svallongo@theblade.com at least two weeks ahead of the event.