Celebrating the Music of Irving Berlin
For baritone and voice instructor John Murelle, entertainment and “enlightenment” go hand in hand. Accompanied by pianist Chris Morris and guest singer Johanna Stipetic, Murelle will present a program of songs by the American songwriter and composer Irving Berlin in a concert at Wellfleet Public Library (55 West Main St.) on Saturday, Feb. 17, at 3 p.m.
To enlighten his audience on Berlin’s contributions to American music, Murelle has a presentation on the songwriter’s life and work that will play as he performs, and he will fill in with information about Berlin between songs. When most people think of Irving Berlin, says Murelle, “they probably know White Christmas and maybe God Bless America.” What they might not know is Berlin’s life story: an immigrant who arrived as a child with his family in New York City in 1893 to a life of abject poverty and made his way to wealth and worldwide renown through his hard work and songwriting.
Murelle describes Berlin’s songs as a part of the canon of the “Silver Age” of musical theater: an era that was followed by the Golden Age ushered in by Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! in 1941. But before that, composers in the Silver Age “were really trying to forge a new American art form, not trying to emulate opera or operetta,” says Murelle.
In the show, Murelle and Stipetic will perform individually and together. Murelle has included both well-known and more obscure songs in the program, ones that he hopes will be new favorites for the audience. He says there’s plenty to love: “The marriage of words and music, the elegance of the songs Berlin wrote for Hollywood, that jazz, that slang, that spiciness and naughtiness of being in America in the 1930s.”
The concert is free. See wellfleetlibrary.org for information. —Dorothea Samaha
Celebrating 15 Years of Art Reach at PAAM
This month, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) is celebrating the 15th anniversary of Art Reach, its youth art program, with an exhibition highlighting the work of alumni, teachers, and current students.
While the history of youth programming at PAAM dates back to the 1920s, the 2005 construction of four classrooms in the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Museum School allowed PAAM to develop year-round youth education. In 2008, then-Curator of Education Lynn Stanley founded the Art Reach program.
Since then, Art Reach has served hundreds of young people on the Outer Cape with three integrated arts classes — Art on the Edge, for students ages 9 to 11; Art Reach 101 for ages 12 to 14; and Art Reach Studio for ages 15 to 19 — which run every Saturday over two 10-week semesters in the fall and winter. The program supports young artists by giving them space to practice their craft in PAAM’s Museum School studios, study the permanent and rotating collections, and learn about and be inspired by Provincetown’s rich history as an artist colony. The programs are offered free of charge and include materials and transportation.
The exhibit is a window into the creative trajectory of Art Reach’s past and current students as well as the teachers who mentored them. Grace Emmet, PAAM’s current curator of community education, writes that the “exhibition is a special opportunity for alumni to show where their creativity has taken them since their time in Art Reach and to re-engage with the teachers and peers who helped shape them as artists and as young people.”
The exhibition, titled “Beyond Reach: Art Reach at 15,” was curated by Emmet and Elliot Shafnacker and is on view at PAAM (460 Commercial St.) until March 10. There will be a public reception on Friday, Feb. 16 at 6 p.m. Admission to the museum is $15 (free for PAAM members and children under 16). See paam.org for information. —Oliver Egger
A Showcase for Provincetown Galleries
An installation of artwork this month at the Provincetown Arts Society (466 Commercial St.) showcases the strength and depth of Provincetown’s art gallery scene and the unique setting of the house in which the work is displayed.
Presented in collaboration with the Provincetown Gallery Association and curated by Gene Tartaglia, the exhibition includes 36 artists from a dozen Provincetown galleries. “I’ve never had that many artists inside the house at one time,” says Tartaglia.
For Tartaglia, assembling the show was an intensely personal process. “I always choose what I love,” he says. “I trust my eye.” His curatorial process involves hanging work in locations that suit each room, trusting that a “flow” will happen as visitors walk from room to room. “Each little vignette tells a story,” he says.
Closed for the Season, a large 1993 oil painting by Nancy Whorf, hangs behind a lamp in the front entryway. Here we see Whorf using a palette knife to move large masses of oil paint around the canvas. The painting, on loan from Berta Walker Gallery, depicts a dog walker in the distance while snow piles up around Commercial Street and Masonic Place.
Fishermen and Nets by Vollian Rann, also from the Walker Gallery, hangs over the mantel in the living room. A fisherman in yellow overalls talks to a novice who stands by a large tree trunk holding a net in his hands.
In Larry Brooks’s Pears, an oil painting from Arthur Egeli Gallery, we see three muscular pears resting on delicate parchment paper. The subtle reds of the table complement the green of the cutting board. The shiny pears reflect their surroundings.
Vicky Tomayko’s Black Bird Wood Block, from Schoolhouse Gallery, hangs next to the front staircase. A bird, chased by a black beetle, looks back at all the flowers swirling around it.
Tartaglia says that the house, the former residence of writer and activist Mary Heaton Vorse, has become a unique gathering place to celebrate the arts. “We pay attention to whatever you come in contact with,” he says. “I’m really in love with the process and the magnificent space I can hang it in.”
The exhibition is open to the public by appointment until March 17 and can also be viewed online. See provincetownartgalleryassociation.com for information; email [email protected] to make an appointment. —Pat Kearns
A ‘Dark and Immersive’ Cabaret
Since its heyday in the salons and cafés of Paris and New Orleans around the turn of the last century, absinthe — that potent and notorious anise-flavored spirit distilled from wormwood and other medicinal herbs — has inspired songs, poems, and creative musings. Outlawed in many places for decades due to its alleged addictive and psychoactive properties, it has experienced something of a renaissance in recent years — and is now one of the inspirations for a cabaret performance at the Crown & Anchor (247 Commercial St., Provincetown) this weekend.
Written, directed, and performed by Brittany Rolfs and Joao Santos, “The Green Fairy Salon d’Amour” takes its name from a popular nickname for absinthe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, referring to la fée verte that was said to appear to habitual imbibers during their alcohol-induced hallucinations. Santos describes the show as “a dark, immersive fantasy” that tells the tale of Summer and Soloman [sic], a queer woman and man who perform as a jazz duo together and turn to absinthe as a way of making themselves numb to a world in which they encounter hostility because of their identities.
The music in the show — arranged by musical director (and Santos’s real-life partner) Andrew Sheranian — covers a wide range of genres, artists, and styles, from show tunes by Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber to jazz and romantic standards by Ella Fitzgerald, Nancy Wilson, and Frank Sinatra. “There’s even classical music by Chopin — twice!” says Santos.
Santos says that this version of the show, which was mounted in different formats last fall and on New Year’s Eve, will be restaged in an expanded residency at the Crown & Anchor this summer and will include the same characters and storyline with the addition of guest performers and new numbers that will change weekly. “It’s absolutely one of my favorite things I’ve ever done,” he says, “and with two of the people I love, respect, and admire the most.”
The show will be part of a President’s Day weekend schedule of events at the Crown & Anchor including “Star Crossed,” a live astrology dating show; a Tunnel of Love “queer Ptown formal” fundraiser; the opening of an exhibition of new works by Italian painter Fabrizio Tiribilli in the Crown gallery; and brunch with New York City’s “The Boy Band Project.” Tickets for “The Green Fairy Salon d’Amour” are $34 to $45 at onlyatthecrown.com. —John d’Addario
