“I’ve liked playing with lights since I was a kid,” says Chris Racine, one of Provincetown’s most sought after DJs and lighting-effect designers. Racine and his collaborator, Shelley Jennings, are […]
Music
MUSIC MATTERS
The Cape Youth Orchestra Plays On
One local ensemble persists in supporting the next generation of musicians
A dozen or so students watch, intently, as Paige Wayner, a flutist in the Cape Youth Orchestra, prepares to play Ernest Bloch’s Suite Modale in a master class for Zachary […]
THAT WAS THEN
Provincetown’s Forgotten Symphony Orchestra
How Joseph Hawthorne tried to build a Cape Tip Tanglewood
Did you know that Provincetown used to have a symphony? The Provincetown Symphony Orchestra, sometimes called the Provincetown Symphony Society, was founded in 1955 by the conductor Joseph Hawthorne. The […]
NATIVE TALENT
Mwalim DaPhunkee Professor Won’t Let Covid Slow Him Down
A Renaissance man from Mashpee and the Bronx
“I grew up in both the Bronx and Mashpee,” says Morgan James Peters, also known as Mwalim DaPhunkee Professor, in his recording studio, Polyphonic Studios, in Buzzards Bay. “My mom’s […]
SIGHT AND SOUND
Classical Crossover: Hawthorne, Dickinson, and Music
Portraits of cellists offer insights on Provincetown arts
The viewer is immediately drawn to the eyes. This is true of many paintings by Provincetown art colony founder Charles Webster Hawthorne. They are dark brown and serious. The glint […]
PERFORMANCES
Genie Morrow Sings of the Past and of Renewal
Her Payomet concert with Sputnik the Band features songs about James Dean
Sitting at the top of a set of weathered wooden stairs overlooking the ocean, Genie Morrow seems to belong in Wellfleet’s wild, windswept landscape. “I believe we can access creativity […]
CONCERT REVIEW
Renowned Baroque Cellist Performs in Cotuit
Phoebe Carrai provides a thrilling return to live music and Bach
“This is the first indoor [musical] event that anyone on the Cape can experience since February,” said David Kuehn, executive director of Cotuit Center for the Arts, introducing a solo […]
CONCERT REVIEW
Now Streaming: Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra
You can hear a pin drop during its performance of Barber’s Adagio for Strings
Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is a warhorse — a piece of classical music that is played so repeatedly, it ought to get old. But it doesn’t. Partly because of […]
GOING LIVE
From a Distance, Trying to Connect
Outer Cape performers reflect on a muted summer and chilly times to come
The summer came and went. And against all odds, we had live music, cabaret, and drag. Performers and venues acclimated to an entirely new way of performing — outdoors and […]
LIVE MUSIC
Thea Hopkins Creates Her Own Americana
Her stark lyrics draw on imagist poetry
This Friday, singer-songwriter Thea Hopkins will be performing on the Payomet Performing Arts Center’s Drive-in stage, offering the rare pleasure, these days, of experiencing a live musician in concert on […]
OPERA
Goethe’s Tortured Hero, Set to Massenet’s Music
Werther was originally rejected by the Paris Opera as too ‘gloomy’
Jules Massenet’s music has never moved me. It’s too thickly orchestrated, and his choice of dramas too extreme. Werther, easily Massenet’s best opera, filled with romantic melodies and dissonant outbursts, bears the […]
PAST PERFORMANCES
Discovering Thelma Given, Provincetown’s Paganini
A rare recording is a window into another era
It begins with the crackling sound of vinyl. The violin strums its highest strings, then tunes to the piano. An audience member coughs. These are the opening sounds of a […]
OPERA
Met’s Falstaff Is a Feast for Eyes and Ears
Verdi’s complex score is perhaps his greatest
Giuseppe Verdi was 77 when he began work on Falstaff, his last and arguably his greatest musical achievement, and his only successful comedy. More than 50 years earlier, he had lost […]
BACH TO BASICS
Get Ready to Baroque and Roll
Music of the 18th century thrives in Provincetown
PROVINCETOWN — Boston may be a mecca for it, but there is authentic Baroque music happening right here on the Outer Cape. Great Music on Sundays @5 is presenting two […]
ARTS DURING COVID
Chamber Music Ensembles Attune to the Pandemic
Breathing together, with and without a mask
Could this be a new age for chamber music? With small ensembles and limited audiences, chamber music certainly seems more Covid-friendly than, say, Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand.” But what […]
