Chatham Concert Series Stages Grand Finale

By Susan Paynter

Friday evening, April 30, brought the final performances of the Chatham Concert Series to Emmanuel’s Sanctuary.  Headliners Liz Frazer, Soprano, and Minjung Seo, Pianist, entertained an appreciative audience with a lively and varied program.

The two women exhibited the fruits of their extensive musical education and their national and international performance experience.  Seo, an active solo and collaborative artist demonstrated a fine touch and great sensitivity as she accompanied Ms. Frazer in her stunning display of vocal and emotional range. 

Those attending were enthusiastically caught up in the emotions dramatically portrayed by Ms. Frazer as she took them from three charming pieces of love and longing by Ernest Chausson to five novel songs (one might even say “quirky” songs) taken from the letters of Calamity Jane to her daughter (fathered by Wild Bill Hickok) which were set to music by Libby Larson.

As it happens, 2010 is the 100^th anniversary year of the birth of Samuel Barber, and Seo and Frazer performed three of his pieces as an ode to the great American composer.  (In the first concert of the series, the Saturn String Quartet had also feted Barber, who Kevin Zakresky, Creator of the Chatham Concert Series, believes is America’s finest composer.)

As appropriate punctuation to the bitter-sweet end of a wonderful season of music in Chatham, Seo artfully accompanied Frazer in her closing renditions of two heartbreaking arias from Bizet’s Carmen and Puccini’s Tosca.  A misty-eyed audience showed its appreciation with a standing ovation.

Sadly, this year’s concert series is over.  But the future of classical music in Chatham looks bright!  As he has in the past, Zakresky, Music Director of Chatham Hall, introduced two young, local guest performers to the concert audience:  Libby Goldstein, Flutist of Martinsville; and Jae Lee, Guitarist of Chatham Hall.

Accompanied by Zakresky on piano, Goldstein did a superb job with a lovely Bizet minuet from L’Arlésienne (“The Girl from Arles”).   Taking the audience from France to Spain, and performing solo, Lee showed great delicacy of string work with a Francisco Tarrega romance.

Mr. Zakresky has brought great joy to Emmanuel Episcopal and the Town of Chatham with his classical concert series.  We are blessed to have him, and have been delighted to serve as venue for yet another marvelous season of world-class music!