Video: Morristown’s Got Talent 2012 preview

Here is a sneak preview of some of the acts that will vie for the $1,000 top prize at Morristown’s Got Talent!, which celebrates its fifth anniversary on Feb. 29.

Ninety-seven acts wanted in, but only 16 made the final cut.

Tickets are $20-$75, with proceeds benefiting programs of the Morris School District. Call the Mayo Performing Arts Center at 973-539-8008 or visit the show website for tickets.

READ MORE ABOUT MORRISTOWN’S GOT TALENT 2012

COVERAGE OF MORRISTOWN’S GOT TALENT 2011

 

David Garrett’s fiery fiddling lights up the Mayo in Morristown

By Berit Ollestad

Have you ever seen someone make love to a violin?

Well, I have. And what beautiful music was created as a result!  Violinist extraordinaire David Garrett connected with his audience at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in a way that can only be described as intense.

Concert-goers were treated Wednesday to a sensory overload of the eyes and ears, as this Brad Pitt look-alike delivered unique interpretations of some of the greatest songs of all time, ranging from Nirvana to Mozart, AC/DC to Beethoven.

Some may conclude after listening to Garrett perform on his 1716 Stradivarius that he is the rock star of classical music, taking pieces by artists such as Metallica, Queen and Michael Jackson to places they’ve never been.

Garrett has committed himself to introducing young people to the classics and kindling enthusiasm for reputedly “serious” music.

A standing ovation appeared to say: “Mission accomplished.”

Photos by Berit Ollestad. Please click icon below for captions.

This video from a prior concert gives a musical flavor of David Garrett’s show.

Tickets on sale for Morristown’s Got Talent, take 5! Judges announced

If there’s one thing we know from the first four editions of Morristown’s Got Talent!, it’s this: Don’t wait until the last minute to buy tickets.

The Mayo Performing Arts Center was packed last year, and chances are the same will hold true for the fifth anniversary show, hosted by local comedian John Mruz on Feb. 29.

Tickets are $20 to $75 and proceeds benefit the Morris School District through the Morris Educational Foundation. Ninety-seven acts tossed their hats in the ring; 16 finalists emerged. They are vying for local glory and a top prize of $1,000.

If there is a sentimental favorite, it must be Timeless Jazz, an ensemble striving to repeat its victory in the very first MGT contest. But the competition will be formidable; this lineup offers something for everyone.

Danny Dones (third appearance), Ricky Webber (who won second place with his prior band, Boys Night Out), Joey Gatto and Jasmin Serrano all have been here before and know what it takes to shine. And there are some great newcomers, too.

The act will be judged by:

• Bruce Moran, president of the Latin American Division of Live Nation, the world’s largest live music company.
• Ed Kirchdoerffer, general manager of the Mayo Performing Arts Center.
• David Hess, an award-winning actor whose Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include Sweeney Todd and Annie Get Your Gun.
• Ben Elliot, music producer and engineer and chief engineer and co-owner of Showplace Studios, who has worked with many top artists and bands in rock, blues and jazz genres.

Stay tuned for video previews.

Tickets are available from the Mayo box office, 973-539-8008.

MORE ABOUT MORRISTOWN’S GOT TALENT 2012

MORRISTOWN’S GOT TALENT 2011

 

Music At Noon puts new spin on Musical Heritage, Jan. 26 in Morristown

Music At Noon, the concert series sponsored by Music At Morristown United Methodist Church, concludes its 32nd season with a concert on Thursday, Jan. 26, featuring members of The Heritage Piano Trio in a new format: Lederer & Lederer and Kaller & Kaller.

The performers are Nancie Lederer, violin, with her mother, Pauline Lederer, pianist; and Marnie Kaller, cello, with her son Rick Kaller, piano.  The 30-minute concert, which begins at 12:15 pm, will be held in the sanctuary of the Morristown United Methodist Church at 50 Park Place (on the Green).  A light luncheon is available for purchase before or after the concert (11:30 am to 1:30 pm).  The cost of the luncheon is $7 for adults and $6 for seniors and students.  A suggested donation for the concert is $6 for adults and $5 for seniors.  Students with ID are admitted free.  Free childcare is provided during the concerts.

Nancie Lederer is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, where she was a scholarship student of Glenn Dicterow, concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic.  As an orchestra member and chamber musician, she has given concerts throughout Europe, the Caribbean, and the U.S.  Ms. Lederer has performed with a number of orchestras including the Radio City Orchestra, Jupiter Symphony, Philharmonic Virtuosi, New Philharmonic of New Jersey, and at the Paper Mill Playhouse.  She also has served as string coach for the Inter-School Orchestral Program in New York City, the Summer Trios Festival in Pennsylvania and the Vermont Music and Arts Center.  She has conducted the Essex County Overture Strings and was a co-founder of the 4 Strings! Summer Chamber Music Academy.  Ms. Lederer maintains a private teaching studio in West Caldwell,New Jersey.

Pauline Lederer, a native New Yorker, attended the Juilliard School as a scholarship student receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees.  She continued her musical studies in Vienna, Paris, and Florence.  She has concertized widely — solo recitals, chamber music and with orchestras, in North and South America and throughout Europe.  Several of her tours were sponsored by the U.S. State Department.  She has also made recordings and television appearances.  For many years, Ms. Lederer taught at the Westchester Conservatory of Music in New York.  Now a resident of Chapel Hill, N.C., she conducts courses for adults at Duke University.

Marnie Kaller received her master of music degree from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.  She has been principal cellist of the Shreveport Symphony and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and has also played in the Kansas City Civic Symphony and the Des Moines Symphony.  Ms. Kaller was a founding member of the Heritage Piano Quartet which performed for 12 years throughout Morris County.  In addition, Ms. Kaller freelances in chamber and orchestral ensembles in New Jersey.  She was one of the founding faculty members of 4 Strings! Summer Chamber Music Academy for string players.  She conducted the Lakeland Junior Youth Symphony for 13 years and maintains a large private teaching studio in Convent Station.

Rick Kaller is vice president/editorial director of Pre-K-12 Music at McGraw-Hill Education in New York. He is also the music director at Kitchell Memorial Presbyterian Church in East Hanover, NJ, where he serves as organist and choir director. Rick started piano lessons at the age of four. In high school, he attended The Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division in New York City, studying under Leonard Eisner. He continued his piano studies in college at the Eastman School of Music as a student of Barry Snyder. He completed his bachelor’s degree in Music and History at Rutgers College, and has a master’s degree in business administration from New York University.

Funding has been made possible in part by funds from the Arts Council of the Morris Area through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

For further information: 973-538-2132 or www.morristownumc.com

Blaire Reinhard Band bringing new member to Morristown’s Frog on Jan. 28

The Blaire Reinhard Band will bring a new member to Morristown’s Famished Frog on Saturday, Jan. 28.

A future member, actually.

Blaire and her bass-playing husband, Wade Perrin, are expecting their first little rock and roller to debut on the Fourth of July.  Can a CD of kiddie tunes be far behind?

“We’ve been talking about that, an album of children’s songs,” said Blaire, who has enjoyed lots of good news lately. Over the holidays she and her brother Gray performed with their grandfather, former Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinsen, at two sold-out shows in Minneapolis. Blaire and Gray also are completing an album with Clinton Curtis, titled Curtis & Reinhard at the Pigeon Club.

Here’s a video sampler of that project:

Oh yeah, and Gray also performed recently with a guy named Springsteen.

As for the Perrin Project, Blaire and Wade are mum on whether they’re having a Baby Elvis or a Baby Gaga. (Either way, the wee creation appears to be holding a microphone in the sonogram.)

When the due date creeps closer, the BRB will go on hiatus, Wade said. He plans to pare down the band’s stage gear to make room, “so we can leave a baby seat in the car.”

And the couple’s Hoboken digs may start feeling a bit cramped, too, so don’t be surprised if Blaire, a Morristown High School graduate, and her fledgling family return to the wide open spaces of Greater Morristown.

Meanwhile, Blaire is still aglow from her gigs with Grandpa Doc. Prior to December, her last big performance with the famed trumpeter was on a Christmas album when she was 9. She sang Silent Night.

Blaire insists she wasn’t nervous about reconnecting with her grandfather in Minnesota, even when he asked her to cook up some lyrics overnight.

Despite the pressure, the whole process was smoother and “more civilized” than pulling together a BRB show, she said, citing all the pros who made the Jingle Bell Doc concerts come together.

“I was less nervous for this show than for any I’ve ever done,” Blaire said. Even though musical arrangements still were being charted on the day of the first show and there was only one rehearsal, she said, the orchestra and choir were note-perfect.

Appearing onstage with her 84-year-old grandfather “was a dream of mine,” Blaire added.

“I was too shy to bring it up. Then he called. He had a Christmas song he wanted to write with me and Gray. Doc sang the melody once, and asked, ‘Can you write a song to this? Can you write words by 8 in the morning?’”

Challenges like that don’t faze Blaire, whose songs last year landed on TV shows including The Voice, American Pickers, So You Think You Can Dance, and, appropriately, Dance Moms and 16 and Pregnant.

“I stayed up all night and wrote the words. (The Light of Christmas.) Then (Doc) wanted to know if we had any other Christmas songs? And we had a couple. ( This Time of Year and I Remember Christmas.) We sent our songs to his arranger . . . ”

Before they knew it, Gray was playing a big Steinway at Orchestra Hall “and I was singing right up front,” Blaire recounted with a lingering Yuletide grin.

The Clinton Curtis collaboration started with Gray, who has played keyboard with Clinton’s group for a couple of years. Clinton played guitar on the BRB’s Concert for Lauren album, recorded live in 2010 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Morristown.

Blaire & Wade. Please click icon below for captions.

Curtis & Reinhard at the Pigeon Club, which refers to a Hoboken studio, was an exercise in speed-writing and recording, pulled together in about a month. With Wade’s time largely tied up by law studies at Fordham, Blaire said she and Gray were seeking musical projects to stay sharp. The album, coming soon, gives Gray a bigger share of the vocals and lets Blaire experiment with songs written by others.

“It’s like the Traveling Wilburys thing,” Blaire said.

Now there’s a novel baby name: Wilbury Perrin.

Catchy, like a BRB song, don’t you think?

The Blaire Reinhard Band performs on Saturday, Jan. 28, at 9:30 pm in the Famished Frog on 18 Washington St. Admission is free; you must be 21 or over. The band returns to the Frog on Feb. 11.

MORE BLAIRE REINHARD BAND VIDEOS AND STORIES

Dueling harpists to kick off free Morristown series, Feb. 5; Friday series also returning

Earlier this month we were enthralled by a  “piano four-hands“  concert. On Feb. 5, Morristown will be treated to dueling harpists, courtesy of the Presbyterian Church.

Duo Scorpio, a tandem that has performed at Carnegie Hall and also with Florence + The Machine, kicks off a new series of free 4 p.m. concerts on the first Sunday of each month at the church on 57 Park Place.

Harpists Kathryn Andrews and Kristi Shade, both 29, named the duo after their November birthdays. They will play music for two harps by Boccherini, Massenet, Andres, Currier and Granado. In July, the ladies will premiere Scorpion Tales, a piece by composer Robert Paterson that they commissioned with a grant from the American Harp Society.

Our appreciation of the harp’s versatility and range was broadened over the holidays by the  jazzy stylings of Merynda Adams.  We’re pretty sure Duo Scorpio will be ear-opening, too.

But the musical surprises won’t stop there.

Charity Wicks, the new music director at the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, also will be reviving Friday lunchtime concerts, starting in March. Players to be announced.

Video: ‘Go Big Blue!’ from Morris Plains singer and Giants fan Bill Griese

 

Think you were sweating bullets during the Giants overtime playoff thriller on Sunday?

Pity poor Bill Griese of Morris Plains.

The singer-songwriter and his producer, Steve Babula, had many hours of studio effort riding on Lawrence Tynes’ magic foot.

Fortunately for all, Tynes’ field goal attempt was good, sending the Giants to the Super Bowl and justifying Bill’s musical tribute, Go Big Blue!, and the video he spent 24 hours slapping together for it.

“I had been hoping this would happen,” Bill said of the Super Sunday showdown with the New England Patriots on Feb. 5.

“I’m a Giants fan,” declared the singer, who released his second album, Too Long Coming, last year.  In 2010, his song Zoom  aired in national TV commercials for Fujifilm.

“What a win… I’m excited as a Giants fan, and to share all the work I’ve put in with everybody.”

Like the man says: Go, Big Blue!

MORE BILL GRIESE STORIES, VIDEOS

Music At Noon features Alan Baer on tuba, Jan. 19 in Morristown

Music At Noon, the concert series sponsored by Music At Morristown United Methodist Church, continues its 32nd season with a concert on Thursday, Jan. 19, featuring Alan Baer, tuba with Eric Malson, piano.

The 30-minute concert, which begins at 12:15 pm, and will be held in the sanctuary of the church at 50 Park Place(on the Green).  A light luncheon is available for purchase before or after the concert (11:30 am to 1:30 pm).  The cost of the luncheon is $7 for adults and $6 for seniors and students.  There is a suggested donation for the concert of $6 for adults and $5 for seniors.  Students with ID are admitted free.  Free childcare provided during the concerts.

Alan Baer joined the New York Philharmonic on June 21, 2004, as principal tuba. He was formerly principal tuba with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. His other performing credits include recordings with The Cleveland Orchestra led by Vladimir Ashkenazy, performances with the Peninsula Music Festival of Wisconsin, New Orleans Symphony, Los Angeles Concert Orchestra, Ojai Festival Orchestra (California), Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed as a featured soloist, touring several countries in Europe, including Switzerland,  Austria,Germany, and France.

Mr. Baer began his undergraduate work at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with Dr. Gary Bird. He completed his bachelor of music degree with Ronald Bishop at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and has done graduate work at the University of Southern California, Cleveland Institute of Music, and California State University, Long Beach, where he studied with Tommy Johnson.

While in Long Beach, Mr. Baer taught at California State University, where he also directed the university tuba ensemble and the brass choir. In Milwaukee, Mr. Baer was adjunct professor of tuba and euphonium at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble. Alan currently serves on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music inNew York City.

Funding has been made possible in part by funds from the Arts Council of the Morris Area through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

For further information: 973-538-2132 or www.morristownumc.com

Music At Noon in Morristown features Harmonium Outreach Chorus on Jan. 12

Music At Noon, the concert series sponsored by Music At Morristown United Methodist Church, continues its 32nd season with a concert on Thursday, Jan. 12, featuring the Harmonium Outreach Chorus under the direction of Anne Matlack.

The 30-minute concert starts at 12:15 pm in the church sanctuary, at 50 Park Place (on the Green).  A light luncheon is available before or after the concert (11:30 am to 1:30 pm), at $7 for adults and $6 for seniors and students.

There is a suggested donation for the concert of $6 for adults and $5 for seniors.  Students with ID are admitted free.  Free childcare is provided during the concerts.

The Harmonium Choral Society is one of New Jersey’s leading choral arts organizations. Founded in 1979, it has been led by Yale-educated Artistic Director Dr. Anne Matlack since 1987. The 90-member chorus and its select 20-voice Chamber Singers are made up of committed volunteers from northern New Jersey and surrounding areas. Membership is by audition.

Named Outstanding Arts Organization in 1998 by the Arts Council of the Morris Area, and winners of Chorus America’s prestigious Education Outreach Program Award in 2009, Harmonium is dedicated to performing a diverse repertoire at a high artistic level, and increasing community appreciation of choral music through concerts, education and outreach. Harmonium’s concert season consists of three concerts, in December, March, and June, performed in Morristown and Madison.

Harmonium’s Outreach Chorus is a small group of volunteers that performs in schools, in nursing homes, and at community events. The Outreach Chorus can be hired to bring a choral education program into elementary and middle schools.

Funding has been made possible in part by funds from the Arts Council of the Morris Area through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

For further information: 973-538-2132 or www.morristownumc.com

The start of something big? Grover Kemble and Brynn Stanley tune up for Morristown gig

Sunday’s supper crowd at Shanghai Jazz got an appetizing taste of an act that could be satisfying music fans for a long time to come.

One half of the duo, guitarist Grover Kemble, has been serving up jazzy treats for decades. His new sidekick, 27-year-old vocalist Brynn Stanley, puts a fresh sheen on the Great American Songbook.

The pair, who met one year ago at Shanghai Jazz, also dipped into the Great Britain Songbook for a bouncy interpretation of the Beatles’ Hard Day’s Night. And they showed lots of chemistry on a torch song Grover penned for Brynn, Talk to Me.

Grover and Brynn were tuning up for a March 20 show in the Starlight Room of the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown.

 

 

 

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