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Appalachian Spring Brings Glory to Picnickers on the Symphony Park Greensward

By Perry Tannenbaum, CVNC 

Whether or not history ultimately judges them premature, the reawakenings happening across America this past month at sports and performing arts are destined to be lasting memories for those of us who make it to the other side of this waning pandemic. More than Charlotte Symphony's return to Belk Theater five weeks ago, more than the five events my wife Sue and I attended at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston earlier this month, the most recent Evenings at the Park concert at Symphony Park felt like a regathering and reaffirmation of our community. String players and the CSO president had worn masks on the Belk Theater stage, and the spacing of the musicians underscored how few there were behind guest soloist Branford Marsalis. At Spoleto, the absence of the usual opera, orchestral, and choral presentations left the indoor and outdoor stages in Charleston similarly depopulated. Onstage at Symphony Park for Father's Day weekend, the string players, associate conductor Christopher James Lees, and all the other players were unmasked, apparently spaced normally. Woodwinds, brass, and percussion were amply represented, so the selections from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite weren't drained of their customary colors. Wedged between them, David R. Gillingham's Appalachian Counterpoint rounded out a 50-minute program of music connected to the Carolinas.

Malleted percussion and a harp were in the forefront as the Porgy and Bess selections began in a mysterious mood, veering toward the romantic with the iconic "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" and after an interjection from a 747 jet taking a jaunty, brassy turn with "A Woman Is a Sometime Thing." Violins ushered in "Summertime" with a softly cradling sway, handing off to a forlorn oboe before "I Got Plenty of Nuttin'" entered brashly with the swagger of a trombone over a clarinet. After so many months of watching masked string players soldiering on, I felt gratified to be in a crowd listening to long-sidelined flutes, a muted trumpet, wood blocks, and a xylophone joining with their bowing comrades as the orchestra cruised through "There's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon for New York," "It Ain't Necessarily So," and "Oh Lawd, I'm on My Way" before circling back to the inevitable "Bess."

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