NOTEWORTHY/Chestnut Hill LOCAL by Michael Caruso for 10/23/2008

West Mt. Airy mezzo-soprano Jody Kidwell will be the featured soloist for the annual Settlement Music School Karin Fuller Capanna Faculty Recital. Accompanied by pianist Jeffrey Uhlig, Kidwell will sing a program of music by Bolcolm, Brahms, Copland, de Falla and Gordon on Sunday, October 26, at 3 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Independence Seaport Museum at Penn's Landing on the Delaware River.

Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Kidwell comes from a long line of committed amateur and professional musicians, including an older sister who is a jazz pianist. Kidwell, herself, began her musical adventures as a pianist while at the same time singing in school choirs. Blessed with a natural voice, she didn't initially view vocal studies as being of paramount importance since she was able to sing without them. It wasn't until the end of her first year at Ohio State University when, as the result of a personal tragedy, she was motivated to change from majoring in piano to voice. And it wasn't until she spent s ome time in Gratz, Austria, that she began to take studying the voice seriously.

"It was in Gratz that I developed my vocal work ethic," Kidwell recalled. "I was preparing to give a program of German lieder and I realized how hard the other singers were working, and that made me begin to think that, maybe, I needed to learn to work. There was a voice teacher there, Sheila Harms from Dallas, Texas, who heard my recital and said to me, 'You have a lovely voice; now you need to learn how to sing.' Well, at first, I was rather annoyed, but her remarks remained with me -- on the back burner, at first, but then more and more to the front."

Kidwell returned home and finished her degree, then worked with the Ohio Light Opera doing nine Gilbert & Sullivan operettas in one season -- sometimes as many as four over a given weekend! She remembers realizing something very important about herself that she hadn't learned in college -- that she could, indeed, master a role in five days when a deadline required her to do it. Kidwell then moved to Dallas, staying with a sister who was living there, and began taking lessons with Sheila Harm, sometimes as many as three a week, learning the full breadth and depth of the vocal technique every singer must possess if a professional career is to be sustained.

Kidwell subsequently flew to Philadelphia for auditions at both the Academy of Vocal Arts and the Curtis institute of Music. She entered the former, studying with Nancy Williams and Beverly Wolf. She then began working with Barbara Silverstein and the Pennsylvania Opera Theater (sadly no longer with us) and the Opera Company of Philadelphia as a result of being named a winner of its Luciana Pavarotti International Voice Competition. A stint with vocal therapist and AVA alumna Margaret Baroody helped complete Kidwell's education in the fine art of singing, an achievement that helps her now as a member of the Settlement Music School faculty since 1991.

Kidwell expressed a special connection with the Karin Fuller Capanna Recital, given in memory of harpist Karin Fuller, the late wife of Settlement's executive director, Robert Capanna, and the victim of a fatal car crash.

"My college sweetheart also died in an automobile accident," she said, "and I remember that Bob (Capanna) interviewed me to become a faculty member shortly after Karin's death. I feel good that I'll be singing this program as Bob finishes up his tenure as executive director."

Admission to the recital is free. For more information call 215-320-2686 or visit www.smsmusic.org.

BACH AT ST. PAUL'S

Valentin Radu led his recently created Camerata Ama Deus in its first concert in Chestnut Hill Saturday night in St. Paul's Episcopal Church. The program was entitled "Bach: Brandenburg & More" and featured renditions of two "Brandenburg" Concerti -- Nos. 5 in D major and 6 in B-flat major -- and the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major. The good news is that a chamber orchestra of period instruments can be heard to excellent advantage in St. Paul's despite the church's fairly large size; the bad news is that the new ensemble failed to establish and maintain a consistently high standard of performance during this introductory concert.

The evening's finest playing was heard at the start of the program in the Fifth "Brandenburg" Concerto, a spectacular score featuring soloists on harpsichord, violin and flute plus full tutti. Roxborough's Bronwyn Fix-Keller was the harpsichordist and she played with consumate artistry. Employing a commanding rubato (give-and-take of tempo) to replace the dynamic shading capabilities the instrument doesn't possess, Fix-Keller conveyed the elemental emotion of the music with passionate intensity and its towering structural inventiveness with digital wizardry. Although violinist Thomas DiSarlo's contributions were negligible, flutist Colin St. Martin played with suave beauty of timbre, aristocratic refinement of phrasing, and unforced projection of tone. [emphasis added]

The Sixth "Brandenburg" received a rendition that was a cacophony of poor ensemble, a dead zone of expression, and a possibly enervating cure for insomnia. A woman sitting in front of me dozed off shortly after the first measure was played and didn't awaken until the start of the tepid applause at the score's welcomed conclusion. But the Third Orchestral Suite was played with style and enthusiasm. Had the previous piece received an equally accomplished reading and the program not included Radu's half hour of rambling spoken program notes (replaced, perhaps, by St. Martin and Fix-Keller playing a sonata di chiesa for flute & harpsichord?) the evening would have been an auspicious debut for yet another period instruments ensemble calling Chestnut Hill its home.

'ROMEO AND JULIET'

Charles Dutoit led the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Philadelphia Singers Chorale and three vocal soloists in performances this past weekend of Hector Berlioz's dramatic symphony, "Romeo and Juliet," in the Kimmel Center. Although Friday night's audience didn't quite fill Verizon Hall, the crowd's enthusiam more than made up for any empty seats with its standing ovation and round-after-round of "bravos!" at the conclusion of a splendid rendition of an unfairly neglected work. Dutoit continues to draw playing from the Philadelphians that rivals in beauty and force the finest ever heard in their illustrious history -- reminding me of the glamour of Leopold Stokowski's sound -- and his work with the huge chorus and mezzo Ruxandra Donose, tenor Gregory Kunde and baritone David Wilson-Johnson was equally exemplary.

Like many of Berlioz's scores greatly loved by his admirers such as myself, "Romeo and Juliet" doesn't fit comfortably into any particular genre. It was not intended as an opera, so it couldn't possibly be staged because there's not enough ongoing vocal/choral narrative. There are too many long, purely instrumental passages that unfortunately lack the specificity of program music such as Berlioz's own "Symphonie fantastique" or any of the tone poems of Richard Strauss and, therefore, don't succeed all that well on their own.

But the writing for the soloists and for the chorus is peerless in the repertoire for its lyricism and majesty, and it manages to conjure up the essence of this tale of tragic romance in the midst of a family feud that inspired Shakespeare to write one of his most popular plays. Even Emile Deschamps' inanely maudlin reduction of the story into French for the work's libretto doesn't undermine Berlioz's genius.

Dutoit proved himself a master at eliciting exquisitely colorful and theatrically expressive playing from all sections of the Philadelphia Orchestra and singing from the Philadelphia Singers Chorale and Donose, Kunde and Wilson-Johnson. Everyone's performance was stellar in yet another promising omen for Dutoit's four-year tenure as the orchestra's chief conductor and artistic adviser. Each individual rendition was excellent in and of itself but, more important, it fit into a coherent and cohesive whole that produced an overall result that was stylish, compelling and truly overwhelming.

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