The concert started with “Overture to Candide” by Leonard Bernstein. Maestro David Effron stood on the podium, leading the group with confidence.
The audience rose with excitement.
The piece was followed by Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67,” which plucked the heart strings of the audience.
And right after the final beat, maestro David Effron said, “It’s not over yet.”
The second half of the performance featured a more intimate setting with jazz fusion performances.
The concert featured sisters Marietta and Evelyn Simpson.
“You know, I am from a big family, 11 kids,” mezzo-soprano Marietta Simpson said. “We were required to play piano since we were little, but there was only one piano, so we usually fought over who’s practicing when. The thing is if you are here tonight, you know immediately she was the one who always won. There is my sister, Evelyn, at the piano.”
The audience welcomed the duo with a round of applause and laughter.
Simpson sang “Our Love is Here to Stay” and “Come Rain or Come Shine” accompanied by her sister Evelyn. At the end of her performance, Simpson performed an encore solo of “What a Wonderful World.”
Members of the orchestra and the audience all sat still watching Simpson sway and match the tone of the music.
It seemed as though time stopped and she was moving through different phases, going back and forth between a childhood innocence and a midsummer night’s fantasies.
Next came a tap dance performance.
“George Bush in 1989 made May 25 the national tap dance day,” Effron said. “Then I started looking for a rather classical tap dance piece and actually found a Tap Dance Concerto composed last century. Never heard about it. And it turned out that none of my colleagues knew about it, neither did the tap dancers.”
“It’s the energy of the night in the air, the crowd, so intuitive,” tap dancer Morgan Stillman said.
Stillman said she had never tap danced live with an orchestra before, making for an interesting experience.
“We don’t normally get the audience applauding and cheering during the dance,” tap dancer Cassie Dishman said.
For many audience members, this was the first time they saw a tap performance intertwined with a classical orchestra concert.
“I’ve never attended or imagined a classical orchestra concert with a tap dance performance,” Summer String Academy camper Miray Ito said.
Many music lovers enjoyed the twist on a traditional style of music.
“I’ve seen this place before the new building was built,” said Steven Cornwell, former chairman of the Society of the Friends of Music from 1977-78 .
“We have wonderful rendition of the traditional, Beethoven, to show off the skills of the music. Then it was historical, brilliant, funny and absolutely wonderful. I think even Wolfgang Amadeus would sort of like the tap dancers with the sequence of the movie Amadeus. I liked the humanism tonight very much.”
Then it was time for “Casey at the Bat” narrated by Quinn Buckner, captain of the 1976 NCAA men’s Basketball Championship team.
“Quinn Buckner for Casey at the Bat was lovely,” pianist Evelyn Simpson-Curenton said. “I really loved the playful colors the composers made to go with the narration.”
The night was ended with the “Festival Overture in E-Flat Major, Op. 49” by Tchaikovsky accompanied by a full light show.
Effron said it’s important for musicians to remain versatile, to be willing to try something different.
“I have learned one thing really important from the beginning that it was very important to maintain a sense of humor, as a musician, in the music field,” Effron said. “Just like many other fields, it’s very competitive. So you learn to look at the funny sides of things.”
Performers said they felt as though they had connected with the audience, giving them a fulfilling experience.
“Yes, we’ve made it,” Simpson-Curenton said. “Seeing the crowd loving it. The audience was right there with us. I could feel it the whole time.”
