In Friday’s (7/23) New York Times, Zachary Woolfe writes, “The concert was supposed to be all Mendelssohn, but the sound of Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ was unmistakable, floating lazily through the early evening humidity. The vocalist, too, was unexpected. Like 800 or so others assembled on the lawn outside Richardson Auditorium on the Princeton University campus on Thursday, Maria Gaffar had simply come to listen to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Instead, she impulsively joined an impromptu rendition of that ‘Porgy and Bess’ standard by Debra Biderman, one of the orchestra’s violinists. … A few minutes earlier, inside the auditorium, a siren had begun to sound halfway through the orchestra’s opener, Mendelssohn’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Overture, and everyone filed outside. It turned out to be a false alarm, but the inadvertent early intermission lasted about half an hour while the hall was inspected. Andrew Lamy, one of the orchestra’s clarinetists, traded his usual instrument for an Irish whistle and joined the violinists Mike Stewart and Paul Woodiel for some traditional Irish tunes. A fellow violinist, Robin Zeh, played a Scottish melody with Mr. Woodiel.” The rest of the regular program, conducted by Mark Laycock, featured two Mendelssohn choral works from 1840 commemorating the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg’s printing press.
Posted July 26, 2011
