Last Friday night, some amazing music could be heard emanating
from the sanctuary of the quaint Methodist Church on the
appropriately named corner of Church and Fourth streets. A chamber
concert featuring guest artist Elizabeth Buchanan brought a very
diverse group of musicians together in Gilroy.
Last Friday night, some amazing music could be heard emanating from the sanctuary of the quaint Methodist Church on the appropriately named corner of Church and Fourth streets. A chamber concert featuring guest artist Elizabeth Buchanan brought a very diverse group of musicians together in Gilroy.
A resident of North Carolina, Buchanan has a Master of Music Degree in voice performance and has performed in Austria where she attended the Franz Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien. In 1997, she participated with a group of musicians from North Carolina in a cultural exchange to Saratov, Russia, where they performed several programs of American music.
She is a frequent recitalist in North Carolina and enjoyed this chance to perform in Gilroy with her former college roommate and close friend of 45 years, GUSD Music Specialist and Methodist Music Director Gretchen Vandenberg.
The most beautiful moment came when the two friends joined their voices in duet, Buchanan’s soaring up from the chancel with Vandenberg’s echoing down to meet it from the balcony.
Julliard graduate Nettie Fields accompanied on piano. Fields taught elementary school in Hollister until she was invited to start the piano department at Gavilan College. Now organist for the Hollister Presbyterian Church, she also accompanies the Junior High and High School Choirs in Hollister, and plays for the Suzuki Strings.
Herman Schmalzried added the “Sound of Trumpet” on pieces by Purcell and Vivaldi. He has taught for many years both in the U.S. and in his Native Germany, performed with many symphonies, and is active in the local music community.
Beverly Blount, Concert Master for the South Valley Symphony, accompanied on violin. She is an oncology nurse in Gilroy who dedicated several Debussy pieces to her chemotherapy patients.
The selection of music for the concert was unusual in featuring works by Alma Mahler, wife of famed Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. Alma had shown early promise as a composer in her own right, but in the words of Gustav, “The role of composer falls to me, yours is that of loving companion…!”
By the time Mahler acknowledged Alma’s talent, she had long given up, saying, “Ten years of wasted development cannot be made up anymore. It was a galvanized corpse that he wanted to resurrect.” Friday night, Buchanan began with Alma’s haunting Die Stille Nacht (The Silent City) and ended with the spritely Ich Wandle Unter Blumen (I Wander Among the Flowers).
Friday’s show-stopper came when Buchanan and Vandenberg sang the very amusing Brahms’ Die Schwestern (The Sisters) about two sisters who share everything. “We two sisters/we beauties/Our faces so similar/Identical as two eggs/Identical as two stars,” they sang with great gusto-until they discovered they had both fallen for the same guy: “You love the same sweetheart/And now the song is through!”
The Friday night music series started last fall at the United Methodist Church and has featured many different styles of music. It is the brainchild of Bill Flodberg, the “Running Man” columnist for Out & About Magazine, and one of the most active supporters of the South Valley Arts.
The next Friday night concert in the series will be held March 4 at 7pm and will feature a ragtime performance. Call Bill Flodberg at (408) 683-4683 for more details.
