Health & Fitness
Somerville’s Anthology Scores with a Program of Folk and International Music
In its latest performance at Club Passim in Cambridge, the Somerville women’s quartet featured folk music in the British-American tradition as well as a selection from the span of the Mediterranean. The crowd consisted not only of the group’s usual admirers but of older listeners familiar with the folk trend of the ’50 and ‘60s.
Mezzo-sopranos Allegra Martin and Sophie Michaux, and sopranos Anney Barrett and Vicky Reichert used this concert to demonstrate that their musical skills are much broader than their normal a cappella offerings by playing the accordion, the dulcitar and various percussion instruments.
Opening with the Roy Rogers’ tune Cowboy Ham and Eggs featuring Allegra Martin, the group had created a program of small sets of blues, jazz, Mediterranean and American traditional songs.
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The blues set included the old time Dixieland favoriteBasin Street Blues sung by Anney Barrett and the more modern Hound Dog (no, not the Elvis version; the original Big Mama Thornton rendition) in a throaty performance by Sophie Michaux.
The Corsican O so er’acilucciu, Durme, Durme, a Sephardic lullaby with soloist Vicky Reichert, and a romantic song from the Jewish community on Rhodes, La Rosa Enflorece, preceded the two Israeli pieces, Erev Shel Shoshanim, a well-known wedding song, and Tzena, Tzena, both of which entered the American folk tradition starting with a version of the latter by The Weavers in 1950.
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Ergen Deda, a Bulgarian tune in 7/8 time, tells light-heartedly of an old man chasing the girls in a small village. Over heard from a nearby teenager in the audience: “I never heard anyone sing in Bulgarian before.”
The Irish melody Shule Agra was sung in an arrangement that melded it with its partner song Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier. Pete Seeger’s Precious Friend, You Will Be There was arranged by Anney Barrett who remembers singing the song with her sister when they were younger. Joni Mitchell’s anti-war Fiddle and the Drum was enthusiastically welcomed by the crowd.
A novelty piece by Kristin Andreassen called Crayola Doesn’t Make a Color for Your Eyes” which is accompanied by a frenetic patty cake routine was an audience favorite.
The enthusiastically received concert ended with Orange Colored Sky which concluded the jazz set containing My Romance, Sunny Side of the Street, and Blue Skies.
