13 minute read
Featured
Here comes summer — and Music Worcester with slate of indoor and outdoor concerts
Richard Duckett
Advertisement
Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
This would normally be the time year when Music Worcester Inc. could be expected to be soon announce its new season, starting in October.
But the world has changed, and “The world is very different for Music Worcester these days, too,” said executive director Adrien C. Finlay.
An announcement is indeed being made, but this year it’s about the brand new “Summer@MW,” a summer series of indoor and outdoor concerts presented by Music Worcester.
The news is just as good for music lovers as the announcement of a fall to spring season would be. For Music Worcester it means that after a season consisting entirely of virtual programing, live performances are back.
Summer@MW will get underway 6 p.m. July 8 with the Brubeck Brothers Quartet (with Chris and Dan Brubeck, two sons of the late jazz legend Dave Brubeck) at the RileyPappas Pavilion in Auburn (free; bring lawn chairs, blankets).
Also in the lineup is the jazz ensemble The Hot Sardines 6 p.m. July 22 at Indian Ranch in Webster ($35+); the gospel group Trey McLaughlin & The Sounds of Zamar at 6 p.m. July 25 at The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Worcester ($35+); and The Women’s Ensemble of The Worcester Chorus — “An Evening of Broadway” — at 6 p.m. Aug 5 also at RileyPappas Pavilion in Auburn (free; bring lawn chairs, blankets).
In September, a Concert Truck series of a husband and wife piano duo will tour, with exact dates and venues still being finalized. There is also expected to be at least one more concert in the series in August, Finlay said.
“We do believe going forward Music Worcester is a yearround performing arts presenter,” Finlay said.
A traditional Music Worcester season usually began in October and concluded in April/ May after about 16 or 17 concerts with a breadth of offerings that might well have included large classical orchestras, chamber music,
The gospel group Trey McLaughlin & The Sounds of Zamar will perform for Music Worcester at 6 p.m. July 25 at The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Worcester PROMOTIONAL IMAGE
Concerts
Continued from Page 15
world music, jazz, folk music, dance and ballet, and Music Worcester’s own Worcester Chorus.
However, “To not do anything in the summer months, as we’ve done, we would be missing out on major opportunities. We did want to be part of this upswing that is Central Mass coming back to life,” Finlay said.
The concerts will “run the gamut” musically.
Chris Brubeck has appeared in concerts presented by Music Worcester before with his trio Chris Brubeck’s Triple Play. Chris and Dan Brubeck have been making music together practically all their lives. Guitarist Mike DeMicco and pianist Chuck Lamb complete the quartet. Although the Brubeck Brothers Quartet’s style is rooted in “straightahead” jazz, their concerts are known for improvisational forays integrating the influences of funk, blues and world music.
The Hot Sardines and Trey McLaughlin & the Sounds of Zamar were both originally scheduled for Music Worcester’s 202021 season.
The Hot Sardines are described as “on a mission to make old sounds new again and prove that joyful music can bring people together in a disconnected world.” Bandleader Evan Palazzo and lead singer Elizabeth Bougerol bonded over their love for Fats Waller. Also influenced by such greats as Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, The Hot Sardines have headlined Midsummer Night Swing at New York’s Lincoln Center and been featured at the Newport Jazz Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival.
Finlay said previously that The Hot Sardines have “for a number of years been on our radar … They are super virtuoso musicians, and their singer — there is not much she can’t do or perform.”
Trey McLaughlin & the Sounds Of Zamar have made a name for themselves by performing with gospel greats like William McDowell, Kierra “Kiki” Sheard, Brian Courtney Wilson and James Fortune. They are known for their rich harmonies and beautiful blends, expressive vocals and intricate arrangements of contemporary gospel.
Led by Worcester Chorus assistant director and accompanist Mark Mummert, the Worcester Chorus Women’s Ensemble will be returning to the stage for their first inperson performance since 2019’s “Welcome Yule” holiday presentation at Trinity Lutheran Church
“It’s a big mix. Some are free events open to the public. Some are in venues,” Finlay said.
In the case of Indian Ranch, it’s a new venue for Music Worcester.
“For the ticketed events we have this summer at Indian Ranch and The Hanover Theatre, we will have sections where distanced seating is available,” Finlay said. He envisions such an arrangement at venues “at least for the summer. It would not surprise me for the fall and winter.” There will also be unrestricted seating available.
Music Worcester is the umbrella organization of three merged components: the Worcester Music Festival, the International Artists Series and the Massachusetts Jazz Festival.
As for its “regular season,” Finlay said the 202122 season “is in the works.”
“We may announce chunks of programs at a time. Fall programs, winter programs, spring programs.”
As for whether Music Worcester’s 202122 season will be different or diminished, Finlay said, “My answer is no.”
Actually, part of the 202122 season has been put on Music Worcester’s website (although with no dates or venues yet) and it also has some performers who had originally been scheduled for 202021 but were cancelled/postponed. These include Dorrance Dance, The Knights & Aaron Diehl (orchestra), and the husband and wife banjo team of Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn.
Additionally, the Worcester Chorus will return with Handel’s “Messiah,” and the Polish Baltic Philharmonic is listed for a winter visit. Apollo’s Fire, the popular and critically acclaimed periodinstrument ensemble specializing in early music that performed here in 2019, will return next spring, and American Ballet Theater is also listed for the spring.
Finlay said the Worcester Chorus will perform perform Bach’s Mass in B Minor next spring, “which will be a delay of one year.”
Meanwhile, “The return to rehearsal for the Worcester Chorus is a topic occupying our time right now. We’re discussing and debating. There’s so much we don’t know,” Finlay said.
Music Worcester canceled live inperson performances in midMarch in 2020, when there where several concerts still to go.
“We have been amazed at the level of support our patrons are giving us to get through all this,” Finlay said.
A 202021 season of virtual, livestreamed and/or On Demand performances included renowned musicians such as violinist Joshua Bell; pianists Simone Dinnerstein, Asiya Korepanova and Andrew Armstrong (And Friends); instrumentalists Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Furris; cellist Zlatomir Fung; tenor Lawrence Brownlee; and the Worcester Chorus, CONCORA of Hartford and Masterwork Chorus of New Jersey combining for a virtual “Messiah Singalong” and a rendition of Mozart’s “Requiem.”
With that, Music Worcester still took a big financial hit because of the absence of a live, inperson and ticketbuying audience. There was a huge 90% decrease in earned revenue, Finlay said.
“While we could not have made it through without the constant and remarkable support of our patrons at large, virtual programing was was done to keep us in front of the public. As magnificent as virtual programing was, it generates pennies on the dollar in terms of tickets for live events,” Finlay said.
The average virtual ticket price was $15, compared to a live inperson concert ticket of $55, he noted. But for the virtual concert the artist’s expenses are the same and you have the added costs of technology.
“Virtual attendance remarkably resembled live attendance. We were very happy to have all that, but it’s a huge paradigm shift,” Finlay said.
“The virtual programing we did I would argue was robust, regular, and resembled the season we would have had. There was a similar breadth in variety of programing, and we didn’t question whether we should do it.”
Finlay said Music Worcester had been considering going yearround and offering summer programming before the pandemic hit.
“When we started thinking about this the world was very different,” he said.
Now it’s time for “Summer@MW.”
“We’re about to go all in,” Finlay said.
For more information, including links to tickets, visit www.musicworcester.org.
In September, a Concert Truck series of a husband and wife piano duo will tour, with exact dates and venues still being finalized. PROMOTIONAL IMAGE
The WorcShop’s most visible recent contribution to the area is the new welcome arch at the Blackstone Valley Heritage Visitor’s Center, built by WorcShop co-owner Randal Meraki and
Eternity Ironworks. JESSICA D WHITE/TRUE LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY OF MA
WorcShop faces hurdles in move to Leicester spot
Victor D. Infante
Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
You might not realize it, but you can see the handiwork of members of the WorcShop all over Worcester. The artisans and craftspeople who populated the maker space when it as located on Stafford Street were responsible for everything from art pieces to fencing and staircases that can be seen in businesses along the Grid, outside the Printer’s building, at JMAC and more.
The most recent and visible work from the WorcShop is the new welcome arch at the Blackstone Valley Heritage Visitor’s Center, a metal arch with LED lights which leads to a pleasant little park setting near the main building. The arch — built by WorcShop coowner Randal Meraki and Eternity Ironworks, where he’s master fabricator and coowner — began its creation at the Stafford Street location, but had to be finished piecemeal elsewhere. The WorcShop’s current location at 11 Hankey St. in Leicester – the former home of the Worcester Tool & Stamping Co. – where the organization moved in November, is currently subject to a cease and desist order, so no work can be done there.
For creative director Angela Pasceri, the move from Worcester has been an ordeal. The original plan had been to renovate the Leicester space while still operating in Worcester, moving over the course of a year. Then, the COVID19 pandemic hit, and plans had to change, as the WorcShop’s revenue plummeted dramatically.
“With COVID,” says Pasceri, “we lost a bunch of our income, and were forced to move into the (Leicester) property sooner than we’d liked, to save the organization.” Still, she had high hopes that everything would move smoothly, judging from previous dealings with Town
WorcShop
Continued from Page 17D
Planner Michelle Buck.
“The WorcShop sounds like a great business and I’m hoping we can make it work at that location,” wrote Buck, in an email dated Aug. 8, 2019. “The easiest route, particularly given that the site is between multiple districts, would be to demonstrate that it’s grandfathered since the Worcester Tool & Stamping company is (was?) a similar use (manufacturing).”
The Worcester Tool & Stamping company still uses part of the building for office space, according to Pasceri.
As Buck implies, there are challenges to the property, as parts of the building are technically in a residential zone. Still, none of the issues seemed insurmountable, seeing as the manufacturing work set to be done at the WorcShop — such as welding, blacksmithing, glass work and carpentry — would normally fall under a manufacturing permit, and indeed, the WorcShop had functioned that way in Worcester for years with few issues.
However, things didn’t work out the way Pasceri expected.
“When we moved into the building and applied for fire permits and had walkthroughs with town officials,” says Pasceri, “our understanding was that we would stay zoned for manufacturing.” The WorcShop had future plans for moving into other areas, including livework space, automotive work and a possible brewery or winery, but those were “not things we need to do now,” says Pasceri. “That’s years down the line, as we said at numerous town meetings a year prior to moving in.”
Still, the WorcShop worked with Buck to lay out a special permit to accommodate those things, although Pescari says she believed they would, in the short term, still be working under manufacturing zoning. And therein lies the dispute, because in December 2020, the WorcShop learned it would have to apply for the special permit, which necessitated a number of things, including a noise study, a survey of the property and having wetlands delineations marked. Pasceri thinks these were things they were going to be able to deal with later, but Buck remembers it differently.
“I think some of it was misunderstanding,” says Buck “They requested some zoning changes … They had some discussions with us, this was all a while ago, after an extensive public hearing process, they submitted the permit, which has been granted. We waited months and months and months for them to file the process. Right now I believe their issues are more with code issues than anything with the planning board.”
Which is true, as far as it goes. Pasceri says the process of getting the special permit, which was approved at a town meeting in May, cost nearly $100,000. Despite the approval, the cease and desist order hasn’t been lifted, as the building still needs to make a number of physical changes, including sprinklers in the main area, bringing entrances up to ADA standards, adding more outside lighting and adding a second Knox Box for the fire department. Pescari estimates the cost of the changes at $400,000.
“The town DOES want that building reused,” says Buck. “The town was very excited about a maker space.” When asked if she can understand how the WorcShop might feel like they walked into a situation that was different than what they expected — one where, if they knew the problems they would face, they might have stayed in Worcester — Buck says, “I’m not sure how that got miscommunicated. They were at the hearings.”
Which brings up some timing issues. Buck’s 2019 email seems to bear out Pasceri’s belief that they should be zoned for manufacturing, which is consistent with the building’s previous use. She says they weren’t made aware that they’d have to apply for the special zoning permit until December 2020, a full month after the WorcShop had moved into the space. Clearly, there was a communication breakdown somewhere in there.
When asked if they’ve been made to feel welcome in Leicester, Pasceri responds, “Not particularly. I feel like they’ve talked a good game, but when we’ve been clear and level with them to show where we are and that there’s a path forward there to update this building, and we can limit our occupancy or limit our usage of certain parts of the building to do so, they haven’t been responsive or helpful.”
Indeed, Pasceri says they are waiting back to hear about permits for just getting Eternity Ironworks up and running. It’s been pointed out that some of the slowness Pasceri is encountering might be just that Leicester has a much smaller staff to process these things than Worcester, with which the WorcShop is more used to dealing.
Still, Pasceri believes there’s a path forward for the WorcShop in Leicester, and hasn’t given up hope. She says they have a plan to buy the building, but the financing is conditional on their becoming operational again. “Can’t close on the building,” says WorcShop educational director Jess White, “because you aren’t allowing us to operate.”
The organization has launched a Kickstarter in order to help raise funds to expedite reopening, at https://www.gofundme.com/f/helptheworcshopreopenrebuild.
If they can get to the point, says White, their metal and blacksmith shops are open again, they’ll be sold out for months, according to a member survey. Pasceri says they’ve had a great deal of interest in glass work equipment that was donated to the shop from a former glass works located in the Sprinkler Factory building in Worcester. In short, there’s still a lot of demand for what the WorcShop is offering, and Pasceri still believes they can do it in Leicester, despite the headaches they’ve encountered, saying she sees a future for their location where “artists, entrepreneurs and hobbyists are all working and learning together.”
But in the meantime, it seems there’s still work to be done.
Randal Meraki works on a project at the WorcShop, before it was hit with a cease-and-desist
order. PHOTOS BY JESSICA D WHITE/TRUE LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY OF MA
From left, Angela Pasceri, Randal Meraki and Framingham Maker Space founder David Kent tour the WorcShop facility in Leicester.
Assessing the impact of invasive Asiatic clams in Worcester water
Veer Mudambi
Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
In New England with its penchant for clam chowder, one would think a rise in the local freshwater clam population of Worcester’s ponds and reservoirs would presumably be nothing to complain about, and even welcomed.
Dr. Diana Sharpe of Worcester State University believes that it may be too much of a good thing. Hailing from the tropics, Corbicula fluminea, commonly known as Asiatic clams, are not our typical New England clams. Over the last few decades they’ve been spreading across the country and expanding into cold or temperate climates here as well. “It’s actually found on all continents now except Antarctica,” said Sharpe.
Along with a student assistant, Sharpe will be examining water bodies throughout Worcester County this summer to assess the spread. Last week she went out on Patch Reservoir for a baseline biodiversity survey. While no C. fluminea were found on Patch, a colony is confirmed in Lake Quinsigamond, along with community reports of sightings in other water bodies.
The increase in numbers in Massachusetts can be traced back to about 10 years ago. The species itself has been found in the United States since the 1930s and can be classified as an invasive. It was likely introduced to the West Coast and assumed to have been imported as a food source for immigrating populations. Alternatively, it may have come in with the importation of the Giant Pacific oyster. The species quickly spread across the continent and is currently found in 44 states.
One of the major ways that the clams can move between water bodies is through human activity — recreational fishing, bait buckets, carried by water in the boat or weeds hanging off the engine. “Once they’re in an area,” said Sharpe, “that’s usually how they spread from one lake to another.”
The community can still do its part, especially now as recreational activities on lakes and ponds ramp up. Aquatic hitchhikers, especially in their microscopic larval stage, aren’t limited to fishing gear. We can all do our part to slow the spread of invasive species in one very simple way, which we should be doing anyway — after you get out of the water, clean your gear.
Like all invasive species, C. fluminea can be likened to one of those puzzle pieces that doesn’t quite fit. At first glance it might seem harmless but from a wider perspective it may do more harm than good. An invasive species, be it plant or animal, adapts to its new home extremely well — too well — and often to the detriment of native species and the larger ecosystem.
“You have these unique pairings of species that have not ever been together naturally in their evolutionary history,” said Sharpe, “so native species lack the right defenses or abilities to interact with these new species.” And without their natural predators or hazards, invasives can grow unchecked, upsetting the ecological balance.
Clams are filter feeders, meaning they draw water with phytoplankton and other tiny organisms through their siphons into their gills. The cilia in their gills trap the tiny food particles and move them down where they can be eaten and digested. The water is then pushed out through the siphon again. However, C. fluminea do this far more efficiently, feeding and filtering at a much higher rate.
“They outcompete some of our native mollusks,” Sharpe observed, going on to say that of the 12 species of freshwater mussels in Massachusetts, half are listed as special concern or endangered. Many fish species feed on the same microscopic organisms as well, early in their life cycles, meaning the Asian clam’s voracious appetite also crowds out these juvenile fish.
Displacing native species reduces biodiversity and has a ripple effect up the food chain, ultimately affecting humans. But C. fluminea also causes direct problems in the form of infrastructure damage by clogging intake pipes causing boat engines to overheat, power plant cooling systems to fail and result in millions of dollars of damage each year.
With climate change and global warming, we have seen temperature rise and winters become more mild, a combination that will inevitably see invasive species from warmer climes expand their range northward.
Sharpe is quick to point out that “not all introduced species are a problem and there are many that are moved to a different part of the world and don’t have a major impact.” However there are some that become highimpact invaders and lead to extinction and ecological damage. Bivalves in dense populations excrete significant amounts of nitrogen that can stimulate the growth of algae, and we have heard of more algae blooms every year that prevent the use of water bodies during the summer. Depending on the species and the locations involved, scientists are wary to call C. fluminea a benign invasive at this time.
Student assistant Zoe Krouner, left, and Worcester State University researcher Diana Sharpe search for Asiatic clams June 16 in Patch Reservoir. RICK CINCLAIR/TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
