Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510130089
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For all the successes over two decades of the Greene Memorial Fine Arts Series, it's the disasters and near-disasters that director Dick Cummins can't shake from his memory.
There was the January ice storm that compounded the fact that he'd already scheduled the concert for Super Bowl Sunday (``I owe it all to my own stupidity, but at least I learned something").
There was the time the cellist for the Roanoke Symphony String Quintet got sick and Cummins had to beg the Kandinsky Trio to fill in on three hours' notice (``[Pianist] Liz Bachelder barely had time to wash her hair, but it went great.").
Then there was the time he was to conduct Handel's oratorio "Esther," which turned out to be the one and only time his wife, soprano Rita Cummins, got sick during her performing career. Cummins persuaded Roanoke College soprano Marianne Sandborg to take the role on a day's notice, and the show went on.
It's been a long, strange trip for the 20 years of what just may be Roanoke's best-kept artistic secret. Compared to Opera Roanoke, the Roanoke Symphony or the Roanoke Valley Chamber Music Society, the Greene Memorial United Methodist Church Fine Arts Series has had a relatively low profile.
In spite of that, the series has brought a string of major names to Roanoke. Metropolitan Opera legends like soprano Eleanor Steber and bass-baritone John Cheek, and Grammy-award-winning Met star Dawn Upshaw. World-famous organists like Simon Preston and John Scott (who returns Sunday to inaugurate the series' 20th anniversary season). Distinguished cathedral choral ensembles like England's York Minster Choir. And the cream of current chamber music groups, like the Audubon Quartet, the Boston Symphonic Brass, and the Razumovsky Quartet.
Dick Cummins, who is music minister for Greene Memorial United Methodist Church, has directed the arts series since he took his present job in August of 1979. It was begun by Dr. M. Douglas Newman, a former minister at the church, and Robert Sinclair, a former music minister.
Church-based fine arts series are usually a big-city phenomenon, but in this department Roanoke boasts an embarrassment of riches. Besides the long-running series at Greene Memorial, there's the Con Spirito arts series at Roanoke's Unitarian Universalist Church, which minister Kirk Ballin says is entering its third season. That series is directed by Shuko Watanabe.
The Greene Memorial concerts take place in the church's nave at Second Street and Church Avenue in downtown Roanoke. The space frequently is crowded to standing-room-only conditions for the concerts. On several occasions Cummins has had to squeeze a few extra audience members directly behind the performers on stage.
But what's a church doing in the fine arts business in the first place?
"There is a definite tie of the arts to the church dating from the Middle Ages, when the churches were the center of all the cultural activities," Cummins said. "You had drama, painting, music, dance - everything imaginable was connected with the church. So, in a sense, something like our fine arts series is reclaiming part of an ancient heritage."
There have been five or six concerts per year since the beginning. In the early days, one or two of the concerts were in the summer, but Cummins says the season now extends from September or October through April or May.
A regular feature of the series for 14 seasons has been the popular candlelight dinner that precedes the Christmas concert in September. Church members prepare a meal that's served in the church's social hall one floor below the nave. This year's candlelight dinner precedes a performance of O. Henry's Christmas classic, "The Gift of the Magi."
This Sunday's 4 p.m. concert by organist John Scott of St. Paul's Cathedral in London comes almost precisely a decade after his first North American solo concert - which also happened to take place at Greene Memorial. A major-label recording artist, Scott played for the royal wedding of Charles and Diana.
"He's a brilliant player, a very musical player who's concertized all over the world, the first player from the U.K. to win the Bach Competition in Leipzig," said Cummins.
Rounding out the 20th anniversary season will be an all-Randall Thompson choral concert on Oct. 29; performances of "The Gift of the Magi" on Dec. 1 and 2; the New Century Saxophone Quartet on Feb. 25; Greene Memorial choral soloists performing Beethoven's Mass in C on March 25; and organist Diane Bish in concert on April 21.
With the exception of the 6:30 p.m. December Christmas concert, all concerts are on Sundays at 4 p.m. and admission is free with a freewill offering being taken. Tickets for the December candlelight dinner and concert are $16 per person and go on sale Oct. 29.
20 years of high points
Metropolitan opera legend Eleanor Steber, Sept. 18, 1976 and Oct. 15, 1978.
Contemporary Met star Dawn Upshaw, Jan. 7, 1992.
Organist John Scott of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, making his North American debut on Oct. 13, 1985, performed Bach chorales newly discovered in the Yale University library.
Met bass-baritone John Cheek, Feb. 11, 1990.
The Boston Symphonic Brass, April 4, 1989.
Westminster Abbey organist Simon Preston (who played all the keyboard tracks for the film ``Amadeus"), Oct. 18, 1987.
Beatle Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio," March 20, 1994.
Organist Richard Elliott of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Feb. 21, 1993.
by CNB