Expect an animated performance
Bummed out by Beethoven? Can’t drag the kids to a symphony concert? Then come to Miller Symphony Hall Friday, Nov. 22 for The Queen’s Cartoonists, a six-man jazz band specializing in music from cartoons. The program runs the gamut from zany Swing-era cartoon music from the 1920s and 1930s, all the way to contemporary animation, and includes music by composers such as Raymond Scott, Carl Stalling, John Kirby, Danny Elfman, and John Williams.
Fans of great music and great cartoons will surely recall the family-friendly show these guys gave at Symphony Hall back in 2017. The performances are synchronized to video projections of the original films as the band leads the audience through a world of virtuosic musicianship, multi-instrumental mayhem, and comedy. The band’s co-stars include Betty Boop, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Popeye the Sailor Man and many more!
Formed in 2014 by jazz pianist/composer/arranger Joel Pierson, The Queen’s Cartoonists have brought their unique sound to performing arts centers in over 20 states, and have opened for the New York Philharmonic. Based in Queen’s New York – and hence their name - the six members are world-class professional musicians. The band has been featured in numerous major publications, including the Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Mashable, and on
NPR.
The show is equal parts music preservation, entertainment, and education, and is an ideal cross-generational experience. And if some of the tunes just happen to be recognizable classical music, well, blame it on Mickey and Bugs, not on The Queen’s Cartoonists. After all, in the 1935 classic “The Band Concert,” Mickey Mouse leads an outdoor band in Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.” In the 1955 Looney Tunes’ “Hyde and Hare,” Bugs Bunny plays Chopin’s Minute Waltz, and in “Pigs in a Polka,” a 1943 parody of “The Three Little Pigs,” Brahms’ Hungarian Rhapsody serves as background music. There are countless other cartoon adaptations of classical favorites.
The group’s popularity in its mere five years of existence even surprises Pierson. “It’s a funny thing, because we’re a jazz band, and jazz bands are not popular. There’s a handful of famous jazz musicians out there, and nobody else,” he says.
Pierson, no stranger to novel ideas, needed something unique. No problem for a guy who composed something called “Highway 666” (described in his program notes ‘like a highway to hell for a string quartet’) for the famed Kronos Quartet, and who released a music/humor book
entitled “You Suck at Piano: A Piano Method Book for Adults.” Putting together something like a jazz combo specializing in swing era cartoon music was right up his alley.
“I was trying to come up with an idea that would take jazz back to the era when it was really something people wanted to go see. It was fun, lighthearted, but still serious at the same time – serious music played by serious musicians. Above all, it was very audienceengaging. That’s the whole idea behind this. It’s cartoons as a way to connect with people.”
Serious indeed are the six musicians in the group. Many are classically trained, many have advanced degrees in jazz performance, and all are professional players. Joining Pierson on keyboards are Rossen Nedelchev, drums; Matt Jung, bass; Drew Pitcher, saxophone; Mark Phillips, woodwinds; and Greg Hammontree, trumpet.
Queen’s Cartoonists, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, Miller Symphony Hall, 23 N. 6th St., Allentown. Tickets: $10 - $50. 610-432-6715, www.millersymphonyhall.org
Dover Quartet: Chamber series
The Allentown Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber on Stage concert series continues Sunday, Nov. 24 with a performance by the Dover Quartet. Just like the other concerts in this Miller Symphony Hall series, the program offers an especially intimate setting, with audience members seated on stage with the performer.
On the program will be Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue, K. 546, Hindemith’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 16, and Brahms’ String Quartet No. 3 in B-Flat Major, Op. 67.
“The Dover Quartet players have it in them to become the next Guarneri String Quartet — they’re that good,” the Chicago Tribune said of a recent performance. The Philadelphiabased group catapulted to international notoriety after a sweep of the 2013 Banff Competition. In its 2018-2019 season alone it performed more than a hundred concerts in the US as well as tours of Hong Kong, Europe, and Australia.
The Dover’s members, all highly awarded as solo artists, have collaborated with the likes of Emanuel Ax, Inon Barnatan, Peter Serkin, Anthony McGill, Roomful of Teeth, and many other prominent artists. The quartet has released several albums on the Cedille Records label, including an all-Mozart recording where it was joined by the late Michael Tree, the founding violinist of the Guarneri Quartet.
Dover Quartet, 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 24, Miller Symphony Hall, 23 N. 6th St., Allentown. Tickets: $23 general admission on-stage; $10 students 21 and under. 610-432-6715, www.millersymphonyhall.org
‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ at Zoellner
Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts, one of the nation’s finest academic opera programs, opens its 85th opera season with Mozart’s comic masterpiece “Le Nozze di Figaro” (The Marriage of Figaro). On Sunday, Nov. 24, the performance comes to the Zoellner Arts Center on the Lehigh University campus in Bethlehem.
The production, featuring a cast of AVA resident artists, is under the stage direction of David Gately, and is sung in Italian with English supertitles. The great voices of the singers will be accompanied by the AVA Opera Orchestra conducted by Christofer Macatsoris.
In many ways, “Le Nozze di Figaro” is the perfect comic opera stereotype, having brilliant vocal lines, compelling dramatic action, and a totally absurd plot. Figaro, the Count’s valet, and Susanna, the Countess’ maid, plan to marry, but things go awry as their philandering employer,
the Count, attempts to seduce Susanna. With the aid of the Countess, Susanna outwits them all in a day of disguise, mix-up and ultimately, marriage.
Featured roles include Brent Michael Smith as Figaro, Aubry Ballarò as Susanna, Timothy Murray as the Count, Kara Mulder as the Countessa, and Pascale Spinney as Cherubino, the Count’s page.
Founded in 1933, the AVA is the only tuition-free institution dedicated exclusively to the study of voice. Admission into AVA’s four-year program is highly competitive, with approximately 30 singers from throughout the world enrolled in any given year. Those who are accepted are immersed in an intensive performance program led by some of the most dedicated and inspired teachers and creative artists in the world of opera.
Academy of Vocal Arts “Le Nozze di Figaro,” 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 24, Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University campus, Bethlehem. Tickets: $30. 610758-2787, www.zoellnerartscenter.org