Preview of SCARLET FEVER in The Woodstock Times

World premiere!

See Palestrina channeled via Nathaniel Hawthorne through the auspices of the Rocky Horror Show this weekend in rustic Mount Tremper

by Geddy Sveikauskas

Up the gravel driveway past the Mount Tremper Arts sign on Old Route 28 to the small parking lot with only one car in it, a battered green Volvo station wagon. The place looks dusty and deserted. Up at the studio is a glass door, behind which six people are sitting in a circle on the floor. What are they doing?

Open the door. The six are singing together, a cappella, carrying multiple melodic voices at the same time, pitch against pitch, entering and enlarging and diminishing, listening very carefully to each other as they create harmonies together, enjoying immensely the counterpoint they are creating.

Holy cow. It’s Palestrina, vocal music written half a century or so before Henry Hudson sailed up the same river into which the Esopus Creek outside flows. This Palestrina stuff is not easy to sing well. These people must be very good at what they do. I feel prickles up and down my spine. I’m as honored as I am surprised to be in this bright, large, sunlight space listening to pure vocal sound resonating off the rafters.

Read the complete article here.