The annual Meadowbrook United Church (MUC) fund-raising concert known as A Feast of Music had its 28th staging on Sunday evening. Several hundred people attended, some for the 28th time.
Those faithful patrons - about 10 of them - raised their hands at the bidding of the emcee, Evon Thompson, halfway through the concert, held in the Jamaica Pegasus hotel ballroom. But when Thompson asked who was having a good time, practically everyone answered.
The two-hour-long concert was indeed delightful, featuring, as it did, a clutch of top drawer musicians performing high-quality classical and popular works. Instrumental music was provided mainly by the Touch of Elegance (TOE) ensemble, with saxophonist Jeffrey Brown supplying three items in his set, Fly Me to the Moon, Stay With You and Wonderful World.
Vocalists were mezzo-soprano June Thompson-Lawson, tenor Rory Baugh and cabaret singer A. J. Brown. The ‘feast’ was not only musical: also entertaining the large audience was the church-based dance troupe, BASIS Performing Arts Ensemble, a 10-girl group which did two short pieces.
Success for basis
Last year, BASIS won the Junior Champion Dance Group of the World title at the World Championships of the Performing Arts held in Los Angeles, and the audience was told that the troupe plans to enter the competition again this year. According to the printed programme, BASIS is “a multifaceted ensemble focused on the training and development of young talents in the performing-arts industry, while encouraging spiritual growth and social responsibility through service”.
The young group’s aim is clearly a reflection of the broader goal of the church. Its minister, Reverend Dave Spence, writes of the concert:
“The proceeds from this venture will provide a significant source of support for the various programmes in the communities around our church. In this 50th year of the church’s ministry, we have launched the MUC Community Development Fund. This fund will be a lasting legacy from this generation of the church to the next. Our aim is to increase the principal of the fund so that the future of our community engagements will be secure.”
Light-hearted evening
Among other ventures, the fund supports a sports programme, a mini-stadium, scholarships and bursaries, the performing arts programme, a community marching band and a counselling and care centre.
The organisers of the concert evidently wanted a light-hearted evening. This was apparent even in the first half of the concert which was given over to classical works; all the items fell into the ‘easy listening’ category.
Bizet’s popular Grand March, from his opera Aida, was the first item by the Paulette Bellamy and Jon Williams-led TOE. The ensemble returned halfway through the first segment of the concert with Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, from the oratorio Solomon.
Exquisite playing
As a group, TOE’s playing was exquisite, and certainly Baugh and Thompson-Lawson could not have asked for better accompanying musicians for their songs. While singing solo, as the two sometimes did, they were aurally delightful; but when they sang together, they were even more entertaining, thanks to their dramatisation of the songs.
Their duets were the amusing Comic Duet for Cats (Rossini) and Lehar’s Love Unspoken. Alone, Thompson-Lawson sang pieces by Rossini, Dvorak, Cole Porter and Diack. Baugh’s solo items included songs by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Donizetti. He also sang the pop song My Way, made popular by Frank Sinatra.
Before the final item, Somewhere, powerfully delivered by all three singers on the show, Brown, in a crisp white suit, energetically entertained the audience with four listed songs. Then, after he was summoned back by the applause, he performed a medley, which included My Girl, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay and Stand By Me.
He had many in the audience singing along or dancing in their seats. Smiling faces indicated that the good mood generated by the show prevailed as the audience left the ballroom, some probably thinking ahead to next year’s concert.
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