Report of May 16th, 2021 Online Event with guest cellist Natasha Brofsky
We love hearing from our OMC community. Here is what pianist Michael Holt shared with us about our May 16th, 2021 OMC event:
May 16 was a special Open Mic Classical for me because my childhood friend Natasha Brofsky was the featured performer on solo cello.
I saw her practice for hours on end when we were kids—my first experience witnessing such devotion in anyone. We lost touch in adulthood, but I was aware that she'd become a world-class musician, part of the famous Peabody Trio and the faculty at Juilliard in NY.
That knowledge didn't prepare me for the rush of feelings that hit me as soon as she started playing Bach's First Cello Suite from her Manhattan living room. Her years of study and practice; her deeply genuine, mature, musical, and playful creativity; the timeless genius of Bach; the memories of my own childhood when I knew her; and the OMC community I've come to love, all rushed together to overwhelm me with emotions, and I was crying on and off through the entire piece.
It was also interesting to learn that OMC was one of Natasha's only experiences doing an audience-interaction concert during the pandemic. I think the highly conversational aspect of our gatherings is something we should all be proud of. And I appreciated Natasha's spontaneous, unpretentious, realness almost as much as her musicianship. Big thanks to her and OMC for creating an atmosphere completely devoid of classical music snobbery!
Finally, I loved pianist Jim Dellamorte’s sensitive, ponderous rendering of Chopin's Ballade no.1 in g minor; getting to hear Satie's Gnossienne #1 lovingly caressed by Bob Desilets’s chromatic harmonica (transposed an octave down for extra richness); and being introduced to Tchaikovsky's achingly lovely None but the Lonely Know, also played by Bob on the harmonica.
Read it in a newsletter format here:
"This program is supported in part by a grant from the Brewster Cultural Council, Harwich Cultural Council, Orleans Cultural Council, local agencies which are supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency." https://massculturalcouncil.org/
