Interlude - June 18
June 18, 2020
Exploring the Palladium, Duke Ellington, Stonehenge solstice and more
Welcome back to Interlude, which brings you refreshing cultural opportunities and information curated by the Center’s staff and friends.
But why is it called the "Robert Adam Room"?
The Palladium’s concert hall gets most of the attention, but it’s merely one of the building’s many cool places to hang out. In the new installment of Places, Please!, brought to you by Shepherd Insurance, VP of Operations Jeff Steeg takes you to the Robert Adam Room, home to elegant weddings and dinners, slightly rowdy kids’ concerts and a very large and rare artifact from the golden age of Hollywood musicals.
A musical interlude from “the Ambassador”
As we await the return of live events on campus, the Center’s artistic director is sending us video dispatches from home in a series called Notes with Michael Feinstein, sponsored by the Payne & Mencias Group.
Today’s Notes is literally a charming collection of musical notes, composed by Henry Mancini with romantic lyrics by Leslie Bricusse to become “Two for the Road.” The song was the title theme for a 1967 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney.
A salute to Duke
In observance of African-American Music Appreciation Month, our friends at the Great American Songbook Foundation are shining a spotlight on the 2019 recipient of the Songbook Hall of Fame’s Legend Award and one of the most important creative forces in 20th century music: Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington.
A pivotal figure in the history of jazz, Ellington embraced the phrase “beyond category” and left an indelible impact on many forms of American music, from popular to classical. At last year’s Hall of Fame induction, 2019 Songbook Youth Ambassador Sadie Fridley honored the great composer and bandleader with a spectacular rendition of the Ellington classic “It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing),” which you can view here.
Asked about her personal affinity for Ellington, Fridley said, “Duke Ellington’s music, like this song, is the heart and soul of swing. He inspires me because his songs incite a love for music that’s fun and inviting. Music should make you feel something, and that’s exactly what Duke Ellington’s does.”
The cosmos is a performing artist, too
In the infinite celestial dance that surrounds our humble world, among the most notable annual events is the summer solstice, when the sun’s life-giving glow hits its peak. For folks who mark such occasions, there’s no better place to go than Stonehenge, where mysterious prehistoric people hauled enormous monoliths across the Salisbury Plain to construct, apparently, some kind of astronomical calendar.
This weekend, however, it’s neither safe nor permitted for the usual crowd of tourists, hippies and robed religious practitioners to gather at the site to watch the sun set and rise in alignment with the stones. Fortunately, the folks who oversee U.K. historic sites are presenting Summer Solstice at Stonehenge: Live!, with Facebook streams of sunset on Saturday and sunrise on Sunday (Saturday afternoon and night here in the Eastern Time Zone). You can catch the all cosmic action here.
Rest assured, the decision by English Heritage to prohibit the on-site gathering was not made lightly: “We spoke with the emergency services, the druid and pagan community and others before making this difficult decision, and look forward to welcoming everyone again next year.”
