INEntertainment

COMPOSER, COMPOSER

The premiere performance of
Lawrence Singer's Double Concerto for
Oboe, Viola and Orchestra will high-
light the Sunday, Nov. 16, concert of
the Southfield Symphony Orchestra at
St. Hugo of the Hills, where a free
_,oboe master class will be offered on
- the previous day.
Internationally known oboist
Humbert Lucarelli, Detroit Symphony
Orchestra's principal violist Alexander
Mishnaevski and a combined chorus
of Southfield-Lathrup and Ferndale
High School students will perform.
The concert, conducted by Valery
Leonov, also will
include
Beethoven's

Leonore
Overture,
Marcello's Oboe
in Concerto in D
Minor and
Bellini's Norma
Overture.
A grant from
C; the Michigan
Council for Arts
and Cultural
Composer Lawrence
Affairs enabled
Singer
the orchestra to
commission
Singer to write the piece.
"The viola and oboe are both
instruments which are rarely used in
concertos," said orchestra president
C Charles Marks. "By combining them
in a single concerto, we will be creat-
ing a format which has no precedent
in music history."
The master class, which runs from
2-5 p.m., will be conducted by Singer,
Lucarelli and Karen DiChiera, director
of the Department of Community
Programs for Michigan Opera
Theatre.
Singer, who periodically teaches at
Oakland University, was born in
Eastpointe, graduated from Eastman
School of Music and studied composi-
tion at the Academia Chigiana in
Sienna, Italy.
The recipient of an award in com-
position from Radio France and a
Rockefeller Foundation fellowship,
Singer has been an oboe soloist for
RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana.
Two CDs of his oboe concerto
Sensazione II are available; one is a
Grammy-nominated recording on
Crystal Records, and the other is a
new release on Opus I.
Singer wrote "Four Holocaust
Songs" for the Holocaust Memorial
Center in West Bloomfield and the

Mixed Media

News 6' Reviews.

children's opera Aesop's Fables for the
Michigan Opera Theatre.

Lawrence Singer's double concerto
will be performed 7:30 p.m.
Sunday Nov 16 at St Hugo of
the Hills, 2215 Opdyke,
Bloomfield Hills. $12/adults;
S8/seniors and children. The free
oboe master class will be held 2-5
p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, at St.
Hugo of the Hills. Call (248) 424-
9022 or (248) 851-7408.

OF NOTE ... NEW ON CD

Anyone expecting sentiment on
Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions
(Mercury), the final album from the
last of Kiss' sans makeup lineups, is
likely to be disappointed. Released to
block the tide of bootlegs and, proba-
bly, to stave off a lawsuit or two, Kiss
principals Gene Simmons and Paul
Stanley — Chaim Witz and Paul Eisen
to you — have brought forth their final
recording with guitarist Bruce Kulick
and drummer Eric Singer, the musi-
cians they released when it became
clear the highly lucrative reunion with
original members Ace Frehley and Peter
Criss was going to take.
Kulick and Singer aren't getting
much of a send-off, though; Carnival of
Souls comes out on the budget plan,
with the most Spartan packaging and
graphics to grace any of Kiss' 29 albums.

Agginiej, k

Stepping away from the pop and
glam sensibilities that inform most of
the group's repertoire, Carnival is a
headbanger's special, Kiss' bid to share
a little sonic space with modern metal
faves such as Metallica and Alice in
Chains.
The lyrics are dark, the rhythms are
lumbering and the guitars are loud and
speedy. It works in spots: "Master &
Slave" and "In the. Mirror" cook atop a
solid groove; "Childhood's End" has an
agreeably anthemic drive; and the
acoustic flavored "I Will Be There" is
an effective change of pace.
But mostly Carnival sounds imita-
tive, stripped of most of Kiss' trade-
marks in its pursuit of another realm of
hard rock sounds. And unoriginality is
not a guise that Kiss wears well.

— Reviewed by Gary Graff

BETWEEN THE PAGES
Fans of Howard Fast's Immigrants
series will be delighted with An
Independent Woman, his postscript

addition to a reading experience they
believed had ended several years ago.
The author, too, thought he had con-
cluded his saga with The Immigrant's
Daughter when he left Barbara Layette,
daughter of Dan Layette, the Italian
immigrant shipping magnate, in mid-
dle age. When Fast's wife of 57 years
died, however, he had cause to reflect
on the vitality of older
women, and he real-
ized that the story of
his heroine was far
from over.
Here all the charac-
ters — or their descen-
dants — who peopled
the original novels are
reintroduced, with
necessary explanations
of their place in
Barbara's extended
family that readers of
the previous books will
find a bit cumbersome.
Here, again, are the
Levys, who operate a
Napa Valley winery, as
well as Joe Layette,
Barbara's doctor broth-
er, and Sam Cohen,

her son, who is now a surgeon.
New to this installment is Philip
Carter, a Unitarian minister whom
Barbara meets when she ducks into his
church to get out of the rain and mar-
ries when she is in her late 60s. Their
honeymoon to Europe and Israel allows
for more of the adventures in interna-
tional intrigue on which Barbara's repu-

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1 ;;RANTS

N

Cation has been based.
In the tradition of its forerunning
companions, this book is gently politi-
cal, touching again on the Vietnam
War and the unsettled Middle East,
and this time bringing up spiritual
matters by way of Barbara's agnosticism
juxtaposed with her new husband's
unshakable beliefs. The narrative is
framed by an account of Robert Jones,
a thief whose life Barbara changes for-
ever when he comes to rob her house
in the middle of the night.
While the story can be read and
understood without first reading its
predecessors, readers who choose to
bypass the previous novels are doing
themselves a disservice. While Fast
alludes to the family's establishment in
turn-of-the-century San Francisco, this
present-day chronicle lacks the histori-
cal heft that grounded those that came
before it. And readers coming to these
characters for the first time may find
the effusive warmth between them,
their easy acceptance of each other's
complicated lifestyles and the harmo-
nious relationships between former
spouses a tiny bit saccharine and too
good to be true.

— Reviewed by Glenda Winders of
Copley News Service

11/14
1997

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