All The Things We Are recap

All The Things We Are

a concert/cabaret of American music

Saturday, March 28th at 2:30pm

Joshua Jeremiah, Brooke Schooley, Vira Slywotzky and David Sytkowski

Saint John's in the Village

218 West 11th Street

New York, NY 10014

RECAP by AKPANOLUO ETTEH

What I enjoy most about a Vira + Friends performance is

the opportunity to expand my musical horizons beyond my typical listening habits.

As I reflect on All The Things We Are,

I’m musing about the curatorial challenge posed by a theme that is broad and hard to pin down -

the through line of American classical(+) vocal music.

The show kicked off with

Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber,

firmly rooted in the known, establishment American tradition.

Brooke performed "Glitter and Be Gay" kicking it off with the

very fun autobiographical storytelling that typifies her work.

The span got broader with songs like

"Неперехідним Муром / Insurmountable Barrier" from

Ukrainian-American Ihor Sonevytsky,

"Songs to the Dark Virgin," with

music by African-American composer Florence Price set to the

words of famed African-American poet Langston Hughes, and

"Seeds" by Martha Redbone.

"Seeds" is particularly interesting to me because it comes from

the inaugural edition of the North American Indigenous Songbook

(which premiered at the venue National Sawdust,

in my home neighborhood of Williamsburg Brooklyn!).

Where Brooke brought storytelling flare,

Joshua brought a range of expressive energy and humor,

especially with his songs "Black Max" - a song about death and STDs, and "Soliloquy" - of a man so caught up in imagining his

recently-conceived child as a boy that it's

not until he's nearly finished raising his child, in imagination and song,

that he realizes that "Bill" could just as easily be a girl.

Vira, Joshua, Brooke, and David all introduced songs that they

picked for the curation, adding an additional level of depth to the repertoire.

The most surprising moment came from David, whose

piano solo, "Aeolian Harp," was played with a

carefully-laid mix of strummed piano strings,

dampened by soft key touches.

The combination was ethereal, reminiscent of distorted harp sounds

I've only recalled hearing elsewhere on tracks like "Falcon Jab" by Ratatat,

a delightfully chaotic electronic rock duo.

The performance rounded out with the most familiar, with

Vira, Joshua, and Brooke sharing the stage as an ensemble

for the sole time in the performance.

They sang a mashup of

Shaker staple "Simple Gifts" with "Turn! Turn! Turn!” by Pete Seeger

- arranged by David -

concluding with Vira on her own singing "9-5" by

Dolly Parton and encouraging us to join in.

All told, it was a very eclectic performance, and

one that really gained momentum in my soul

as it revealed the breadth of what comprises American vocal music,

itself just a specific slice and perspective of the

full range of possibilities that have emerged

in this nation's short history.