Cellar Singers Got Talent

The Cellar Singers showcased a dazzling array of talents with an informal pre-Valentine evening on the ninth day of February 2013 at St. James’s Anglican Church, Orillia. Fresh snow lay thick outside, cold, sparkling and quiet under a starry sky after days and nights of storms. Inside the Stubley Auditorium, Mitchell Pady’s flexible voice was evoking Gershwin’s “Summertime” to a delicious piano accompaniment by Blair Bailey.

That’s not all that was delicious. A mouth-watering display of desserts featuring strawberries and chocolate lured eye and palate at the back of the hall. The Cellar Singers are famous for delectable home-made goodies, proof of that pudding being in their recipe book, part of my collection for years. The buzz of anticipation was high as the room filled to capacity, well in advance of show time.

An octet composed of Liz Schamehorn, Anne Hall, Wilma Koiter, Rosemarie Freeman, Wayne Cox, Dave Stewart, John Jefferies and Adam Thomson, accompanied by Blair Bailey at the piano, launched an evening dedicated to romance with “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” from Victor Herbert’s operetta, “Naughty Marietta”.

Ruth Bell-Towns hosted the talent show, sprinkling Valentine-inspired quotations and stories between acts, and keeping performers’ remarks as short and crisp as possible, with comic struggles as the occasional introduction took on a life of its own.

Debi MacKay’s harp vibrated to the compelling Latin-American rhythms of Alfredo Rolando Ortiz. The first of three compositions sounded like a serenade. The second piece breathed the sadness of a lost love, while the final selection evoked droplets falling from fountains in a plaza lined by houses with balcony windows open to let in the music and fragrances of a soft southern evening.

As in the 1954 movie “White Christmas” we had heaps of snow all around, and singers with lilting voices and comic sense to bring us a delightful double set of “Sisters”. Heather Philip, Alyx Mecalick, Vicky Malfait and Audrey Willsey, with Carolyn Grant at the piano, followed in the sprightly footsteps of Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen.

Romance followed in the form of noble aspirations and ambitions of grandeur. Armed with sword and shield, John Jefferies and Jim Barnett were stoutly supported by Blair Bailey in “The Impossible Dream” from Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion’s “Man of La Mancha”.

Wendell Fisher, Wayne Noble and Mitchell Pady warbled, wobbled and shuffled papers through a skit called “The Audition”, with an unpredictable happy ending.

Sopranos Nynka Greer and Kim McIntosh blended beautifully in the Flower Duet from “Lakme” by Leo Delibes. I keep mentioning accompanist Blair Bailey because his contribution is never the same as for the singers who sang before, but always underscores the particular talents of each artist and ensemble and creates a new and vibrant happening with them. Here, the word for singers and piano is, simply, “exquisite”.

Cole Porter’s sophisticated story of an oyster’s career in high society was rendered in excruciating detail by vocalist David James and pianist Blair Bailey, who then accompanied the barbershop quartet of Bill Fivey, Doug Hall Klaas Koiter and John Chiles in the nineteen-twenties hit, “Pretty Baby”, a favourite of my Dad’s.

The first time I saw this piece performed is vividly registered on my then ten-year-old brain when Dad dragged me to the Mt. Pleasant Theatre one evening. Up there on the big screen in black and white, Zazu Pitts at the drums was expertly stealing “Pretty Baby” from whomever was singing it, while bent on charming Charles Laughton in the classic movie, “Ruggles of Redgap”. Our boys of the 2013 Cellar Singers captured the essence and atmosphere of the great oldies in song and on screen.

Tuneful and engaging Canadian compositions followed the delectable refreshments and the Silent Auction. Singer song-writer Don Bray reminded me of a younger Valdy with his casual mastery of guitar and voice, while being very much himself. He stayed on stage to accompany fellow guitar virtuoso Mitchell Pady in a story song about meeting an old flame at a high school reunion. Two spell-binders.

Amy Dodington has a gift for unaccompanied singing of traditional Celtic legends like “She Moved Through the Fair”, that haunting Irish tale of doomed love. A pin-drop hush followed Amy’s voice and artistry before prolonged applause broke out.

We traveled back to the historic year 1066 when David James took the lectern to deliver in an authentic Stanley Holloway Yorkshire accent one of Marriott Edgar’s most popular history lessons, beginning: I'll tell of the Battle of Hastings, As happened in days long gone by, When Duke William became King of England, And 'Arold got shot in the eye. I suspect that David knows this monologue by heart, and only keeps the script handy for backup. Those monologues come with memorization software built into their engaging rhythm and rhyme. Our audience lapped this one up.

W.S. Gilbert’s elderly battle-axe from the court of the “Mikado” then took the stage. Under the made-up and full regalia of Katisha was Pauline Rideout, turning an impassive face and a deaf ear to Paul Dodington as Koko, the Lord High Executioner, who is trying to save his friends from a vat of boiling oil “after lunch” by an act of supreme sacrifice - wooing tough old maiden Katisha. His heart-wrenching ditty about a love-lorn tweety-bird who tossed himself into a river crying, “Tit-willow” proved very affecting, if not to the lady being courted onstage, then clearly to us in the audience, to judge from the tumultuous applause.

The glamorous duo Lynda and Jim Lewis glided through “I wouldn’t have nothin’ if I didn’t have you” from Randy Newman’s “Monsters Inc.” They shone and charmed.

Blair Bailey was to have played a duet if his intended partner at the keyboard had not injured her shoulder. Instead, he turned himself into Ragtime Bailey, and brought down the house with “Rialto Ripples" composed in 1917 by Geroge Gershwin and Will Donaldson.

Following this tour-de-force his contribution to “Summertime” from Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” was breath-taking to us, and to tenor Mitchell Pady. The singer had his own winning way with this classic. Their soul-satisfying finale to a glittering evening left me, for one, still ready for more magic.