'Beyond the Frames: A Musical Celebration' celebrates new portraits at Mechanic Hall

Richard Duckett, Worcester Telegram & Gazette

April 19, 2024 at 5:03 AM·5 min read

Wolff von Roos will be a guest organist for “Beyond the Frames: A Celebration!" at Mechanics Hall.

Mechanics Hall is pulling out all the stops out for its "Beyond the Frames: A Musical Celebration" at 6:30 p.m. on April 25.

The concert, which celebrates three new portraits of 19th century Black Americans that were officially unveiled at Mechanics Hall on March 14, will feature local music groups and performers as well as five Black organists who will be coming from across the country to play the hall's famous E. & G.G. Hook Organ (with its 52 organ stops). The inspirational program highlights several Black composers in honoring the portrait subjects. The event is "Pay What You Can."

"This is a community celebration," said Kathleen M. Gagne, executive director of Mechanics Hall. "Everyone is invited."

The centerpiece of the March 14 unveiling, titled “Beyond the Frames: A Celebration!”, was a gala event/fundraiser that was geared for donors. For "Beyond the Frames: A Musical Celebration" "we really do want everyone to come who can enjoy it," Gagne said.

The concert will include the Worcester Youth Orchestras, Worcester Chamber Music Society, Worcester Chorus Women’s Ensemble of Music Worcester, Many Voices: Mechanics Hall Youth Singers, Crocodile River Music, Mechanic Hall principal organist Peter Krasinski, and tenor Christon Carney. The special guest organists are George Davey, Tedde Gibson, Nathaniel Gumbs, Nicole Keller and Wolff von Roos. Among the Black composers featured in the program will be Florence Price (1882–1953) and Margaret Bonds (1913–1972), whose vast and diverse works were centered within a larger movement focused on the elevation of Black identity and Black historical narratives through music.

'A lot of moving parts'

The new portraits are the culmination of the hall's Portraits Project, which was announced in 2020. Previously, the gallery of 19th century portraits of notable local and national figures that hang in the Great Hall did not include those of any African-Americans. The Portraits Project subjects are husband-and-wife Black Worcester business owners and abolitionists William Brown (1824-1892) and Martha Ann Tulip Lewis Brown (1821-1889), painted by Brenda Zlamany of Brooklyn, New York; formerly enslaved abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), painted by Manu Saluja of Long Island, New York; and the formerly enslaved civil rights leader, orator and writer Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), painted by Imo Nse Imeh of Holyoke.

The concert has been put together by a Mechanics Hall team of Krasinski, Carney, who is also the hall's manager of education and outreach, and Kristen Livoti, the hall's director of development and engagement, Gagne said. The event has been in the works since November. "It's a full-blown two-hour concert with a lot of moving parts."

There will be a cash bar, and sweet treats will be provided by Struck Catering. "Pay What You Can” admission means what it says, and there is no minimum, Gagne said. Tickets can be reserved at mechanicshall.org.

Groups such as Worcester Youth Orchestras, Worcester Chamber Music Society and Worcester Chorus were invited to take part because they regularly use Mechanics Hall as a performance venue, Gagne said.

"I really feel like it's their home as well as it is ours. For them to have an opportunity to celebrate these new portraits was important to me," she said.

"Mechanics Hall is our home, and we are thrilled to join our musical colleagues in this wonderful program to celebrate the installation of these truly magnificent portraits," said Tracy Kraus, executive director of the Worcester Chamber Music Society. "We will be performing a work by Florence Price (String Quartet No. 1), an exceptional composer whose long-neglected music is seeing a resurgence of performances here and abroad."

Krasinski organized the organists. "The organ performance world is pretty tight," Gagne noted. "The organ is such a major part of the hall. I'm thrilled that they all agreed to come."

Wolff von Roos is principal organist at First Friends Quaker Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, and artist-in-residence/sub-minister of music of Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis.

'... to praise, to meditate, to lift your voice ...'

Davey is the organist and choirmaster at the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, Brooklyn; Gibson is a pianist and classical, Hammond, and theater organist as well as a composer, arranger, and silent film scorer; Gumbs currently serves as director of chapel music at Yale University; Keller was recently appointed to the faculty of the School of Music, Theatre and Dance at the University of Michigan and is also visiting instructor of organ at the Interlochen Arts Academy; and von Roos is principal organist at First Friends Quaker Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, and artist-in-residence/sub-minister of music of Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis.

Von Roos has said he believes "the arts are some of the most powerful ways to praise, to meditate, to lift your voice, and to make a statement."

In a phone interview he said he'll be driving from Indianapolis to Worcester for the concert.

The event at Mechanics Hall was brought to his attention by Krasinski who told him "you should play for them," von Roos said.

After finding out more about the concert and the Portraits Project he said he thought, "Wow, it's a pretty big honor."

Von Roos will be playing improvisations on the spiritual "Wade in the Water" and the hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing." The performance will be for Frederick Douglass and to "represent his story," von Roos said.

Von Roos has performed recitals at venues in the United States and Canada and also accompanies silent movies such as "Nosferatu," and "Phantom of the Opera."

A concert gathering Black musicians to perform a program featuring a number of Black composers is "really rare, especially in a big hall like this (Mechanics Hall)," he said.

"I'm a young organist. It's really an honor to play with such distinguished people. I'm just starting to make it out in the organ world. I try to be humble about it, but you have to admit it's pretty cool."

Mechanics Hall has been getting plenty of positive reactions to the unveiling of the portraits, Gagne said. "I'm so excited that there is a true buzz in the whole community."

Local schools have already been visiting for educational events in relation to the paintings, and a number of future "Beyond the Frames" events will be taking place.

"We'll have speakers, workshops, discussions and story tellers who give the life stories of the portraits," Gagne said.