SRO “Rags to Riches” Concert Promises Big Voices and the Best Chocolate

The following was provided by the Standing Room Only concert series:

Offering “a somewhat different take on love”, according to SRO producer Peter Stickel, this year’s Valentine concert features the New England Tenors and musical theatre favorite, Leigh Barrett. Taking place at 7:30pm on Thursday, February 14, the annual tune-fest for the tender-hearted again provides a complimentary intermission with champagne (and sparkling alternatives) and hand-made chocolates.

Designed - as usual - both for the lucky in love and the romantically reluctant, Rags to Riches espouses a broader definition of the sentiment, adding songs about the love of family, country and life itself to the love of couples.  Members of the New England Tenors include John Middleton-Cox, Damian Corcoran and Jeffrey Hartman.

Numbers such as Love Is a Many Splendered Thing, That’s Amore and Come What May, the ballad sung by Nicole Kidman’s and Ewan McGregor’s characters in Moulin Rouge, evoke Cupid’s arrow. A set from the popular movie Les Misérables includes I Dreamed a Dream, Jean Valjean’s prayer - Bring Him Home, and the anthem, Do You Hear the People Sing?

In keeping with SRO’s historic 2012-13 season, Rags to Riches celebrates America c.1913 with song sets, Irish (Galway Bay, The Irish Lullaby, and the world’s # 1 song of that year, When Irish Eyes Were Smiling), Italian (honoring Enrico Caruso with four of his most famous arias, including La Donna e Mobile and Nessun Dorma), Ragtime (three songs from the Broadway musical Ragtime) and a tribute to the toast of Broadway a century ago, New England’s own George M. Cohan.

As always, tickets to Rags to Riches ($30, $25 for seniors 65+ and students) are available online at www.sroconcerts.org, at two ticket outlets in Wakefield: Parker Florist at 9 Lincoln Street and Silver Clay at 39 Albion Street, and by mail to SRO/Wakefield UU Church, PO Box 529, Wakefield, MA 01880. Information is online or available by calling 339.203.9366.

In connection with the Bicentennial Celebration of the Wakefield UU Church, the fourth season of the Standing Room Only series is titled, “Celebrating America, Sounds That Inspired a Nation.” As the title suggests, the season of concerts is created with music that inspired Americans to grow and prosper at points in our nation’s history. Performances take place in the “classic meeting house with concert hall acoustics” at 326 Main Street in Wakefield, Massachusetts. 

Opening the season on September 22nd was “Stars & Stripes”, taking us back 200 years to the War of 1812 with the brand new drum and bugle sound and our Star Spangled Banner, along with the moving music of indigenous and African Americans. “A Civil War Christmas” on December 23 featured pianist Jacqueline Schwab and singers, Holly Zagaria, Joseph Holmes, Mike Salvatore and Maddie Sifantus. This program with the New England Tenors and Leigh Barrett on Valentine’s Day, “Rags to Riches, Love of Music and Motherland”, celebrates a period of multiculturalism and reform a century ago. And for the season finale on April 27, 2013, be instantly transported back to a time of energy and promise 50 years ago with the big band sound of Esquivel, the pop/jazz/latin music with a twist that perfectly captures the iconoclastic energy of the topsy-turvy 60’s.