High-season August: outdoor art, electrifying classical concerts

If you love original artwork and live music at the very top level, August is your month.

Sheridan Seyfried and his troupe of stellar classical musicians will be amping up the shows he has made so popular over the past few years. Rehoboth Art League, meantime, will be hosting the second weekend of its annual Outdoor Art Show this weekend.

Art League Executive Director Sara Ganter said last weekend’s show drew the highest first-weekend crowd that anyone remembers in art league history. “A lot of artwork walked out of here last weekend,” she said. “Some artists said last year that that this is not a show where people come to browse. They’re here to buy. That seems to be the case this year too. It’s our largest fundraising event of the year.”

Ganter said more than 125 artists are showing their work. “We also have live music, food and drink. This our 46th outdoor show. It’s very exciting.”

Classical folk, American, blues

If you like the music of Brahms, Graham Nash, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Stephen Foster, and original music from emerging artists, there’s a lot to look forward to in Sheridan Seyfried’s August shows. It’s been a few decades since I sat on a screen porch in the ocean block of the Pines in Rehoboth Beach and interviewed composer James Grant and his young protege, Seyfried, who was just making his way into the world of serious classical music as a composer and performer.

As an homage to his friend and mentor, Seyfried and company will be performing a Grant piece that he composed for his wife, Betsy, 20 years ago on that same porch. It’s just a small sample of an amazingly eclectic collection of music Seyfried is bringing to several venues in eastern Sussex over the next two weeks.

Seyfried studied composition, piano and violin at Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Many of the musicians who will be joining him this year are friends and classmates from Curtis, including his wife Ya-Jhu Yang, also a composer, pianist and flutist.

The group which performs under the Celtic to Classical brand, as soloists in some instances, ensembles in others, will first perform a concert devoted to folk music including arrangements of Nash’s “Teach Your Children,” Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe,” and Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer.” Next comes a series of concerts devoted to American music including works by Dvorak, Foster, Grant, Machlis, Seyfried and Yang. The final concert will explore blues connections among works by Johannes Brahms, BB King, Gary Moore, Earth, Wind and Fire, and other artists.

“Basically,” said Seyfried, “there's a lot of asking questions about what is folk music, what is American music, what is the blues, and can its essence also be transmitted by a classical-era European composer? I have more questions than answers – and the overlap between the programs abounds. America is filled with folk music, and is also the home of the blues. But the blues were born of African slaves forcibly brought to America, and American folk music is largely the legacy of protest movements. Ultimately, the blues is both folk and American, and furthermore offers universal musical and emotional aspects that can be found across time periods and across the world.”

Seyfried is not one to think small. Judging by the performances of past years, these will be electrifying  and enlightening concerts offering glimpses into the many different faces of contemporary classical music played by musicians of the highest order. Visit www.celtictoclassical.com for dates and venues.