Author: The Hippo Press

Performing arts, fine arts and classical music saw amazing gains in 2022

By Katelyn Sahagian

ksahagian@hippopress.com

Visual arts

James Chase, the founder of Arts Build Community and a professor at New England College, said 2022 was an amazing year for him as an artist and for his nonprofit.

In 2022, Chase founded the Manchester Mural Festival and brought street artists from around the world to help make Manchester even more beautiful.

“It was really successful,” Chase said. “Since it was so well-received, there’s been lots of community interest to expand the festival with new partners.”

It was imperative to Chase that the artists really work with the community, so his organization partnered with The Boys & Girls Club of Manchester so that the invited artists could hear what the city’s youth wanted to have included in the murals.

Because of the collaborative nature of the project, Chase said the festival was probably also one of his biggest challenges in 2022. He said that it could be hard to get businesses to agree to use their exterior wall space when there wasn’t a final image.

He found businesses and organizations that were excited for the artwork, even if there wasn’t a sketch for them to look at, and there are now three permanent pieces of artwork on Queen City’s walls.

Another first in Manchester’s art scene was the Manchester Citywide Arts Festival, created and organized by the Palace Theatre. One of the featured artists at the festival, Karen Jerzyk said that she was thrilled to showcase her work in her home city.

“I hope for more things like [the Manchester Citywide Arts Festival]” Jerzyk said. “I had a great time at it. It was a really good crowd that went and I hope I can do more stuff locally.”

Jerzyk, a photographer known for her surrealist style and astronaut models, said that the most exciting part of 2022 was attending Art Basel in Miami in early December, as well as being featured in Time magazine’s digital art gallery.

“This year was that glimmer of hope again for me that maybe things will get better,” Jerzyk said. “I’m just grateful that everything got back to that normalcy.”

Classical music

While the 2022-2023 classical music season has only just begun, both the Nashua Chamber Orchestra and the New Hampshire Philharmonic have seen huge differences in their audiences, primarily in their sizes, but also in the excitement.

David Feltner, the artistic director of the Nashua Chamber Orchestra, said 2022 was a huge departure from pandemic concerts, not just because there could be live music, but also because there were full orchestrations. Up until this year, the orchestra had been divided into smaller sections, with the first full orchestra concert happening in spring of 2022.

The first concert of the ’22-’23 season, Beethoven and Friends, was a huge success, Feltner said. Future concerts will have audience participation, with attendees being asked to give a listen to Haydn’s Symphony No. 93 and come up with a name.

While looking ahead to 2023, Feltner said he was easily most excited for playing and writing his own music as well as conducting.

“I wrote a piece for viola, and I will be conducting and performing the part,” said Chase, saying that this will be the first time he conducts and performs his own work. “It’s pretty thrilling when your music comes to life.”

Toni DeGennaro, the executive director at the New Hampshire Philharmonic, said that 2022 has been a step back to normalcy for the orchestra.

DeGennaro said the biggest highlight for her was seeing the holiday pops concert in mid-December sell out Seifert Performing Arts Center, a 733-seat venue. She said that having people come and see Santa playing in the orchestra, or a 9-year-old soloist perform, was a wonderful way to end the holiday season.

“It was just packed,” said DeGennaro. “That to us signified that we’re back. Covid is still going on, but it’s still nice to see people out and enjoying the music.”

2023 brings along more exciting concerts for the orchestra, including an African music concert that will be performed with a resident from Dartmouth, and the Drawn to the Music program. Drawn to the Music takes artistic submissions from New Hampshire elementary school students who drew while listening to classical music. At the concert, selected students’ artwork will be displayed during the performance of the music they listened to while crafting their masterpieces.

“That’s our highlight for the end of the year, seeing the kids come all dressed up and it’s super cute,” said DeGennaro. “It’s really an awesome show.”

Theater companies

Despite the hiccups of the pandemic, and struggling at times for performance space, Mo Demers, one of the directors at Lend Me a Theatre, said 2022 has given the company a lot of firsts.

“We’re starting to take independent plays and original plays,” Demers said, adding that one of the shows they’re looking at was written by an actor in the company. The first independent play to be performed is The World was Yours and will go up in 2023, Demers said.

In addition to independent plays, Lend Me a Theatre is the first company to perform three of its season’s shows at The Hatbox Theatre. Demer said having shows in such an intimate space makes for an exciting experience.

One of the shows was Demers’ highlight of the year. She was able to direct her dream show, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, for Hatbox. She said it’s been 10 years that she’s been dreaming of putting it on, and getting the chance to put it on, even in a smaller setting with a small audience, still made it worthwhile.

At Manchester Community Theatre Players, Steve Short, the executive director, said that the highlight show of the year was the final show, Titanic the musical, it was also one of the most challenging parts of the year.

Short said that presenting a show like Titanic was rewarding, and doing it for an audience that was able to not social distance and with performers completely unmasked made it a fun challenge.

“All our rehearsals were masked,” said Short. “It was hard on the final dress to adjust everything.”

Short said that, in addition to actors having to adjust their acting when seeing castmates’ full faces, technical staff had to adjust microphone settings, and some staging elements had to be changed as well.

2022 was the first season since the pandemic began that the Players performed as a full ensemble on a stage, Short said. Before this, shows were done fully remote on Zoom, or in hybrid settings.

Short said he hopes to continue bringing more unmasked and in-person theater to Manchester. The next big show for the company, will be a celebration of more than two decades of theater it has brought to the Queen City.

“It’s going to be a Manchester Community Theatre Players Become Legal show,” Short said. “We’ll be celebrating our 21st year, as a revue of many musical numbers of shows we’ve done over the past years.”

Performance venues

The Tupelo Music Hall saw many changes in 2022 due primarily to losing out on touring acts that they’re known for inviting, said owner Scott Hayward, which has affected ticket sales. Even so, he said that Tupelo is up much more in ticket sales over the pandemic.

“Right now, I’m so optimistic,” Hayward said. “I’m hoping that by this time next year, we’re back to where we were before when Covid hit us.”

While it was open before the pandemic, the Rex Theatre really hit its stride in 2022, according to Warren O’Reilly, the assistant to the president of Palace and Rex Theatres.

O’Reilly, who organized and ran the first Manchester International Film Festival, said he was excited to be bringing it back next year.

“We’re hoping for at least 50 percent of the films to be made by New Hampshire filmmakers,” O’Reilly said, adding that they would narrow the scope of the festival down but ramp up the animation in it.

O’Reilly added that the Rex was thriving when it came to comedy shows, but he wanted to promote the theater as a place where live music and comedy have a home in the Queen City.

“Looking ahead to next year, we are booking more local and independent acts,” said O’Reilly. “We’re working with Queen City Improv to have them do a show in April. We want to have [The Rex] be a place where Manchester-based artists can perform.”

Featured photo: Arms Park Mural. Photo by Michael Cirelli /@cirelliworks