JUNE 19, 2010 - THE PLAIN DEALER
Apollo's Fire applies buoyant and tender touch to country fare
by Donald Rosenberg

Members of Apollo's Fire, including music director Jeannette Sorrell, perform "Come to the River - An Early American Gathering" at various locations Northeast Ohio through Friday.

Jeannette Sorrell’s Cleveland Baroque Orchestra is known best as Apollo’s Fire, even when the musicians diverge from their normal period-instrument activities.

The ensemble takes such a detour every summer during their Countryside Concerts to glory in music of folk persuasion. Given the dominant nature of the offerings, perhaps the group should assume the temporary moniker Appalachia’s Fire.

Apollonian or Appalachian, Sorrell’s versatile band of singers and instrumentalists once again extracts all of the exuberant and tender juice from the homespun selections in “Come to the River – An Early American Gathering.”

The program is a slightly revised version of last year’s initial presentation. The new incarnation places more emphasis on Sorrell’s reminiscences as teenaged pianist at a Southern Baptist church and refocuses the tale of a preacher and company on the way to a revival meeting.

Many pieces from the original program are here again. But Sorrell has added tunes and guest artists to bring more sonic and visual interest to the narrative.

What makes the program such an enchanted evening is the truthful grace and vitality that harpsichordist Sorrell and colleagues apply to their tantalizing Southern fare. The Appalachian pieces that pervade the opening “Shenandoah Valley Memories” provide poignant and playful views of Sorrell’s experience as a young musician.

Tina Bergmann sends glowing sonorities dancing from her hammered dulcimer, while Sandra Simon extracts every delicious nuance from “The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night.” Simon harmonizes sweetly with Scott Mello and Abigail Haynes Lennox in the lullaby “Nobody But the Baby.” Flutist Kathie Stewart and violinist Rachel Jones do shining work.

The preacher is portrayed to stentorian perfection by Paul Shipper, as sonorous singing bass as he is sensitive strumming guitar. Scott Mello, playing a young man sowing his oats, is deeply affecting bewailing the loss of his girl. Once Rene Schiffer plays an achingly expressive cello solo, Mello turns violent in “Wild Bill Jones,” shoots the cellist and is hauled off to jail.

Redemption comes during the revival meeting, a potpourri of spirituals and shape-note hymns sung to the lilting hilt by the entire company, with the audience joining in for a soothing “Down in the River to Pray.”