Davidson

Variety adds spice to piano and voice recital

From left, Cheryl Dolan, Ayla Sampson, Katherine Cool, Marissa Cammer and Geena Heinrich sing "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" during a recital at Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church on May 8.
From left, Cheryl Dolan, Ayla Sampson, Katherine Cool, Marissa Cammer and Geena Heinrich sing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” during a recital at Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church on May 8.

By Joel van der Veen

DAVIDSON — Local music students combined piano and vocal performances in a recent recital held at Davidson’s Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church.

The recital, held Friday, May 8, showcased the efforts of the students of voice teacher Cheryl Dolan and piano teacher Pearl Unger, with about 10 performers in total and about 50 audience members in attendance.

The recital ran for just over an hour; the song selections ran the gamut from simple children’s ditties and pop songs to classical pieces and musical theatre.

Throughout the evening, the performances moved back and forth between the stage and the piano. Unger accompanied the voice students on the piano.

Among the show’s opening performances was a quartet consisting of Dolan and students Katherine Cool, Ayla Sampson and soloist Geena Heinrich, singing “Poor Wandering One” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.

The three students later returned to the stage as a trio, singing the title song from Fiddler on the Roof.

They were followed by Cheryl Dolan’s husband Dale, who took the stage, claiming he wanted to join the fun, in what was presented as a spontaneous outburst. He then took on the role of Tevye in “If I Were A Rich Man,” while Unger continued to play along without missing a beat.

The audience also heard solo vocal performances by Sampson, Cool and Heinrich, as well as nine-year-old Marissa Cammer. Cool sang the title song from The Sound of Music, while Sampson performed another track from the same show, My Favorite Things.

The audience heard piano performances by Ayla Sampson, Farrah Low, Max German, Jessy Ulmer, Baylie White and Megan Cammer, the latter of whom performed a duet with her sister Marissa on “The Ants Go Marching One by One.”

White played the title song from Beauty and the Beast, while Sampson played the evening’s only rock song: “Clocks,” by the British band Coldplay.

As the evening wound down, the quartet took the stage, joined by Marissa Cammer, to sing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from the film Mary Poppins, inviting the audience to join in. The recital closed with a piano performance by Marissa Cammer, playing “Freddie the Frog.”

Refreshments were served following the recital.