By Connie Shaver, Concrete and Grass Lowertown Music Festival

This weekend’s 7th annual Concrete and Grass Lowertown Music Festival brought just about everything musical to Mears Park, covering over three nights the talents of a classical chamber orchestra; opera soloists; brass ensemble; African beats; and the instruments and voices of rock, pop, and jazz. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra launched the festival on September 5th with a bang–Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, maybe even more awe-inspiring in an urban park. Following Beethoven, the popular vocal jazz ensemble Moore By Four mixed elegant harmonies with swing and sway.

Friday opened with the eclectic repertoire of A-Rey, aka Alicia Renee and friends. Alicia has one of the most flexible voices in town, sounding like an indie folk heroine one minute, a country lass the next, and a jazz diva on yet another tune. And she really shines as a songwriter. The soulful spirits of Marimba Africa followed, heavy on infectious rhythms and “move your feet” percussion… and there were plenty of folks moving their feet throughout Mears Park. Day Two closed with another genre-bending singer/songwriter, Lucy Michelle, teaming up with Chan Poling and John Munson (New Standards) to offer some highly original songs with skilled instrumental backing.

A steamy Saturday afternoon opened with all the fun and harmonic elegance of brass– the Copper Street Brass Quintet presented by the Shubert Club, their flaming pink band shirts never outshining the range of sound coming from brass horns. Next, soloists from the Minnesota Opera (tenor Brad Benoit and soprano Karin Wolverton) performed a round robin of favorite arias (solos and duets) from the likes of Carmen, Madame Butterfly, La Boheme, Susannah and more, including a stunning duet from La Boheme’s first act–as many times as we might have heard it, hearing it live again is always a thrill, and the voices were simply perfect. Demographics of the audience shifted some for the last two sets of the festival — a very eclectic collection of tunes from McNally Smith College of Music faculty, “The Sphericals” (guitar, bass and drums) and the indie band known as Halloween, Alaska — guitar, bass, drums and keys that surely had cross-generation appeal… even to the Boomers who were still humming La Boheme. In another era, surely these young rockers would have been dubbed Bohemians?

Photo by Matt Thueson