Le Petit Salon de Musique hosted an art reception for Pictures at an Exhibition: Revisited last Sunday afternoon. The exhibit, based on Modest Mussorgsky’s famous 10-movement suite and featuring 16 artists, is on view at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 380 Nicolls Road, East Setauket through Oct. 31. For more information, call 631-751-0297.
Above, ‘Children in the Park’ by Sylvia Kirk
By Kevin Redding
For the opening of its seventh season as the premiere classical music series on Long Island, Le Petit Salon de Musique will do something a little different and more ambitious than any of its previous events. On Sunday, Oct. 16 at 2 p.m., not only will there be a grand presentation of a variety of classical compositions — performed by Carnegie Hall chamber pianist Alexandria Le — but also a gallery of local art that will serve as visual representation of the concert’s main piece: Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s stunning “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
The famous 10-movement suite was written in 1874 in response to the death of artist Viktor Hartmann, one of Mussorgsky’s dearest friends, and intended to be “evocative of a walk through an art exhibit.” Beginning with an artist reception on Sunday, Sept. 18 from 2 to 4 p.m. and continuing through Oct. 31, the community will be able to take that walk at Pictures at an Exhibition: Revisited at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Stony Brook.
Ed and Linda Mikell, the Commack residents behind the concert series, sought to honor the whole theme of the piece and with the help of exhibit curator Sylvia Kirk, 16 local artists working in different forms of media were chosen to visually represent and accompany the music. Linda, who is a former voice major and music teacher, had been a fan of this specific suite for a while when she discovered that Le would be performing it. “It’s one of my favorite pieces,” she said, “and I just kept thinking ‘wouldn’t it be fabulous if we could enlist some local photographers and artists for this?’ and I immediately thought of Sylvia, who kind of curates our little gallery here when we have a show. She knew so many photographers and we have a bunch of artists in the Fellowship so we met three times at my house, played the music, explained what the composer envisioned, and then people just went off and came back with their art.”
Kirk, whose own work will be included in the exhibition, rounded up a wide variety of artistic talent from the area, opening it up to anybody that did anything in any medium. Gallery visitors will see a quilt piece, a pastel piece, paintings, and a large focus on photography — which has lent itself especially well to the concepts within each movement.
“There are 16 artists and 23 pieces [overall], so some artists have two pieces,” said Kirk. “There’s three or four photo montages, two of them did digital art — they do all kinds of things digitally with their photographs — and many of us just took straight photos.” According to Kirk, some of the artists have decided to donate their work to be sold. As is the case for the musicians, their proceeds will be split with the fellowship.
Some of the 10 movements include the dark and melancholy sounds of “The Gnome” and “The Old Castle,” more lighthearted scherzos like “The Ballet of Unhatched Chicks in their Shells,” and the triumphant “The Great Gate at Kiev.”
The Artists:
Linda Anderson, Bruce S.G. Barrett, Doris Diamond, Julie Doczi, Susan Dooley, Jan Golden, Faye Graber, Merrill Heit, Kathee Kelson, Sylvia Kirk, Lily Klima, Jerry Levy, Eric Lohse, Frances McGuire, Keelin Murphy and Len Sciacchitano
“Each movement has a picture associated with it,” said Ed. “I said to my wife that we should have a description or an explanation of what it is that the artists have addressed when they put their pieces together, a description of the events and what’s being interpreted.”
The Mikells, who launched the concert series in 2010 with Le as its first performer, want to continue giving those in attendance — performers and audiences alike — a great experience. “Everybody who comes out over the years have wonderful things to say,” said Ed. “They don’t really know or care what’s playing. They just know it’s going to be quality stuff.”
“People travel all the way into the city to hear this quality of music,” added Linda, “but it’s right here. You can walk right in the door, sit, and be 10 feet from the performers.”
Le Petit Salon de Musique, 380 Nicolls Road, East Setauket will welcome Alexandria Le in concert on Oct. 16 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 adults ($15 online), $15 seniors ($10 online) and $5 for students. For more information, call 751-0297 or visit www.lepetitsalon.org.
North Shore resident calls on neighbors to boost effort against blight
By Alex Petroski
The 7 Cents Club of Commack is not a household name, but it might be one day.
Ed Mikell, a retired Commack resident, said he created the 7 Cents Club of Commack hoping to attract, as he puts it, “anyone interested in promoting Commack community pride.”
Promoting community pride might sound vague, but for Mikell it is specific and direct. He is tired of seeing the streets of the town he has called home for nearly a half-century covered with trash and he is ready to do something about it, he said.
Mikell said he plans to focus his efforts to clean up Commack on a small segment of Crooked Hill Road for now, which runs north and south for about four and a half miles almost right down the middle of Long Island. He described the site of his inaugural, and to date his only completed 7 Cents Club of Commack project, which he did by himself back in September.
“It’s the first time that I decided to do anything like this,” Mikell said. “I had a free afternoon. There were about 10 people standing in the middle of that garbage. I said, ‘this is just terrible.’”
It is hard to discern who should be responsible for the bus stop in question that now features a white bench and a brown, metal garbage can with white lettering that reads “7 Cents Club of Commack,” compliments of Mikell’s wife Linda.
The garbage can was a spare that Mikell spotted in the corner of a field on the Suffolk County Community College Grant Campus, along with about 20 other identical ones. Mikell said a maintenance worker was more than happy to help him load the can into his car to be transported to the site. Mikell wouldn’t divulge where the bench came from because he didn’t want to endanger the generous party’s employment.
And while cleaning, Mikell had found seven cents on the ground, hence the name of his volunteer project.
“He comes up with these ideas every once in a while and they usually turn out to be quite amazing,” Linda Mikell said, adding she wasn’t surprised when her husband came to her and described his plan, rather than searching for someone else to do the dirty work. “That’s the way Ed is.”
There is no question over who is responsible for the bus stop now. Mikell said he has an arrangement waiting with Cliff Mitchell of the Suffolk County Public Works Department to claim the spot, along with a larger segment of Crooked Hill Road, as part of the Adopt-a-Highway Program.
To proceed he needs signed waivers from his team that he can bring to the county, which will then provide him with gloves, sticks to pick up garbage, bags, reflective vests and anything else that the club might need.
The program requires a commitment from applicants to tend to claimed areas once a month, 10 months a year for two years.
Mikell said he is willing to commit to this cause for the foreseeable future, and thanks to his nearly 50 years of business experience, he is prepared for possible expansion. He has what he called a “project control” system in place that will help him track the sites of cleanups, when they were addressed, by whom and when follow-up was done.
“My whole thought about this was if it works in Commack it’ll work in Kings Park, it’ll work in Hauppauge, it’ll work in Wyandanch,” Mikell said. “It will work in every town and all that needs to be had is a person like me in every town who cares, who will go out and organize and structure it.”
Since he began dropping flyers in Commack mailboxes and hanging them in public places about six months ago, Mikell says he has yet to hear back from anyone interested in lending a hand. The lack of enthusiasm from others in the community has disheartened him, he said, but it has not deterred him from finding applicants in other ways.
Mikell has since enlisted the help of a few neighbors from his street, including retired mechanical engineer Nicholas Giannopoulos.
“We’d like to have the community look halfway decent,” Giannopoulos said. “Basically I think everybody should contribute to the community to make it better. If you live in an area that you like to live in, everybody should think along those lines.”
Mikell returns to the original site regularly to make sure that his efforts were not wasted. On one occasion, he noticed someone sitting on his bench at the bus stop and saw garbage next to the can. He asked the woman why she didn’t put the garbage in the can. She responded defensively and said it didn’t belong to her.
“I’m not blaming the woman. I was just making a comment,” Mikell said with a smile. “She’ll sit there and allow that to be there instead of just picking it up and putting it in the garbage. I think people are just busy as all hell. If you don’t have one job you have two.”
Mikell has a big job ahead of him with Crooked Hill Road alone. He pointed out about 15 to 20 spots that needed attention from someone. There is no doubt in his mind though as to where the attention will come from.
“People say ‘it’s the town of ‘X-Y-Z’ — you’d expect it from that town.’ Well I don’t expect it from any town.”
If you would like more information about the 7 Cents Club of Commack you can contact Ed Mikell at [email protected].
