Reviewer: Janet Martineau
Venue: The Temple Theatre
What a marvelous and magnificent baritone.
And no, we are not talking about the Saginaw Choral Society. Although they were there.
We are referring to Johnathan Rand. The best selling author of the “Michigan Chillers” and “American Chillers” novels for young adults.
On Saturday afternoon, at the Temple Theater in Saginaw, he teamed up with the Saginaw Choral Society for a program titled “Campfire Stories.” He read three of them – creepy campfire stories — with the Saginaw Choral Society and Saginaw Youth Choir surrounding his stories with music that matched their mood.
And who wouldn’t love the apropos music – an excerpt from that “Little Shop of Horrors” story about a human-eating plant; John Williams’ “Harry Potter”’ take on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” witches; Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical and whimsical “Jabberwocky” monster; poetry by Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Mary Coleridge; Margaret Wise Brown’s “Goodnight Moon.”
Even a little Schubert thrown in, an art song sung in German and translating to “Death and the Maiden.”
Talk about pairing up solid literature with Rand’s own writing legacy! Well played.
The setting captured the mood as well. A tent pitched at the right, Rand seated before a “campfire” at the left with Saginaw Youth Choir members gathered around him, a woodsy backdrop with the moon, and the singers and conductor Jeremiah Kraniak dressed in their outdoorsy finest.
It was the three stories Rand read — in a steady, slow, even baritone voice — that captured the performance. All dealing with families and their children. A mysterious sighting at a lake. Displaced graveyard residents in the fields. And a chilling phone call that actually turned out deliciously funny in the end.
At the outset Rand urged listeners to tap into their imaginations in listening. So we did. Closed our eyes and listened and our mind ran wild with the with images he inspired thanks to his deftly written words.
A surprise of the afternoon was the piano accompaniment by Catherine McMichael, especially when enunciations on the some of songs, during which no lyrics were projected, made it difficult to understand what the singers were saying.
So much emotion in her keyboard. Melancholy. Exclamation points. Flourishes. Reverberations.
The choral society’s strongest and most spirited delivery was in Longfellow’s “Haunted Houses.” And soprano Stephanie Bale raised hair on the back of the neck with her operatic prowess on the Schubert piece.
After the 90 minute concert, Rand signed autographs of his books and posed for pictures with his fans. And everybody was sent home with a s’more’s packet – containing one giant marshmallow and the required graham crackers and chocolate bar.
An abbreviated performance of “Campfire Stories” takes place at 3pm Sunday, Oct. 20, at the Bronner Performing Arts Center in Frankenmuth.