Review: Dartmouth Community Concerts Presents Quartetto Gelato

We’re a bit late to the party on this one, but it’s really never too late to congratulate the Dartmouth Community Concert (DCCA) folks on 59 years of bringing great live classical music into our midst. DCCA started in 1957, affiliated initially with Columbia Artists, whose motto “A Carnegie Hall in every town” for many years brought outstanding performers to the suburbs, and when they got out of that business, DCCA carried on. The only other Community Concert group (also independent) now going is in Moncton, NB. It’s a testament to the hard work of the many volunteers who keep DCCA going that a packed house at Woodlawn United Church had a fun evening in the final concert of the season with the always-charming Quartetto Gelato, who entertained from top to bottom of an eclectic program.

Even the first half brought the audience to its feet, madly applauding this talented all-guy foursome (with Greg Gallagher on cello for this tour, who hails from Saint John, NB). The program ranged from elegant tangos to pure schmaltz (e.g. violinist Peter de Sotto crooning into an old-fashioned-styled mic on Besame Mucho), original gypsy style tunes created for the group, horas and a turn on Debussy – with violin and accordion creating a beautiful intimate moment in The Girl with Flaxen Hair. Volare (not the version from the Plymouth commercial!) had us singing and snapping, and oboist Colin Maier doubled on mandolin for the opening of Al Di La which Peter explained he had learned from his strolling violinist Dad, now aged 90 and still making music.

Growing up with a strolling violinist father helps explain something about Peter de Sotto, actually. The guy oozes music from every pore. All the Gelatos are true showmen, but Peter is the musical flavor connector…he sings, he tells stories, his violin sighs and cries and jumps into klezmer like he’s right there at a big Jewish wedding. If you chanced to hear him hosting This is My Music on CBC, you’ve heard the story about how his orchestral colleagues at the Toronto Symphony overheard him singing opera backstage one day and urged him to take singing lessons. Clearly that was a good idea; he gave a heartfelt Danny Boy encore which had the audience on their feet again.

Mention must also be made of Colin Maier’s amazing circular breathing on oboe on the bagpipish Pipes, which had us pretty much gasping, even if he was not!

The audience had lots of chances to be on their feet, since we were offered a social media “moment,” when we could whip out our phones, take pics and videos and generally share with the world the great time we were having on a Friday night in suburban Dartmouth.

You sometimes forget that you are in a church when you experience rip-roaring music like Jossy Abramovich’s Gypsy Fantasia (written for the group by this Israeli-Canadian composer, and which built to a whirling dervish tempo).   The acoustics are so good and the hospitality so warm that any misgivings you may have about concerts in churches should be thrown out the window. The good news is that you can still sign up for next year’s 6 for 60 series, as DCCA marks its 60^th anniversary by bringing us six great concerts ranging from youth choir to four hand piano and concluding with Rhapsody Quintet.

Bravo, Quartetto Gelato and Bravo and Brava, Dartmouth Community Concerts – here’s to the next 60 years! L’chaim!

PS you can check out QG’s new CD All Original, 100% Canadian here, and check out DCCA’s season here!