AllOtsego.com: Redbird

Redbird

10/23/09

SAM GOODYEAR

ART BEAT

There was no smoke. No one was wearing tie-dyed T-shirts and bell-bottoms. Natural light flooded through the windows. Otherwise, one might have thought oneself in a coffee-house sometime in the 1960s.
The occasion was a folk music concert at the Green Toad Bookstore on Main Street in Oneonta Sunday, Oct. 25, given by two charming ladies who call their duo Redbird.
Perhaps you saw Lissa Sidoli in her star turn as Aunt Polly in the Big Read production of Mark Twain’s own stage play of “Tom Sawyer” last spring.
If so, then you saw Connie Schroeder as well in her moving cameo appearance as the widow Douglas. At the same time, you will have heard Lissa Sidoli’s original songs interpolated between scenes.
The two stage performers discovered their mutual love for folk music and have since established themselves in the folk music circuit in our area. They discovered also a common interest in cardinals, hence their name: Redbird. To round out the image, each one wears bright red as part of their performing attire.
An especially appealing element of folk music, in stark contrast to the near-religious formality of classical concerts, is the connection between performer and audience: intimate, informal, reciprocal.
This was certainly the case on Sunday. A
bit of narrative, some friendly dialogue, acknowledgement of friends in the audience – all this invited the gathering to share and enjoy on a comfortable, hospitable level.
Ms. Sidoli’s and Ms. Schroeder’s voices are not unlike two fine threads of contrasting color and width: one light and airy, the other dark and sturdy. Singing their original compositions, accompanied by guitar, and, alternately, tambourine, and bells, and maracas, and drums, the two ladies wove their beuatiful vocal lines together like intersecting arabesques, surprising the listener at times with a unity that made the two threads indistinguishable.
There was beat, there was wistfulness, there was poetry, there was joy.
In an unexpected display of performer-audience solidarity, a young man in the front row was asked to accompany the singers on a drum in the final number. The result was spirited communal music-making. The 30-some people present left uplifted and thoroughly entertained.
Redbird is just out of the nest, spreading its wings ever further (there is an engagement in Binghamton on Nov. 22), and we look forward to more of the same enjoyment and pleasure. Keep your ear to the ground and your eyes on these pages.

Labels: 10-30-09, Glimmerglass