By Lawrence Toppman
“The Trout Who Found the River,” the final event in 7th Street Concerts’ season, wasn’t on 7th Street and wasn’t exactly a concert. But it was half an hour of odd fun, quirky enough to fit into the uptown Charlotte Shout festival in a way 7th Street’s traditional performances could not.
You still have two chances to experience the show. The first is a fundraiser for 7th Street Monday in a private home, where composer Jonathan Woody, soprano Laura Bohn and the trio Fire, Grace and Ash will perform excerpts and chat with the audience. The second is a public conversation, performance and wine and cheese reception with the show’s creators Tuesday at 329 S. Tryon St. But I don’t think you’ll be able to put on fish costumes at either one.
The kids at the front of the Wells Fargo Atrium Sunday could do that. They could grab artificial flowers to join in oneness with Mother Nature or, every so often, swat the child next to them. They danced to the music of an unusually talented quartet (more of that in a bit), pretended to be other animals and ran around merrily.
The afternoon event had an agreeable if chaotic informality: Families walking in and out, children punctuating the music with occasional shrieks, the acoustics of the high-ceilinged atrium muddying the sounds from the stage.
How much the youngsters absorbed from the melodious songs by Woody, William Coulter and Ashley Hoyer, who can say? Maybe, in their romping, they simply came away with the message “cherish what you’re given” and learned to respect the natural world a little more.
Bohn sang and kicked up her heels and dressed up as a mama trout giving sage advice to her small fry. (Yes, that’s where the term “small fry” comes from.) She and fellow actor Banu Valladares donned half-masks and paws to become sleepy, feckless bears, though the fact that bears eat trout every chance they get did not arise in the vision of a Nature beneficent in all ways, including to human beings.
A look at the program revealed a remarkable range of talent for such a low-key enterprise. Guitarist and co-composer William Coulter contributed a solo cut to the Grammy-winning album “Henry Mancini: Pink Guitar.” Mandolinist Maddie Witler has recorded with Tony Trischka and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek. Jason McNeel, acting principal bass for the Charlotte Symphony, took a break to add bluegrass licks here. And David Greenberg has found a sweet spot to incorporate his expertise in both baroque violin and Cape Breton folk-style fiddling.
The biggest surprise was the American-born, Amsterdam-based Bohn, whose experience heretofore has been with a different sort of scales: She has sung Weill and Bernstein with the Royal Concertgebouw and soloed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Her rounded, well-supported voice couldn’t be defeated by the Atrium acoustics, especially with the aid of a microphone. She reminded me of a warmer-sounding Joan Baez, had Baez tamed her vibrato and had enough of a sense of humor to sing in a fish suit.