Odesa Boys’ Brilliant Concert

Sounds in the Sanctuary Associate Director Ed Clark introduces the musicians

The Sounds in the Sanctuary (SIS) audience experienced another brilliant concert on July 26, when the Odesa Boys, Julian Milkis on clarinet and Maxim Lubarsky on piano, returned to the Bethlehem Hebrew Congregation sanctuary with a program that spanned the classical to modern jazz and tango repertoire, with some program additions and surprises.

SIS Associate Director Ed Clark welcomed the duo back to Bethlehem, and shared happy news about SIS Artistic Director Anat Grosfeld’s healthy, just born baby.

SIS attendees knew that clarinetist Milkis was Benny Goodman’s only student, and of the chemistry that he shares with pianist Lubarsky. The concert was as expected: brilliant, moving, and exciting.

The program opened with a stately Handel aria, moving to an upbeat, jazzy piece by twentieth century composer Alec Templeton. BHC sanctuary’s acoustics enriched their renditions of the haunting “Solidad” and dynamic “Street Tango” by Astor Piazzolla.

As fitting for jazz musicians, the duo went freeform to add a relatively unknown composition, “The Jewish Museum” by Jewish American jazz pianist Dick Hymen. Their interpretation featured a plaintive clarinet line over a spacious piano foundation.

From there, the audience was treated to a solo piano performance of Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan,’ a journey through lands of ragtime, jazz, Andalusia, bebop, and so many other musical landscapes. It was a virtuoso performance - a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear such music in a beautiful setting.

The concert continued with Vocalise, Rachmaninoff favorite, and jaunty composition by Tashkent-Israeli-Californian composer Ilya Dimov.

And then, the exquisite, “unplayable” “Spiegel im Spiegel” byt Arvo Part. Milkis told the story of his relationship with this piece: he looked at it time after time and deemed it impossible to play. Until he arrived at a music festival, and the director announced “We rehearse the Part tomorrow.” Milkis recoiled in shock: “You didn’t tell me.” Director: “You would have said ‘no.’” And so began his love affair with this piece. It was an etherial, spiritual, angelic experience to hear it. Almost everyone in the audience listened with eyes closed and half smiles. A once-in-a-lifetime experience: the second in one concert.

The program concluded with a Milkis favorite, the theme from “Cinema Paradiso” by Marricone, a romantic kiss to the audience. Their encore was an energetic, ripping piece by Dick Hyman.

The concert went almost 90 minutes, and was followed by a reception hosted by Gail Robinson.