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Tunes, tales tantalize Piatigorsky concert audience

“Strings & Stories,” a Piatigorsky Foundation mini-concert featuring violinist Linda Rosenthal and actor/story-teller Bill Blush, was sponsored in February by the James Smith Noel Collection and held on the third floor of the Noel Memorial Library.

Dr. La Wanda Blakeney, assistant professor of music, and Dr. Bob Leitz, professor of English, and chair designate of the Ruth H. Noel Chair for the Curator of the James Smith Noel Collection, worked together to bring the popular concert series back to LSUS.

“Strings & Stories,” an imaginative, fast-paced, interactive blend of music and theater that appeals to audiences of all ages, was an innovative kaleidoscope of favorite children’s stories, classical music, limericks and whimsical mime that was fun and educational.

The show – which included Ferdinand the Bull, The Town Where Sleeping Was Not Allowed, The Emperor’s New Clothes, How the Camel Got His Hump and other beloved children’s classics – premiered at the 1995 Imagination Celebration at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Since then, Strings & Stories has garnered rave reviews and enthusiastic praise from thousands of fans, both young and young at heart. The reaction to the LSUS performance was no different.

Rosenthal and Blush also perform Strings & Stories for community theaters, concert series, retirement communities, senior centers and other special events. Like its “parent” show for kids and families, this version of Strings & Stories was lively, innovative and full of variety and humor. The library audience – a mix of faculty, staff, students and off-campus visitors, some of whom brought small children – enjoyed a delightful mix of music, theater and literature in a program that included the solo violin music of Bach and Paganini; classical short stories; a short segment featuring electric violin, and a literary tour-de-force, “Why Beethoven?,” by Leonard Bernstein.

Rosenthal lives in Juneau, Alaska, where she performs, teaches and directs the annual festival, Juneau Jazz & Classics. She also gives concerts all over the world. She has performed in China, India, Japan, Europe and throughout the U.S. and Canada. She has recorded five solo CDs and has commissioned and premiered more than a dozen works for solo violin, violin and piano, violin and narrator and, most recently, violin and jazz big band. She plays on a violin made in 1772 in Turin, Italy, by J. B. Guadagnini.

Blush, a native of Los Angeles, has performed Strings & Stories with Rosenthal since 2000. He has long been involved in all aspects of theater from acting to writing and directing, and is now pursuing a career in theater education. As a performer he has played a variety of roles, including . . . the kitchen sink. His love for comedy has inspired him to perform in and direct several improvisational troupes and, more recently, to venture onstage as a stand-up comedian.