Mary Bonhag ain’t afraid of no ghosts — at least not the specter of early 20th-century composer Arnold Schoenberg.
And with her Scrag Mountain Music ensemble’s three performances of Schoenberg’s 21-song cycle Pierrot Lunaire around the Upper Valley this Halloween weekend, the Lebanon-raised soprano aims to lead audiences past any anxieties they might harbor about challenging chamber fare.
“Pierrot for many people will be a familiar name, people who are interested in music history,” Bonhag said last week, during a telephone interview from her home in Marshfield, Vt. “On the other hand, Schoenberg can strike fear into the hearts of audiences.”
Indeed, in a 2012 rumination on the piece for the online version of the Jewish publication The Forward, Raphael Mostel writes about how Pierrot a century earlier had alternately “transfixed audiences; but disturbed listeners enough for them to shout for the composer to be shot. It was abstruse music; but was performed as if it were a cabaret.”
Hence Scrag Mountain’s entitling of this week’s show, including Saturday night at First Light Studio in Randolph, as a “Halloween Cabaret.”
“The piece itself is more melodic than people might think,” said Bonhag, a 2003 graduate of Lebanon High School. “It’s whimsical, it’s funny, it’s extroverted, it’s grotesque, it’s theatrical.”
Pierrot first caught Bonhag’s attention while she was pursuing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Michigan, when she saw and heard her voice teacher perform it.
“I was so taken by the theater of it,” recalled Bonhag, who performed her first solo at Carnegie Hall in 2009 in the chamber opera Dog Days. “It was in a very small venue, sort of like a house concert. Everything was up close and alive.”
Following in the voice-steps of Bjork and Cleo Lane, among vocalists venturing back and forth between singing and speaking the poems in three sets of seven, Bonhag won’t be performing it alone. Scrag Mountain co-founder Evan Premo will accompany his wife’s voice on double bass, as will guest instrumentalists David Kaplan on piano, Catherine Gregory on flute, Paul Won Jin Cho on clarinet, violinist-violist Anna Elashvili and cellist Hamilton Berry.
“The music is really gestural,” said Bonhag, who began her musical explorations as a violinist under Etna teacher Clyde Watson before studying voice lessons as a teenager with West Lebanon teacher Erma Mellinger. “That comes across really clearly. And it’s broken up into short, digestible songs of maybe two minutes each. … It’s not nearly as out there as people might think. With the light and fun cabaret music in the first half, I think people’s ears will be a little more attuned to what’s coming than if they just picked up a recording and pressed ‘play.’ ”
Almost six years into Scrag Mountain’s sharing of such music, “I am so struck by the audiences in Vermont and New Hampshire,” Bonhag said. “They are some of the most open-eared and open-hearted listeners. People trust us enough that we can throw anything at them.
“We have had such good luck with some thorny music.”
Scrag Mountain Music presents its “Halloween Cabaret” at First Light Studio in Randolph on Saturday night at 7:30. Admission is by donation. The ensemble also performs at the Unitarian Church of Montpelier on Friday night at 7:30 and at the Warren United Church in Warren, Vt., on Sunday afternoon at 4.
Other spooky events over the coming week follow:
Got pre-election jitters? Consider an outing tonight to Damon Hall in Hartland, where Upper Valley actors Hamilton Gillett, Thomas Haushalter, Marv Klassen-Landis, Daniel Patterson and Christine Porter are joining a nationwide reading of It Can’t Happen Here. This is a new stage adaptation of the 1936 novel in which Sinclair Lewis imagined the ripple effect in a Vermont town from a demagogue ascending to the presidency of the United States. The reading of the play, which premiered at California’s Berkeley Repertory Theatre in September, starts at 7. Admission is free.
ToasT sets the funky and soulful rhythm for dancing during the 30th annual Halloween party at the Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners on Friday night starting at 9.
Brothers Band Together performs during Hippie Halloween at the Public House in Quechee on Saturday night at 8, as a fundraiser for the Stars, Stripes and Strings program to buy guitars for veterans’ centers. Activities include a 1980s Grateful Dead-style costume contest, with a grand prize of center-ice tickets to a Boston Bruins hockey game. To learn more, visit The Public House page on Facebook.
Pariah Beat leads the musical entertainment during downtown White River Junction’s annual Gory Daze Parade and Inaugural Ball on Saturday night from 6 to 12. Pre-parade activities from 6 to 8 at Main Street Museum include candy, the Fabulous Fire Organ, an monster-petting zoo and doughnuts on strings. The parade leaves the museum at 8 and ends at the Briggs Opera House, with attractions including butterflies, drumming, hand-powered floats, a New Orleans-style brass band and trick-or-treating at local businesses. Admission costs $10 to the Inaugural Ball dance party, which starts at 9 at the opera house.
Horror-genre cinephiles living in the northern reaches of the Upper Valley can nip up Interstate 91 to Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury on Saturday night for “Warning! This Film Festival is Cursed!” The package of nine short films come from Ryegate resident Liam O’Connor-Genereaux, the Upper Valley’s Team MALONE! and the ensemble of Woodsville’s Whittaker Ingrbretson and Lyme residents John Griesemer and Faith Catlin. The projectors start rolling at 8. Admission is $5. To learn more, visit catamountarts.org.
About Gladys plays the spooky soundtrack to Windsor Station’s Halloween party starting Saturday night at 10.
The Hopkins Center and the Cable Access TV network screen the top five-minute horror movies from their recent contest for local filmmakers, on Sunday afternoon at 3 and 6 during the first annual Halloween-o-thon at Dartmouth College’s Loew Auditorium in Hanover. Other activities include workshops that Dartmouth film students will conduct for young movie makers. Admission is free. To learn more, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
Scottish-Canadian folk singer-songwriter David Francey, winner of multiple Juno awards — Canada’s answer to the Grammy — performs at the Flying Goose Brew Pub and Grille in New London tonight at 8. To reserve tickets ($25) and learn more about the concert and the venue’s concert series, visit flyinggoose.com or call 603-526-6899.
Folk singer-songwriter Greg Brown shares his bass voice and equally deep gift for irony at the Chandler Music Hall in Randolph Friday night at 7:30. For tickets ($10 to $36) and more information, visit chandler-arts.org or call 802-728-6464.
Current and former members of the Dartmouth College Gospel Choir join forces with visiting gospel artists and a 20-piece band at Spaulding Auditorium on Saturday night, for a Homecoming weekend performance of gospel, Broadway tunes, a cappella numbers and Dartmouth Idol hits. The concert, conducted by Walter Cunningham, starts at 8. For tickets ($10 to $15) and more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu or call 603-646-2422.
In the first Upper Valley show for his new JAG Productions, Jarvis Antonio Green will direct a cast of Broadway veterans and up-and-coming young actors in Choir Boy starting with a preview next Thursday night at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction. In tandem with the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret, where Green founded the theater program, JAG is adapting MacArthur Award-winning playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney’s coming-of-age story of two black men competing for the top spot at their Southern prep school. For tickets ($20 for preview, $18 to $30 for all others) and more information, call 802-457-3500 or visit artistreevt.org.
Classical guitarist William Ghezzi of West Lebanon will play works of Bach, Britten and Brouwer at Dartmouth College’s Faulkner Recital Hall in Hanover on Nov. 6 at 4 p.m. Admission is free.
Pentangle Arts stages the 1998 Sam Mendes/Rob Marshall adaptation of Cabaret at Woodstock’s Town Hall Theatre at 7:30 tonight, Friday night and Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon at 4 before concluding Monday night at 7:30. To reserve tickets ($17 to $30) and learn more, visit pentanglearts.org or call 802-457-3981.
The Parish Players perform the Anthony Shaffer thriller Sleuth at the Eclipse Grange on Thetford Hill, with 7:30 shows on Friday and Saturday nights and a matinee at 3 on Sunday afternoon. The production concludes on Nov. 6. For tickets ($10 to $15) and more information, visit parishplayers.org or call 802-785-4344.
Shaker Bridge Theatre in Enfield wraps its production of Bathsheba Doran’s The Mystery of Love and Sex, with performances at 7:30 tonight, Friday night and Saturday night at 7:30 and at 2:30 on Sunday afternoon. To reserve tickets ($16 to $32) and learn more, visit shakerbridgetheatre.org or call 603-448-3750.
The Upper Valley Music Center in Lebanon is welcoming the public to two master classes that are being held for students of the center this weekend. On Friday afternoon at 4:30, Dinuk Wijeratne offers a class on piano and composing in the center’s Bach Room. On Saturday morning from 10 to noon at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon, Kinan Azmeh plays and holds forth on the clarinet. Admission is free. To learn more about these and upcoming master classes, visit uvmusic.org or call 603-448-1642.
Fiddler Beth Telford of Braintree, Vt., and multi-instrumentalist Will Wright of North Pomfret perform a concert of Celtic music at the West Brookfield (Vt.) Meetinghouse on Sunday afternoon at 4. Admission is by donation, suggested at $12 to support the West Brookfield Village Trust’s upkeep of the meetinghouse. For directions and other information, call 802-728-5320.
The Sky Blue Boys play Vermont-style bluegrass at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Springfield, Vt., on Sunday afternoon at 4. While admission is free, donations to the Springfield Warming Shelter are welcome.
Pianist Bob Lucier performs jazz at the Canoe Club in Hanover at 6:30 tonight. Appearing at the club over the coming week with shows from 6:30 to 9:30 are pianist James Wrubel on Friday, pianist Gillian Joy on Saturday, acoustic chameleon Joseph Stallsmith on Sunday, guitarist Bruce Gregori on Tuesday, pianist Will Ogmundson on Wednesday and pianist Bob Merrill and bassist Peter Concilio accompanying jazz singer Cyn Barrette next Thursday night. And on Monday night between 5:30 and 8:30, Marko the Magician performs his weekly sleight-of-hand.
Vermont folk singer-songwriter-storyteller Jon Clinch performs at Bentleys restaurant in Woodstock tonight at 8, followed on Sunday afternoon at 5 by the jazz duo of singer Sabrina Brown and saxophonist Fred Haas, and next Thursday night at 7 by singer-songwriter Chris Powers.
New London-native singer-songwriter Click Horning leads bassist Joanie Horning and guitarist Justin Ferren to the stage at the Sunapee Community CoffeeHouse on Friday night at 7.
The weekend of live music at the Upper Valley’s Salt hill Pubs begins at 9 Friday night with a performance in Lebanon by Alex Smith and the Mountain Sound; Saturday night brings Wherehouse to the venue.
The lineup in Hanover features The Conniption Fits at 9 on Friday night and the folk duo of Mark and Deb Bond at 9 on Saturday night.
Newport hosts Flew-Z at 9 on Friday night and singer-songwriter Wayne Canney at 8 on Saturday night.
Jarv rocks Windsor Station on Friday night at 10, followed next Thursday night at 7 by the roots duo Stranlged Darlings.
Singer-guitarist Jennifer Culley Curtin performs Celtic music at the Stone Arch Bakery in Lebanon on Saturday between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Bow Thayer performs his weekly set of Americana at the Skinny Pancake on Wednesday night at 7:30.
James Graham and Co. plays the tavern at the Lyme Inn next Thursday night from 6:30 to 9:30.
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at the ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfret tonight at 7.
Ramunto’s Brick & Brew Pizza in Bridgewater hosts an open mic starting at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays. Participants get a free large cheese pizza.
String players of all ages and abilities are welcome at the weekly acoustic jam session at South Royalton’s BALE Commons on Friday night from 6:30 to 10.
Joe Stallsmith leads a weekly hootenanny of Americana, folk and bluegrass at Salt hill Pub in Hanover on Monday nights starting at 6
Bradford’s Colatina Exit holds an open mic on Tuesday nights at 8.
The Seven Barrel Brewery in West Lebanon runs an open mic on Tuesday nights, beginning at 8.
Jim Yeager hosts an open mic at Hartland’s Skunk Hollow Tavern, at 8:30 on Wednesday nights.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.