On a recent cold wintery Thursday evening, I met up with some friends over at Vintage Restaurant to listen to The Mango Trio, a jazz ensemble with guest vocalist Liz Parrillo.  Admittedly, I am not a big jazz fan.  However, the performance that was presented by The Mango Trio was, for me, thoroughly enjoyable. The first thing that I liked was the fact that the trio was not overly loud.  I am a person who, when in a restaurant setting, does not like loud music.  The trio displayed great control in not overpowering the room.  This enabled the guests in the restaurant to not only enjoy the music…

The Woonsocket High Music Department presented its annual Holiday Concert last night and with the quality of this performance, the award winning department certainly lived up to its reputation. If the musical performances of this concert didn't put you in the holiday spirit, then nothing would.  The music was exquisite. A friend of mine, who reluctantly attended the concert with me, relayed to me how he had attended many high school concerts in other towns where he couldn't wait for the performance to be over but by the end of this concert he felt as if he had attended the Pops! It is more …

If you have never visited the St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center, the building contains the largest collection of fresco paintings in North America.  This is the same style of art as the famed Sistine Chapel in Rome, but bigger.  For those not familiar with the style of fresco, it is a relatively rare and complex style of art but at its basic core it is painting on a wet plaster surface.  Once the plaster dries, the colors then become a permanent part of the building resulting in a magnificent and irremovable work of art.  "These are not just any frescos that we are trying to preserve," says …

What happens when a womanizing operatic tenor mixes his pills and liquor, passes out, is presumed dead and misses his big debut?  Find out as the Beacon Theater Workshop at the Beacon Charter High School High School for the Arts presents a limited run of Ken Ludwig's comedy Lend Me A Tenor.   The cast, consisting of students from the High School, will keep you laughing from the moment the lights go up all the way through to the bows. This was my first time attending a production at Beacon Charter.  There is no formal theater with raked seating, there is no proscenium stage and no theater …

The Christmas season is upon us and it is the time of year when we all reflect on personal memories.  I thought that I would share with you one such memory.  The memory has to do with my father.  It was Christmas Eve.  The interior of St. Ann's Church had been elaborately decorated and the orange lights of the electric candles gave a warm glow.  My father, Auray Doiron, was a member of the St. Ann's Church choir and I was sitting in a pew with my mother and the rest of my family listening to the choir perform Christmas hymns.  Midnight was approaching and my father then descended from the …

Many of us are not old enough to remember a time before video games, television and radio.  There was even a time when movies didn't talk.  The only sound you would hear to help set the mood would be that of a mighty Wurlitzer organ.  These organs differ from that of a church organ in that they have more bells and whistles, literally!  Wurlitzer organs not only contain pipes like that of church organs but also contain other instruments such as bells, whistles, xylophones, timpani and various other instruments.   Many of these historic organs have been lost to time but a few still exist.  Over…