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INSIDE THIS SECTION:
Plant Doctor, 7
TV Listings , 8-9
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PHOTOS COCWTfSY Of ?tUNSW>CK COMMUNTTY COtllG*
ROMANCE AM) IJKUGHTER spill across the decks of the SS.
American in the touring show of "Anything Goes."
THEIR SOUND STILL POPULAR after four decades, The
Platters are a welcome addition to the concert series.
WINDHAM HILL recording artists Liz Story. The Modern Mandolin Quartet and A ndy Nnrpll nnt>n the OHpII Williamson Auditorium sub
scription season with a Nov. II holiday program.
Holiday Concert By Windham Hill Artists
Opens Auditorium's Subscription Season
WBY SUSAN USHER
hal kind of music suits the shortest day
of the year, when the sun is farthest
from the equator? It should probably
refresh the spirit and sparkle like a shaft of sun
light striking a frozen lake.
That's what you can expect from The Winter
Solstice Concert, which kicks off not only the
holiday season, but also the Odell Williamson
Auditorium's first subscription season. This Nov.
1 1 event will feature three Windham Hill record
ing artists in a unique holiday program of original
work and fresh arrangements of Christmas carols
and classical pieces. The concert series was in
spired by Windham Hill's recording series, A
Winter s Solstice, Volumes I-IV.
This year's concert will feature pianist and
composer Liz Story joined by bassist Joel
DiBartolo, the Modern Mandolin Quartet, and
Trinidadian steel drummer Andy Narell.
While the Windham Hill artists may be new to
some local listeners, some other names on the
subscription list are old friends, like The Platters,
The Lettermen and the North Carolina
Symphony. Rounding out this eclectic program
are a revival of the Cole Porter musical
"Anything Goes," and a night of family entertain
ment dubbed "A Winter's Eve Distractions".
In putting together the series, said Auditorium
Manager Michael Sapp, "I definitely wanted a
Broadway show and I was interested in bringing
in different types of music."
The series includes no country entertainment.
"We will be doing country, but not this season,"
said Sapp, "not when you can drive 30 miles to
see some of the best country artists there are."
He's offering various enticements to encourage
advance season ticket sales. All 1,500 auditorium
-seats are offered at the same price, $70 for adults
and $60 for students and senior citizens. There's
also an early bird gift for the first 100 season sub
scribers, a commemorative mug.
Businesses and organizations qualify for a re
duced rate if purchasing blocks of 25 or more sea
son tickets.
Season tickets offer a substantial savings over
auiili ?iuglc iickct prices for the ma shows.
"Anything Goes' would be $22 a seat priced sep
arately, for instance, while A Winter Solstice and
The Lettermen would be $15 and $17 each.
Sapp said that if advance season sales do "real
ly well," he has his eye on several smaller acts
that may be available later in the season. "I might
bring them in just for season subscribers at no ex
tra charge."
"As much interest as we've gotten, it could be
thus season is going to take off."
The First offering. The Winter Solstice
Concert, is something of an adventure. Windham
Hill's artists are technically impeccable musicians
and also on the cutting edge of musical innova
tion, in their arrangements and original composi
tions and in developing distinctive solo perfor
mances and ensemble styles.
Sapp says he has been a fan of the label "for
years" and hopes local audiences will share his
enthusiasm. "It's an experiment. I want to give it
a chance and see what happens. This should kick
start the holiday season."
Liz Story's contributions to the Solstice collec
tions include "Greensleeves" and "Pavanne".
She's also releasing her first solo Christmas
record to coincide with the 1994 tour.
The Modern Mandolin Quartet features Mike
Marshall and Dana Rath on mandolins, Paul
BinkJey on mandola and John Imholz on mondo
cello. They perform original works written for the
ensemble as well as new arrangements of classi
cal works for the mandolin family. The success of
their recording of "The Nutcracker" has led to nu
merous performances with The Winter Solstice
Concerts. Their most recent contribution to the
series is an arrangement of J.S. Bach's "Sheep
May Safely Graze".
Narell joins the Winter Solstice Concert tour
for the first time this year. His work was recently
featured in the Tom Cruise hit, "The Firm". In the
Solstice recordings his ?teel drums can be heard
on "Carol of the Bells" and "Sleepers Awake."
A Winter's Eve Distractions on Saturday,
Jan. 21, presents a night of variety, vaudeville
style. The program arranged by Auditorium
Manager Mike Sapp will feature the Flying
Fettuccini Brothers with their feats of comic jug
gling, Lynn Treuzyar, a ventriloquist, John
Stetson's World of Magic, a six-piece stage band,
and innovative mime by Hardin Minor between
each act. "This will be an evening of family enter
Uiiiiucui at ii's ucsi," Sapp piOu'uaca.
The Platters have been performing since 1954
with a spread of hit singles such as "Only You,"
"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," "The Great
Pretender" and the more recent "I Do It All The
Time." While the names of the "four guys and a
girl" have changed with regularity over the years,
the quintet's own magic touch endures ? a combi
nation of solid lyrics with a distinctive perfor
mance style and sound. Lead teuor Monroe
Powell and James Hardin, Tony Graves, Ray
Brewster and Tina Jennings are coming to the
Odell Williamson Auditorium Thursday, Feb. 9.
"Anything Goes" first delighted audiences in
1934, and continues to do so 60 years later with
Cole Porter's irrepressible songs and lyrics to
"Anything Goes," "I Get A Kick Out Of You"
and "Blow, Gabriel, Blow," and a story line built
around high jinks aboard an ocean liner.
Newsday's Allan Wallach summed up the pack
age as "great songs, terrific dancing and a blithely
daffy story." The touring edition stops here March
3, just in time to perk up winter-weary spirits.
The Lettermen continue wooing audiences
with the universal language of the love song. The
group's repertoire of romance includes their
chart-topping "When I Fall In Love," "Theme
From A Summer Place," "Put Your Head On My
Shoulder" and the two-for-one "Goin' Out Of My
Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You." Share a ro
mantic evening listening to the trio Tuesday,
March 28.
The Wild West invokes visions of rugged indi
viduals, wide open spaces, man vs. nature. The
North Carolina Symphony captures those bigger
than-life themes in its annual pops concert
Tuesday, April 18, with music from stage and
screen ("The Magnificent Seven," "The Sons of
Katie Elder," "Duel in the Sun..."), plus
Copland's Rodeo, "On the Trail" from Grand
Canyon Suite and the finale from the William Tell
Overture.
Maybe Maestro Gerhardt Zimmermann will in
vite you to sing along on Dale Evans' and Roy
Rogers' closer, "Happy Trails". Don't wony
about it being a weeknight; Brunswick County
Schools students will be on spring break.
The Odell Williamson Auditorium is on the
Brunswick Community College campus on U.S.
17 just north of Supply. The box office opens
Monday, Oct. 10, with weekday hours of 10 a.m.
to 4 p.m. Tickets may also ordered by telephone
and charged to either ot two major credit cards.
Call 754-3133, or Ext. 406 using any of BCC's
other numbers, 754-6900, 457-6329 or 343-0203.
Subscribers will choose their seats when or
dering tickets, and will receive all tickets at once.
The Hooded Mergansers
BY BILL FAVER
Sometimes during the late fall and winter months we
can find one of the smallest ducks on our canals at the
beaches. The hooded mergansers are about 17 inches
long and have a wingspan of about
25 inches.
The male is the most striking
with a glossy black head with a
rounded black crest and a white
head patch. This patch varies in
size as the male raises or lowers its
crest. Its breast is white, and two
vertical black bars separate the
breast from the brownish sides.
Females are dark with a brown
head and a crest that can appear
from brownish to almost rusty-orange. The back is a
dull black and her bill is black with orange near the
base. Bills are long and slender and serrated, with the
male's bill all black.
Juveniles are similar to the females with less crest,
and immature males develop the white head patch dur
ing the first winter.
"Hoodies" like timbered stream bottoms, swamps
and woodland ponds and lakes for nesting sites during
summer. Nests are in cavities which can be holes in
trees, hollow logs or nest boxes. Usually 8 tol2 pure
white eggs are laid.
Nesting takes place from New Brunswick, Nova
Scotia, to Alaska and southward to Florida. Winters are
spent south of Massachusetts, Michigan, Colorado and
British Columbia to Cuba and southern Mexico.
These small ducks eat small fish, crayfish, aquatic
insects and frogs and seem to prefer quiet backwaters
for feeding, though they can dive and feed in swift
moving water as well. We can get good views of them
feeding along the canals during the winter months. In
Birds of the Carolina s (Potter, et al), they are described
as "a locally fairly common winter resident... most nu
merous along the coast."
We don't usually get to watch the courtship which
features the male swimming faster and faster around
the female, with his body twitching and trembling until
he finally leaps from the water and does a perfect som
ersault. She either responds or continues to feed until
she is ready to mate. After mating she alone seeks the
nest site and lines the nest with down from her breast.
She then lays the eggs and incubates them alone for
four or five weeks. When the ducklings hatch, she
pushes them from the nest and into the water, where
they stay close to her body until they begin to fly at
about 9 weeks.
Where's the male? Who knows! He may be out
jumping around trying to impress another female!
FAVER
HOODED MERGANSERS are smallest of the mergansers and are found only in North America.