by Carlene Phillips ·
Friday, October 18, 2024
With a reprise of its 2016 musical, “Presidential Pops,” the Harvard Historical Society celebrates a presidential election year with a program that’s all about presidents and nothing about politics. A military marching band kicks off the program at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, at the meetinghouse, 215 Still River Road.
Acting as master of ceremonies to introduce the songs and fill in some historical lore will be one of America’s best known presidents. Seventeen songs will pay tribute to past presidents through their campaign song or some other musical connection. Music is performed by local musicians and singers, most of whose talents will be familiar because of their appearances in previous HHS musical productions.
Tom Aciukewicz will reprise his role as Abe Lincoln for the Harvard Historical Society’s Presidential Pops event, for which he’ll serve as master or ceremonies. (Courtesy photo)
This is the society’s seventh history- music production created by board member and flutist Claire Rindenello. The process is always the same, she explained. An idea for a theme comes to her in different ways, maybe while she’s on a run or at the meetinghouse, sitting in a pew or walking around. Once she has the theme, she looks for suitable objects in the society’s collections that will be her stage set and then, from her vast repertoire, she finds songs to complement each of them in some way. Next she draws on her friendships with various musicians and on further suggestions from them to complete her cast. Anyone who has been in one of her programs is always eager to come back. “They all know what they’re doing, and they make the songs their own,” said Rindenello.
With a script incorporating historical tidbits, in this case originally written by the society’s late president, Doug Cregar, and the songs in place, she hands out assignments. From there, the singers and musicians get together to rehearse their particular songs, sometimes solo but most often in duos, trios, or quartets. It isn’t until the dress rehearsal that any cast member has a sense of what the whole production is about. And that’s where the fun comes in, said Rindenello. “They are surprised by what others are performing and find ways to play off one another and be creative.”
After the opening numbers, four campaign songs are up, with Harry Truman’s “I’m Just Wild About Harry” having the most interesting history. It was adapted from the most popular song in an all-Black 1921 Broadway musical, “Shuffle Along.” The song was originally a love song, but new lyrics turned it into a patriotic one. Truman had desegregated the Army in July, 1948, and perhaps he chose this song as a further gesture of acknowledging the equality of Black people, who, until the 1921 musical, had not been hired for Broadway shows. “High Hopes,” sung by Frank Sinatra in a western musical, was adapted for a campaign song for John Kennedy in 1960.
The remaining songs in the program are less directly associated with their respective presidents but do reflect something interesting about them. The title song from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” shows Lincoln’s love of opera, and it was the opera that Lincoln had attended one week before his death. During his presidency he saw 30 operas, and when criticized for this, he replied, “If I did not have this distraction, I would die.”
John Philip Sousa was musical director of the United States Marine Band when Chester Arthur asked him to write an alternative to “Hail to the Chief,” but nothing else quite caught on. In 1905, Alice Roosevelt, daughter of Theodore, was having a party and asked the Marine Band to play something racy. They responded with “Maple Leaf Rag” by Scott Joplin.
Thirty-five years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt established the United Service Organizations (USO) to boost the morale of America’s soldiers abroad. The Andrews sisters were frequent performers, and one of their most popular tunes was “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”
Both Truman and Richard Nixon were talented piano players. Nixon appeared on “The Tonight Show,” hosted by Jack Paar, in 1961, and Truman was always ready to answer the request, “Hey, Harry, play something for us.” Answering that request in the show will be the society’s own president, Steve Abrams.
Rindenello’s longtime friend and fellow flutist, Margery Goldstein of Hudson, wrote and arranged some of the music for the original production of “Presidential Pops.” For the reprise she rearranged some of the pieces to accommodate musicians on different instruments. Debbie Sheetz, an organist and pianist, will play pieces encompassing all genres; one of those is a patriotic song on the organ. “She can sight read anything,” Rindenello said of Sheetz. John Chapman will play two pieces in the production. The Andrews sisters—Helen Batchelder, Britt Argow, and Emile Faucher—will sing many of the songs in different combinations. In addition to singing solo, Michael Lauer will do some numbers with the women, including “Happy Days Are Here Again” with Argow.
The Pops is free and open to the public, though donations are greatly appreciated and will be used to support programming and maintenance of the historical meetinghouse.