Tuesday night, Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan,
performing with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, brought
down the house at the Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center in Canandaigua
(CMAC). For a good two hours McLachlan sang from more than 20 years of songs,
ranging from classics we know by heart (“Adia,” “Building a Mystery”) to
selections from her more recent CD, “Laws of Illusion” (“Rivers of Love,” “Love
Come”).
CMAC was the third stop on a three-week tour in which McLachlan will perform
throughout the United States
and Canada with
more than a dozen symphonies. Accompanying McLachlan on the tour is arranger
and conductor Sean O’Loughlin, profiled earlier this month by City.
The weather was picture perfect. The stage at CMAC comfortably accommodated
about 50 musicians from the RPO, along with McLachlan’s band of bass guitar,
acoustic guitar, synthesizers, and drums, as well as her own electric piano and
acoustic guitar. And the expanse of CMAC as a covered/open-air venue extending
back to a grassy knoll handily suited McLachlan’s enormous vocals.
McLachlan performed for approximately two hours, most of the songs featuring
the RPO. About mid-way through the second set, starting with “Adia,” McLachlan
began to let go and open up her voice. By the time she spun into the final four
songs (“Possession,” “Bring On the Wonder,” “Angel,”
and “Ice Cream”), she had the audience thronging the stage, holding up
cell-phone camera screens where once lighters would have been aflame.
So let’s get right to the bottom line on this new adventure for McLachlan:
at the end of this symphony tour, McLachlan should lock herself in Eastman
Theatre with the RPO and conductor/arranger Sean O’Loughlin and not emerge
until they can deliver what could readily become the CD of her career.
Two weeks ago, I interviewed O’Loughlin for City, and he staked the claim
that even longtime fans of McLachlan would find her entree into the world of a
classical symphony to be a fresh experience. As someone who has lived with
McLachlan’s music as part of my life for more than two decades, O’Loughlin’s
claim was no exaggeration. Last night’s symphony concert was the beginning of
something great for McLachlan.
The first song of the second set was “Good Enough,”
and it was the best example of the possibilities of this new approach. For that
song, McLachlan grabbed her 12-string, back-up singers Melissa McClelland and
Luke Doucet, dropped her drummer, and allowed the RPO to do what O’Loughlin is
capable of arranging it to do. O’Loughlin’s tempo brought the song from being
sad into being soulful. The RPO string section became consistently audible, and
the score not only enhanced McLachlan’s melody, it took on a newer, deeper
shape.
Between O’Loughlin’s classical training and the excellence of the RPO, other
songs, like “Forgiveness,” transformed from the edge of bitter to matured
introspection. O’Loughlin’s arrangements were logical progressions of the
original songs. He lost none of the elements that created McLachlan’s hits, but
he took the natural power of McLachlan’s voice and pushed it to new heights
through the use of the symphony as an instrument.
This notion of “cross-over” artists into the world of classical is an
interesting one. For me, McLachlan’s vocal command, range, and natural stage
presence mean that she can easily let go of pop elements like a standard drum
set and utilize the RPO’s percussion section, which would also give her a much
greater range of instrument textures and tones for some of the prominent
rhythms in, for example, “World on Fire” and “Full of Grace.” Then, too, with a
gem like “Sweet Surrender,” she could actually bring the oboist center stage
and connect with the oboe as a soloist, the way she is used to doing a
back-and-forth with other guitarists on stage.
And, just to make sure my role as a troublemaker is complete, I would be
hugely curious to see what would emerge if McLachlan and O’Loughlin were to
collaborate in writing a completely new piece of music from scratch, pairing
her talent for melody with his knowledge of orchestral scoring.
Two thumbs up for McLachlan, O’Loughlin, and the RPO. I can only put it out
there that if McLachlan heads into the studio with O’Loughlin to pursue this
concept, she would be well served to have the RPO by her side.
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2012.
