Buried deep in Western Massachusetts is a truly remarkable singer, a woman with the rare ability to make a song live. That woman is Susanne Barkan. Working with her at Buckley [Recital] Hall on September 9th were Janet Savage, Dave Davies, Mark Johnson, Karma Martell, Maria Robbins, Paul Zimmermann and Pella Shelvey ? all singers, all enormously talented, and all graduates of Bobby McFerrin’s Master class.

I loved it. You are reading a rave review because these people can do anything, just anything, with their voices. Have you ever heard a man who really sounds like a double bass? Well, Johnson does. Have you ever heard eight people sing a Bach [canon] and sound like wind instruments? Well, these people do. Robbins’ song “Biko” is an instrumental for voices? think about it.

If you didn’t go, you missed Zimmermann singing “Roxanne,” (‘an American folk song written by an Englishman in New York.’) accompanied by Barkan and Johnson on the voice; Davies, accompanied by everyone else, did “A Different Bob”, a sort of 1940’s jazz piece. Shelvey played a digereedo (I’ve no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like wolves howling, traffic thundering, birds calling, and souls in torment.), and most of all you missed Barkan, backed by this brilliant troupe, singing the death song of the last great whale. I cried all the way through it. And if you didn’t go, you still missed more than this.    •