On Thursday evening soprano Reilly Nelson and composer/keyboardist Friedrich Kern presented an intriguing programme based around songs by Kurt Weill.  Songs were interleaved with composed passages for electronics based on glass harmonica and texts in English and German.  It was a “celebration” of impermanence and of the never quite dying hope that there is something more substantial out there somewhere.

The songs were a mix of the familiar; Youkali, Surabaya Johnny, and the less familiar; Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib? and Ballade vom ertrunkenen Mädchen, for example.  All of it was sung in the original language (French or German) with keyboard accompaniment and Reilly made no attempt to make it lovely.  This was Weill at his cabaret rawest which is just the way I like it; gritty not pretty  Crooned, bowdlerized English translations be damned!

The venue helped.  The small audience was packed into the bottom end of the very narrow space offered by Pamenar on Augusta Avenue.  It felt a bit like being in the wrong end of a trawl net but definitely had the grungy cabaret vibe (mercifully minus the cigarette smoke).  It was, necessarily, a small crowd and pretty much everyone knew a good chunk of the other people there so it had the vibe more of a private gathering than a public concert which was nice.

And as we got to the end of the gritty stuff Reilly threw in Strauss’ Morgen as “a message from the future that never arrived”.  The romantic innocence that we have lost.  A nice touch that preceded a wild and hilarious encore of I’m a Stranger Here Myself where Reilly really let herself go nuts to the point where Friedrich lost the plot (mid anguished scream) and the place dissolved into laughter.

Much as I enjoy Koerner Hall and the Four Seasons Centre that’s not usually where I have the most fun.  That happens at events and in venues like Thursday.