Thursday evening Lancaster’s duo-pianists Veri & Jamanis performed “An Evening with George Gershwin” before a packed Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. The audience of almost three hundred expressed great enthusiasm after each number and gave them a standing ovation at the concert’s conclusion.
For those with memory going back to decades of the couples’ New York recitals, the evening was especially satisfying.
A bus load of devotees made the trip from Lancaster and back after the concert, arriving mid-afternoon to allow passengers time to do a bit of sight seeing and to stretch their legs.
Fran Veri obviously was enjoying her solo performance of the Gershwin “Song Book” of seventeen popular numbers starting with “Swanee” and concluding with “I Got Rhythm.” The duo performed “Variations on ‘I Got Rhythm'” at the outset followed by a Veri arrangement of “An American in Paris.”
The couple concluded with a performance of “Rhapsody in Blue” that ‘brought down the house.’
Veri is a native of Lancaster, the daughter of a physician. The couple have resided locally for well over forty years and are the artistic founders of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music. They met in New York City while students at the famed Julliard School of Music.
The audience had come to hear Gershwin played at its best and as it was written: for one and two pianos. It was clear from the its rapt attention throughout the performances, comments at Intermission and happy faces when filing out that that the attendees were delighted.
