As singer Doron Flake belted out the words to Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas’ 30th birthday celebration at Lighthouse Point Park on Sunday, he tried his best to hold back. He had played a wedding the night before. So he had been trying to conserve his energy all weekend by stopping himself from going all out on the mic — no easy feat, it seemed, for someone born to be a star.
Behind Doron was his father, Dudley Flake, backing him perfectly on the keyboard. Randy Bost played trumpet; Cedric Herbert was on guitar. Together, the musicians were core members of The Chill Project, a multigenerational jazz, funk, and R&B band with a long history of teaching and playing music in New Haven.
They came together Sunday during the cocktail hour of the celebration, a black-tie affair dubbed the Pearl Gala in honor of the annual summer festival’s 30-year “pearl anniversary.”
The gathering was a celebration of the longevity of the Arts & Ideas Festival and its living founders, Anne Tyler Calabresi and Roslyn Milstein Meyer. The fundraiser aimed to raise $40,000 for future Arts & Ideas programming, with attendees pledging gift amounts in real time. A screen with a thermometer image showed live progress toward the gala’s goal. By the end of dinner, I saw the total climb to over $16,000.
The event reflected a multigenerational legacy of the festival: The enduring vision of the women who started it three decades ago, and the manifold opportunities it offers for talent — including local talent like the Monks — to reach audiences.
For the last song of The Chill Project’s set, there was no holding back. Herbert hit the introductory guitar lick of Prince’s “Kiss,” and any Prince fan in the crowd knew they were in for some theatrics.
Doron leaned back, played with the mic, and did a few classic Prince screams, switching gracefully from super-cool to eccentric and back again. It was the only way to do it.
Doron and his father have been playing music together since he was a kid in church. He joined the band in high school, and he’s been jamming with the crew ever since. Doron is in other bands as well, like the one he played with for the wedding, but The Chill Project remains his favorite.
“We have an understanding,” Doron said. “We get each other.”
The band was a fitting example of the magic that happens when one generation supports another. The gala put this into practice in the dinner portion of its program as well, not just honoring the founders of the festival but showcasing a short performance from working artists of the here and now.
Johnathan Moore, one of the performers for the evening, had been honing his craft for the past 19 years.
That craft was his instrument, the cello. Crossing genres and techniques, Moore is known on a local and national level for bringing the 16th-century invention into the modern era by using things like a loop pedal, a piece of electronic hardware that allows Moore to sample himself in real time.
For the gala, Moore left his loop pedal at home, instead choosing to experiment in a more organic way. When a gala attendee asked what he was going to perform, Moore said his plan was to improvise for four minutes. He said he is “inspired by all different genres,” so the result would be a mixture not easily categorized into a single box.
As the sun prepared to set over the sand and beachy grass outside, Moore made his way to the venue’s stage, a wide dance floor at the center of the building.
Moore closed his eyes and brought deep melodies to the forefront, stretching tempo, dissonance, and harmony to create a moving improvisational piece. He made the notes vibrate and hum, giving each moment space to breathe and become something new. There was no need for sheet music. Moore was playing not just by heart, but from his heart.
Singers and speakers then joined in, standing throughout the room, to share quotes and revelations on the topic of pearls. At the right moments, Moore plucked single notes and played chords to emphasize the words. He ended with a light, foreboding tremolo followed by a triumphant chordal flourish.
“It feels surreal,” he said of his role in the next generation of musicians, proud to be “one of the innovators of my instrument.”
