Brookline Music School Travels 'Abbey Road' To Coolidge Corner

BROOKLINE, MA — Fifty years ago next month The Beatles released "Abbey Road" — the album many consider their masterpiece, and one that would be their final recorded in a studio together. On Sunday, the Brookline Music School will pay homage to that classic recording from the first haunting thumps of "Come Together" to the final piano solo of "The End" when the school's Beatles Summer Project plays the album in its entirety during a performance at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.

This is the culmination of the fifth annual summer program in which community members are invited to spend the season rehearsing and putting together the rendition of a single Beatles record.

"A lot of people get to know the Brookline School of Music because of this," said Brookline Music School Executive Director Betsy Frauenthal. "Each song has multiple people on it and there are probably 40 or 50 involved in the performance each year. It's a good way to bring people together in the summer. The quality of the performances is something you would expect from our faculty. It's really good."

John Purcell, the school's Jazz & Rock Ensemble Coordinator, is the director of the Beatles Summer Project. In 2007, he directed a Beatles tribute concert in celebration of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and has since directed five additional rock concerts, and two Beatles Open Sing productions.

For the past five years, Purcell has coordinated the Beatles Summer Project with renditions of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "The Beatles" — often referred to as "The White Album" — before turning to "Abbey Road" for its golden anniversary.

"I'm excited to take a new angle for this performance," Purcell of the production that will range from ensemble renditions to solo, acoustic acts.

The Beatles Summer Program started on July 9 and includes three rehearsals, one dress rehearsal and Sunday's performance. The youngest musician in this year's show is 9 years old, with the oldest in the 70s. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased here.

"It is great fun — especially if you are a big Beatles fan," Frauenthal said. "But even if you are not as much, it's a great show for just the music and the costumes alone. It's a great opportunity to have multiple members of one family participate. Sometimes you will have kids and parents performing together. Then you will have young and older on stage together. It's a really big range. It's intergenerational."