Chris Smith: Piano-playing couple serenades Sebastopol to raise money for Screamin’ Mimi’s

Two Scoops is the cool, sweet name of a young musical duo in Sebastopol that’s performing for us amid the great shutdown, and raising money for the survival of a cherished ice cream parlor.

Once a week, a video is shot as 22-year-old songstress Vivienne Luthin and her beau, pianist Jeremy Jacobs, 21, have a blast producing a cabaret act in Luthin’s parents’ living room.

These kids are good. Endearing. They met while studying music and performance arts at Webster University in St. Louis.

“We love playing music and singing together,” said Vivienne, a 2015 graduate of Santa Rosa High and its Artquest program. She and Jeremy also love ice cream, and they’re wild about Screamin Mimi’s, the shop in Sebastopol run by Maraline and Kurt Olson.

Vivienne’s family is close to the Olsons, who have gone to great lengths to stay open through the pandemic. Vivienne and Jeremy decided that if anyone makes a donation to their performances, they would pass the dollars on to the Olsons to help sustain Screamin’ Mimi’s.

At 5 p.m. each Friday for the past month, Jeremy and Vivienne have put their pandemic-induced free time to delightful use by getting dolled up and putting on a 30- to 45-minute show. For most of their acts, he plays the piano, she sings.

Vivienne’s dad, Ted, broadcasts the weekly cabaret on Facebook Live. Past performances are at:

https://www.vivienneclaireluthin.com/cabaret.html

https://www.facebook.com/twoscoopslive/

The Week 1 theme of the couple’s Two Scoops: Playing for Pints show was Rodgers and Hammerstein. There followed jazz standards, Disney and piano bar classics.

Coming up Friday: Broadway show-stoppers. Donations can be made to Jeremy’s Venmo account, #twoscoopslive.

Once some flavor of normalcy returns, Jeremy will resume his classes at Webster. Vivienne has graduated and when able will seek performance opportunities; she’d be on stage now at Sebastopol’s Main Stage West were it not for COVID-19.

The couple aspires. Shares Vivienne, “There’s a dream we have of starting a theater company one day.”

Imagine marveling at a stage production by the pair and at intermission savoring a scoop of Screamin’ Mimi’s.

HHHHHH

A YOUNG PIANIST from a deeply rooted Santa Rosa family was studying in Vienna to become a conductor in 1957 when news arrived from home.

Corrick Brown learned that the founding conductor of the Santa Rosa Symphony, George Trombley, was retiring. The prospect of succeeding him did not set Brown’s hair on fire.

But he took the job. He recalls the envy of two Vienna Academy of Music classmates, both destined to become superstars: Zubin Mehta and Claudio Abbado. They still sought work as Brown prepared to launch his career in his hometown.

He recalls, “I said, ‘Don’t be envious. It’s a little orchestra in California.’?” But what he made of that little orchestra through his 38 years of leading it. And how it’s continued to thrive under his successors, Jeffrey Kahane, Bruno Ferrandis and Francesco Lecce- Chong.

Brown turned 90 on Friday, a milestone the symphony celebrates at srsymphony.org with a fine, fun video and a chance to send him a birthday wish.

“My life has been great,” he said from his and his wife Norma’s Santa Rosa home. “Here I am at 90 and still happy.”

You reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.