Another rave for Castronovo

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars Finding the Heart and Soul of Neapolitan Songs, December 13, 2012 By Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME) This review is from: Charles Castronovo: Dolce Napoli: The Neapolitan Songs (Audio CD) Ah, Napoli! How many areas have produced so many heartfelt folk songs as this region of Italy? Once the prevue of popular singers Vic Damone, Dean Martin, and Mario Lanza these passionate songs have been embraced by opera singers for some time now but few can deliver them with the honest beauty as American tenor Charles Castronovo does on this immensely successful collection. And in addition to his perfectly shaped and sensitive tenor voice he adds the soul of these ballads - in both the original Italian and in new, excellent translations by the gifted composer/all around musician Glen Roven. The warm yet sophisticated arrangements maintain the Neapolitan spirit while introducing the English text, making this music both enjoyable and accessible to those experiencing them for the first time. These are the folk songs, music hall songs, and pop songs of ages ranging from the 1830s through the mid-20th century. They sing of the same topics as nearly any songs-love won, love lost, jealousy, and even the occasional song that is not about love! In the manner in which these songs are presented they retain their Neopolitan spirit but now become international favorites, thanks to the collaboration of Castronovo and Glen Roven. And to make sure that nothing is lost in the sense of heart on the sleeve, the accompaniment is provided by Sweet Nectar five young musicians who play the instruments meant for Neapolitan music - accordion, guitar, mandolin, percussion and bass. Having had the pleasure of seeing and hearing the handsome young Castronovo at the LA Opera production of `Il Postino' where he share the stage with Placido Domingo, it is even more a pleasure to see that this very fine operatic tenor can enter this avenue of music so comfortably. Castronovo was born to a Sicilian father and an Ecuadorian mother in Queens, New York but grew up in Southern California. He attended California State University, Fullerton for undergraduate studies in classical voice. He began his professional career as a resident artist with the Los Angeles Opera, as a participant in San Francisco Opera's prestigious Merola opera program, and later joined the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Now he has performed major roles at the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Staatsoper Berlin, Vienna State Opera, San Francisco Opera, Salzburg Festival and Santa Fe Opera. He is clearly on the move. On this CD Castronovo celebrates his bloodlines with his album of Neapolitan Songs. Accompanied by Sweet Nectar, Castronovo performs some of the best known and most beloved Canzone Napoletana including, Maria Mari, Santa Lucia, Malafemmena, Catari, Scetate, Come Faccette Mammetta: some of the songs are also sung in new English translations by Glen Roven. That's what makes this album with Charles Castronovo so special. He captures the perfect spirit of Naples in English and Italian, introducing these songs to new audiences in the same manner as the great Italian-American singers of the last generation but with a beautiful operatic voice that does them justice. This album is a complete success and only serves to whet our appetites for more. Grady Harp, December 12

Castronovo's first review from Taminophile

http://www.taminophile.com/2012/11/napoli-napoli-napoli.html THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2012 Napoli, Napoli, Napoli! Through the generosity of GPR Records I have once again been afforded the opportunity to preview a CD before its release. This time it is a delightful recording by handsome rising tenor Charles Castronovo, entitled Dolce Napoli: The Neapolitan Songs. Courtesy GPR Records In recent years Mr. Castronovo has risen from obscurity to the ranks of singers at the very best opera houses in the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, Berlin State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and more. It's no surprise with his beautiful singing and good looks. I will freely admit that Neapolitan songs are not my area of expertise, but I can say without hesitation that young Charlie, as he insists in the liner notes we call him, sings these songs with consistently beautiful tone and deep feeling. It is clear songs like these are part of his upbringing, and that he loves the genre and the culture. What is a Neapolitan song, ask the liner notes by Charlie himself. Although he references a mid-19th century song contest, one could easily imagine some of these songs predate that time. These are the folk songs, music hall songs, pop songs of ages ranging from the 1830s through the mid-20th century. They sing of the same topics as nearly any songs--love won, love lost, jealousy, and even the occasional song that is not about love! Neapolitan songs have been recorded from the early days by tenors like Enrico Caruso, Beniamino Gigli, and Tito Schipa, and have become popular to many for their universally understood stories and their beauty. This CD includes 20 songs with a wide range of character. I can't describe them all, of course, but will gladly discuss a few favorites. The most familiar tune on the CD is Santa Lucia, the well known song to, as you might guess, Santa Lucia, sung by the fishermen who enjoyed her patronage. Malfemmena, about the two sides of love, passion and pain. The notes state this is among the most recent of the songs, written in 1951, and was instantly made into a hit by Neapolitan singer Totó. U Sciccareddu is a song of love, dedicated to the poet's donkey! A bonus track, the only Sicilian song on the CD, this song highlights the Sicilian talent for irony, making a sad song lively and a happy song sound sad. Io, ‘na chitarra e ‘a luna! is one of several songs that features English verses by recording producer Glen Roven. The poet sings of how lovely and complete his life is with moonlight and his guitar, and maybe a love, should the heavens send him one. O surdato ‘nnammurato is a lively song that describes a WWI soldier away from his love, thankful that she thinks of him alone. Charlie relates this to his own grandfather, who was a prisoner of war in WWII. This is a beautiful CD. I've had it on random repeat play for hours at a time recently while working at home, and never tired of it. I would recommend it for afficionados of Neapolitan songs and lovers of good singing. Don't miss Charlie's shows featuring these songs at 54 Below on Dec. 1, Dec 6, and Dec 8. I'll be at the Dec. 6 show! (Because, well, Dec. 8 is your intrepid reporter's birthday.) Click here.

Taminophile writes about Racette!

A bel canto bear in a verismo world Using the Taminophile Amazon store at the right as a starting point for any purchase supports this site. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2012 Diva on Detour I’m a fan of Patricia Racette, from the days of old when I was in the chorus of a regional opera company that hired Miss Racette to sing Nedda. I’ve been pleased to see the success she has attained in the years since then. Although I haven’t been able to attend any of her live performances since those days in the opera chorus, I’ve seen quite a number of YouTube videos that leave no doubts about her talent and magnetism. Courtesy GPR Records Imagine my delight when the kind folks at GPR Records invited me to Pat’s (we’re on first-names basis now) cabaret performances last spring, which were to be recorded for later release on a CD. Alas, I was forced to decline that invitation—I foolishly chose to fulfill commitments I had made previously. What a dolt I was! When the same kind folks sent me a pre-release copy of the CD based on that show, I could hear that it was an event I would surely have treasured in memory for a long time. Fortunately, a great amount of that feeling comes across in the CD, with Pat’s fine vocal stylings of a program of well-chosen standards and charming patter with the audience. Very fine music director and pianist is Craig Terry. This is where I might expound upon the folly of crossover albums, because I don’t like so many that are out there. While it’s possible for a singer to do both opera and cabaret/musical theater effectively, far too many don’t bridge that gap very well. I’m happy to say Pat sounds perfectly appropriate stylistically in nearly all instances. She can use a healthy belt and a healthy mix of head and chest voices like one hears from cabaret and musical theater singers. In fact, the only misstep vocally I hear is when she reverts to amore “legit” sound for "La vie en rose", the last song in an otherwise effective Edith Piaf medley. I’m also happy to report one can understand every word she sings—a major accomplishment. The actual songs? An interesting selection of standards, performed very well by Pat and amazing music director Craig Terry. One of my favorites was the Edit Piaf medley I mention, which included "Milord", "Padam", and "La vie en rose." As an experienced and well-educated opera singer, of course Pat has excellent French, and she performed the songs with a gusto and an understanding of the texts one would expect from an artist of her stature. She imitated just the right amount of Piaf’s vocal mannerisms and cabaret-style French—any more would have been excessive, and any less would have left one wondering what in the world she was doing. Another favorite was “Here’s That Rainy Day”, which Pat referred to as her shower song. I also quite liked the way Pat contrasted “The Man Who Got Away” with the humorous song “To Keep My Love Alive”, which tells of men who would have been lucky to get away. In her introduction to a set of songs that told a bit of a story, Pat talked about how she always sings about women unhappy in love—throwing themselves off parapets, dying of consumption, running themselves through with swords, and so on. In these songs the effect was a bit more subtle—no quick relief coming from a desperate act. In “You’ve Changed”, the singer wonders why things are not the same as they once were. In “Guess Who I Saw Today”, she sings of having seen her man on a date with another woman, and in “Where Do You Start?” she sings of putting together a newly single life. In “So In Love” she sings of remaining in love after separating. Quite an effective set. It was obvious Pat had spent a lot of time living with the lyrics of all these songs, as she portrayed a deep intimacy and urgent emotion in them all. I won’t describe every song, but I will say this is a recording I enjoyed very much, and I highly recommend it. [Actual order information to follow. But do click on my Amazon store and buy stuff to help support this site.]

Doc Rocks

What do James Taylor and The Beatles have in common with the Head of the National Institute of Health? Quite a bit, I recently found out when I was hired by legendary financier and philanthropist Michael Milken as Musical Director for a concert during the Celebration of Science, a major event in Washington, D.C. The Celebration was a three-day gathering of the world’s most brilliant and influential medical researchers and public officials, members of Congress and heads of universities. In panels and talks, they gathered to share ideas and deliver the message that America should recommit itself to bioscience. On the Saturday night of the Celebration, there would be a Kennedy Center event featuring patient stories, talks by political leaders and performances by Kenny Edmonds, Stevie Nicks and Melissa Manchester. I would arrange, conduct and produce the music for the live event and the subsequent TV broadcast. At an early meeting Mike told me his idea (every show Milken produces -- whether it be for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the Milken Educator Awards or FasterCures -- is centered on one of Mike’s “ideas”): “So many of these amazing doctors are musicians,” he said, “I want you to put together a band of doctors.” Just because a doctor can map the Human Genome, doesn’t mean he can play the guitar well enough to perform in front of 1,000 people, not to mention a televised audience of millions. (Conversely, I don’t think anyone would want me to take out an appendix.) Instinctively I started to say to Mike, “But what if…” Mike smiled his Cheshire Cat smile. I didn’t even bother to finish my sentence. I was going to put together a band of famous doctors and they were going to play live at the Kennedy Center. As he disappeared to another meeting Mike called back over his shoulder, “Call Francis Collins. He plays guitar.” I’m not a scientist or even particularly interested in science, but I did have cancer (in remission, thanks docs!) so I knew that not only is Collins the head of the NIH, but he was also the man who led the mapping of the aforementioned Human Genome. I simply couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone and say, “Hey Francis baby, let’s jam.” I sent an email. Within seconds, my phone rang. “Hello Glen, This is Francis.” We talked for a half hour about music and how much music means to him and how he couldn’t wait for this gig. All the time I was talking I tried not to imagine the day that President Obama must have callEd Francis to inform him of his nomination to be head of the NIH. He gave me a few of his colleagues to call, people like Dr. Steve Libutti who played drums. Libutti’s day job is Director of Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care and he was one of the pioneers of regional and targeted cancer therapy as well as an internationally recognized surgical oncologist and endocrine surgeon. Jonathan Lewin, Francis continued, played a mean sax and his day job was as Radiologist-in-Chief at John Hopkins Hospital, with secondary appointments as Professor of Oncology, Neurosurgery and Biomedical Engineering. I loved talking to them but kept thinking, I hope these guys can swing. I made more calls and everyone was thrilled to talk, probably because I was the only one calling that day, or that year perhaps, who was not fighting a terminal disease or asking about the side effects of a particular chemo. Or calling to cut their funding. I just wanted to know if they could read chord changes. I left a phone message for John Burklow, Director of Communications for NIH. “If I’m out of the office, and this is a reporter who needs me immediately for a comment, please call my cell phone.” He had to be glad it was me calling about his sight-reading abilities and not 60 Minutes calling about some new cancer drug that causes a third eye to suddenly appear. Once everyone was in place, I discovered I had four keyboard players, five guitars, one singing bass player, one drummer, one flute player, one harmonica, two trumpets and a sax. Not exactly a standard band configuration. I now had to figure out what the hell they were going to play. Mike was very clear the concert had to serve the greater purpose of research and FasterCures, so the doctors or Rock Docs as I was now calling them (Francis didn’t like Amino Acid) couldn’t just play the songs from Oklahoma! I concocted a medley of You’ve Got a Friend, Here Comes the Sun, and Help, songs I thought the doctors and audience could relate to. My partner Irwin Fisch and I started writing for four keyboard players, five guitars, one singing bass player, one drummer, one flute player, one harmonica, two trumpets and a sax. We didn’t have a clue as to the level of musicianship, let alone if they could sing. They said they could play, so I trusted them. If you can’t trust a doctor, whom can you trust? I made demos of the music with me singing the parts and sent them to the Roc Docs. One of the guitar players dropped out immediately. He said he would be much happier (and I would be much happier) to sit in the audience. Francis, who struck me as a winning combination of James Taylor and Jimmy Stewart, arranged for the local DC doctors to get together over Labor Day and run through some of the music as a pre-rehearsal rehearsal. I mentioned this to Larry Lesser, Mike’s producer, and before I could get out, “Should I…?” he said, “Go!” On Labor Day, I met all these brilliant people in Francis’s living room and frankly, I hadn’t encountered such enthusiasm in my bands since I was a kid. No “when is the break?” “How much is this paying?” “Who’s got the weed?” They were dying to do this. Although they were all completely terrified. They tried to smile and joke, but I know terror when I see it. They were on the high diving board and they really could only dog paddle. They were getting into a Ferrari and didn’t quite know how to use a clutch. They had diligently practiced the music I sent. A few surprises: the keyboard players asked me to write out the chord notes as opposed to the chord symbols, something no high school player would ask, but fair enough. High school players can’t cure cancer. Most of The Players were uncomfortable with just their own music parts and wanted the words written in. Again, fair enough. One musician asked if he should bring a music stand. I gently said, “Do you ask if you should bring a scalpel to the operating theater.” “We will supply music stands. And even lights.” They started to play. Francis has a lovely, sweet, folk-type voice and we ran through You’ve Got A Friend. It wasn’t half bad. Some of the chords were misread, the rhythm was all over the place, the bass player forgot to bring the music, so he didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about when I said let’s start at bar five, but all in all, I was thrilled. They must have seen my facial muscles relax, because they relaxed as well. It was a complete role reversal. All of a sudden, I was the doctor. And they were the patients anxiously awaiting the results of their test. Would they live? (That is, play the concert or be fired? They would play.) Was it fatal? (No, it was not. We’d rehearse and make it great.) Would they need more treatment (Oh, yes. But it won’t be as scary as the first time.) We moved on to Here Comes the Sun. John Tisdale, who is on the way to curing sickle cell disease, told me he could sing the lead. While playing his bass, his light, airy baritone wafted through Bethesda and Dr. John Tisdale became the Fifth Beatle. I called Milken and said, “It’s gonna work.” Milken said, “Told you!” We had a full rehearsal scheduled for the Thursday before the Saturday show in the cavernous Kennedy Center rehearsal room. No more living room. This is the big time. Finally, all the musicians would be there, the trumpets, the sax. I even brought down three background singers from who have sung for everyone from Bette Midler to Dolly Parton. I thought my Rock Docs were going to explode with joy when they heard my pros sing along with them. They were now the center of the Oreo surrounded by world class cookies. Their playing improved immeasurably. They presence of the pros energized the amateurs, especially Leonard Zon, founder and director of the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and the first incumbent of the newly established Grousbeck Professor of Pediatrics Chair at Children’s. And trumpet player. In fact, Len was so enthusiastic he insisted on playing the trumpet over everyone’s melody, over everyone’s solo and all the interludes. I gently told him the arrangement needed to build and if he simply played the assigned part, it might sound better. Then I had to tell them the bad news. The Kennedy Center could only give the Rock Docs one hour to rehearse on stage. I could feel their panic suck the air out of the room. The usually very brave, very stoic, very brilliant doctors got very quiet. I, the new resident-in-chief, a bit too cheerfully said we didn’t need more rehearsal and I’d meet them in an hour. They started to pack up all their gear; I gently told them we had stagehands to do that, they didn’t have to carry anything, not even their guitars. I said stagehands were sort of like nurses. Just let them do their jobs or they get very testy. Musically, the on-stage rehearsal went fine. But Larry Lessor came up to me and asked if they were in pain. Their faces were priceless. I’ve never seen terror so well expressed. They looked like they had been painted by Munch. Now, I thought, they know how we feel, lying in a flimsy robe on that gurney waiting to get knocked out and cut open in the operating theater. Larry ran up on the stage and started waving his hands and dancing, all 6’5, three hundred pounds of him. Even that didn’t work. Saturday was show day. It started with an emergency. One of my musicians forgot her anti-depressants; believe me, you don’t want to go into show day if one of the musicians isn’t on her meds. Is there a doctor in the house? Fortunately, yes! I had no compunction in e-mailing the most brilliant doctors in the world for a prescription. I got a response immediately from Wolfram Goessling, day job: Assistant Professor, Depart of Medicine, Harvard Medical School whose laboratory seeks to understand the signals that indicate organ injury and regulate growth and regeneration. Night job: Trumpet player. Wolfram asked for the vital information from my musician and the prescription was there within the hour and my musician was happy, happy, happy. Next emergency: my bass player came down with a virulent rash on his arm. Another e-mail blast. This time Leonard Zon answered and asked for me to take a picture of his arm on my phone and forward it to him. Len then responded and said he’d look at it at rehearsal. At 8:00 PM the show started and my patient/musicians had to fend for themselves. They waited in the green room for Whoopi Goldberg to make their introductions. I decided the Rock Docs should wear lab coats. Just in case the music wasn’t up to par, the visuals would help. But Doc Rock needed no help. The curtain opened, Francis made his Jimmy Stewart-esqe speech and he had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand. Obviously, someone who runs a 30 billion dollar agency knows how to make a speech. You Got A Friend was perfect. Everyone was in tune, Francis rocked the vocal and after the Jon Lewin alto sax solo received spontaneous applause I knew audience was going on the journey with us. I had structured the number with a false ending after Friend. I wanted the audience to think the number was over. So there was a huge ovation and then John O’Shea (Day job: Chief of Molecular Immunology and Inflammation Branch at NIAMS. Night Job: Mandolin player) counted off Here Comes the Sun, and although it was 8:30 PM at the Kennedy Center, the Sun did indeed come out. Tisdale on vocals, aided by the husky alto of Sally Rockey who is in charge of giving out the grants at the NIH, brought the medley to a new high. (I had to wonder if Sally could somehow convince Francis to give ME a grant so the NIH could see the correlation between an artist’s bank account and happiness.) After Sun there was no break. Libutti changed the tempo all by himself (take a bow, Steve, brilliantly done) and the group rocked into a raucous version of Help! The audience was on its feet! And when Leonard Zon started blowing his trumpet solo, the roof of the Kennedy Center flew off. Doc Rock was a sensation and, using band talk (although probably not Doctor-speak) they killed! The operation was a success. The experimental drug got FDA approval. The patient will live to fight again. And of course, Milken was right! It was a great idea. Later that night, 10-time Grammy winner Kenny (Babyface) Edmonds took the stage and spoke before he sang. He said that he had no problem performing after Melissa Manchester or Stevie Nicks or any of the artists on stage, but no one told him he had to play after Doc Rock. He said that was completely unfair and no artist could ever hope to follow them. I heard cheers emanate from the green room when, with a sly smile, Edmonds said, “Maybe I should go to medical school.”. In the hotel bar, where all real musicians gather after a concert, Steve Libutti, Director of Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care/Drummer and I were having a late night drink, going over the events of the night. This peerless doctor has a baby face that would put Kenny to shame, but when he talked about the experience he was positively angelic. He said, “I finally got to live my dream. I opened for Stevie Nicks!” Read more: http://tunes.broadwayworld.com/article/THE-DOCS-THAT-ROCK-by-Glen-Roven-20120919_page2#ixzz26xXXe6ao Page Read more: http://tunes.broadwayworld.com/article/THE-DOCS-THAT-ROCK-by-Glen-Roven-20120919#ixzz26xXQu5ia

Playbill writes about Catherine Zeta-Jones and the Runaway Bunny

Tony Winner Catherine Zeta-Jones Will Narrate New Recording of "The Runaway Bunny" By Andrew Gans 17 Aug 2012 Tony and Oscar winner Catherine Zeta-Jones will narrate a new recording of "The Runaway Bunny," which is based on the best-selling children's classic by Margaret Wise Brown. Advertisement This CD, which will be released by GPR Records Nov. 15, will also feature English baritone Mark Stone singing "Goodnight Moon" and a special guest superstar narrating Poulenc’s "Babar, The Elephant." Zeta-Jones narrates a new piano trio version of the children's tale composed by GPR Records artistic director Glen Roven. "Runaway Bunny" has been performed all over the world, and narrators have included Brooke Shields, Glenn Close, Sandy Duncan, Donna McKechnie, Kate Mulgrew and Phyllis Newman. This piece premiered at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra, with Glenn Close narrating. "Runaway Bunny" was written in 1942 and has been published continuously since that time. "It is such a pleasure to participate in 'The Runaway Bunny' for this recording - it's a wonderful timeless story of free thinking and creativity," said Zeta-Jones in a statement. "I know the importance of music and reading and my hope is that this CD will touch and capture the imagination a new generation." “'Runaway Bunny' and 'Goodnight Moon' are national treasures and many of us remember them from our childhood,” added GPR Records producer and composer Roven. “Having Catherine Zeta-Jones and Mark Stone really solidifies GPR Records’ goal of creating wonderfully new and sophisticated products for children. We're so pleased to be able to honor Margaret Wise Brown with this recording.” For more information visit www.GPRRecords.com.

From Operaobsession about Daniel Okulithc

WEDNESDAY, JULY 4, 2012 New American Art Song If you're looking for something creative and non-jingoistic for festive listening this July 4th, Daniel Okulitch's album of American art song fits the bill. Sets by four composers comprise the album; Okulitch gives them all with vibrant energy. Ricky Ian Gordon's "Quiet Lives" are beautiful and bleak memorials to solitary living on the fringes of cities, or simply on the edge of events. The twentieth-century poets whose work Gordon sets are black and white, male and female, a cross-section of those who live and love in rented rooms. These haunting pieces are succeeded by Jake Heggie's charming "Of Gods and Cats," set to poetry by Gavin Geoffrey Dillard. Okulitch's handling of the texts complements Heggie's playful settings, solemnly depicting the afternoon activities of a cat, whimsically toying with the image of an innocently mischievous infant God. The centerpiece of the album is Glen Roven's "Songs from the Underground," a cycle of fifteen songs setting the vivid language of poets from John Milton to William Carlos Williams and beyond. The selection and sequencing of the texts gives the rich poetry unexpected resonances, and connections sometimes humorous (Spike Milligan's "Teeth" to Williams' "This is just to say") and sometimes profound ("Ozymandias" to Paradise Lost to Grace Nichols' "Like a Beacon.") Even where textual connections seem tenuous, echoed chords or similar harmonies suggest relationships; a rich and intriguing set with songs for mourning and dancing. Lowell Liebermann's "Night Songs" is a tender trio of lullabies or nocturnes to be whispered between lovers, dreamy and musically suggestive, using the poetry of Randall Jarrell, Rilke, Graves, and the undervalued Mark Van Doren. The concluding "bonus track" is Jake Heggie's setting of Robert Browning's "Grow Old Along With Me!" joyous and earnest both, given with the same exuberant warmth that marks the rest of the album.

Patricia Racette piece June 22, 2012

Diva on Detour April 5, 2012 By John Thomas Dodson Leave a Comment Photo by Scott Wall Most people know soprano Patricia Racette as one of the reigning operatic divas of our time. She appears around the world singing signature roles like Jenufa, Madama Butterfly Violetta, Desdemona, Tatyana, Liu and Micaela – to name just a few. # With such a career in the opera house, it might surprise many to hear that she is currently engaged in a project recording cabaret songs in a live studio setting. The CD, which will be titled Diva on Detour, will be released on the GPR label later this spring. With songs by Stephen Sondheim, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Edith Piaf and many others, she has chosen a mix that draws a laugh one moment and a tear the next. Accompanied by the marvelous pianist, Craig Terry, this duo been performing together for several years, and the familiarity they share is evident throughout. I heard one of the sessions and was astounded by Ms. Racette’s capacity to live every word, every note of the songs in a way that was dramatic and communicative yet completely in the style of American Popular Song. She was careful to color her voice to the genre, avoiding vocal placements appropriate to opera but which would fail miserably in this particular music. At times I could have been listening to a singer in a darkened club setting, but where the average crooner leaves me wanting more depth of experience, this artist delivered all of the emotional goods. Patricia Racette takes her expressive skills from the world of opera and applies them to the cabaret repertoire with a result that is, in a word, magical. She has an amazing capacity to take her listeners well beyond what we think we know about a familiar tune – turning a tin can alley ditty into a veritable map of the soul. This isn’t a cross over album. Rather than hearing a famous soprano trying to sing popular songs, you’ll hear a great artist who has a range of expression far wider than most of us might expect. You can preorder this album on GPRrecords.com. I know that, at least for me, Patricia Racette and Craig Terry just made my gift shopping for this year a LOT easier.

Where I like to Conduct, a magazine piece about me!

Classical Artists-QAmbassador Posted 2012-05-06 Glen Roven/Photo: Ahren R Foster Glen Roven-Conductor "I wish I had a more exotic answer to this question: Bangkok, St. Petersburg, Kuala Lumpur. But the fact is, I love performing in New York City, my home town. And more than anything I love performing at Carnegie Hall. Of course it’s one of the most acoustically perfect halls in the world: violins never sound as lush or flutes as sweet, that’s a given. But it’s more than the mere brilliant acoustics. It’s the history, it’s the legendary status, it’s just…well, it’s Carnegie Hall. Before my debut, I was fortunate enough to have performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues; I even conducted four Presidential Inaugurations on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. So I was a bit blasé about the concert. But then I stepped on the stage and the whole Carnegie Hall legend washed over me like a tsunami -- I almost swooned. There I was, little me, standing on that stage, getting ready to conduct my Violin Concerto; there in front of me was that auditorium; there behind me was the legendary ornate quasi-rococo baroque/classical wall ornamentation. And there was the iconic conductor’s podium with its thick, gold-barred surround to prevent even the most athletic conductor (Lenny?) from tumbling into the audience. I regained my composer, said hello to the ghosts of Mahler and Tchaikovsky, and stepped up to the podium. So that’s what all the practicing was for!" Glen Roven, a four-time Emmy winner, has conducted The Israel Philharmonic, the National Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, The Munich Philharmonic, The Radio Luxembourg Orchestra, The American Symphony, as well as many others. Roven has produced for Julie Andrews, Kathleen Battle, Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, Aretha Franklin, Kenny G., Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Quincy Jones, Kermit the Frog, Patti LaBelle, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross to name a few. The conductor is also the co-founder of GPR Records, along with Peter Fitzgerald and Richard Cohen, issuing Broadway, Classical, Spoken Word and Children's Music.

A nice piece about Laurne

MUSIC MONDAY | Twenty Questions with soprano, Lauren Flanigan Posted on April 30, 2012 by Christie Connolley, OperagasmUptempo Magazine found some time to catch up with Lauren Flanigan, who Time Magazine dubbed, ‘the thinking man’s diva’. This famous soprano has performed in over 100 operatic roles all over the world, from the Metropolitan Opera to Teatro La Scala to Glyndebourne and beyond. She has earned awards and accolades from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the New York City Opera, and the Center for Contemporary Opera. Not to mention her star turn as the Ice Skating Diva in the movie Death to Smoochy.Lauren Flanigan has always championed modern composers and contemporary works, and her recent project (incidentally perfect for Mother’s Day) is no exception. A recording of Glen Roven’s new compositions based on Margaret Wise Brown’s masterpieces, Goodnight Moon: Lullaby for Soprano and Orchestra and The Runaway Bunny Concerto. Are you ready to play twenty questions with this celebrated diva? Here we go! If Hollywood made your life into a glamorous biopic what actor would you want to portray you on the big screen? Laura Linney Your favorite book? Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale East of the Sun West of the Moon Nordic fairy tales and stories Funniest mishap onstage? Irish wolfhound pulled me off stage in La Boheme while I was singing Musetta’s Quando m’en vo. What is the one item in your closet you splurged on? Paloma Picasso Handbag If you could undertake any role in any opera, regardless of fach or gender, what would it be? Any comic role. I’m tired of killing people onstage!! Last TV show you watched? Animal Planet’s My Crazy Cat from Hell Favorite composer? Verdi If you weren’t a singer, what would you be? Public Advocate, social worker, nun What do you consider your trademark characteristic? Stage animal If you could have any superpower, what would you choose? I’d like my hearing back Your celebrity crush? Chow Yun Fat Where is your favorite place to relax and recharge? Garden or bar Your favorite comfort food? Martini or bacon, but not together What character in history do you feel deserves, but has not yet received the operatic treatment? Virgin Mary Dream vacation destination? Venice Italy Who is your hero? Feminists Team Edward or Team Jacob? Team baseball Your favorite hobby? Gardening Guilty pleasure? Hanging with my dog Seamus and no cell phone You are stranded on a desert island with one recording of your choosing what would it be? Anything by Bill Evans or Caballe

More Five Boroughs Ink

by Stephen Eddins Five Borough Songbook is a project of the Five Boroughs Music Festival, a collective of musicians whose goal is to bring topnotch musical performances to parts of the city whose audiences aren't likely to have access to conventional Manhattan concert experiences. In 2011, the festival commissioned 20 New York-area composers to write songs about the city, and the result is an attractive assortment of vocal pieces. Half of the composers took advantage of having a number of singers available, and there are vocal duets, trios, and quartets as well as solos. Pianists Thomas Bagwell and Jocelyn Dueck and violinist Harumi Rhodes artfully negotiate the varied accompaniments. The soloists include sopranos Mireille Asselin and Martha Guth, mezzo-sopranos Meg Bragle and Blythe Gaissert, tenors Javier Abreu and Keith Jameson, and baritones Jesse Blumberg, Scott Dispensa, David McFerrin, and David Adam Moore. They perform with polish, complete investment in the music, and disarming youthful energy. While there is considerable stylistic variety in the music, most of it still lies within the broad parameters of post-Modern lyricism, or, in some cases, a traditional post-Romanticism. In what is probably the most affecting and powerful piece, On Leaving Brooklyn, Yotam Haber uses four voices deployed chorally, accompanied by violin. Its minimalist-inflected harmonic stasis, a poignant balance of the acerbic and sweet, and its fragile, intricate textures beautifully convey the yearning of Julia Kasdorf's reimagining of Psalm 137's lament for Jerusalem. Other highlights include Ricky Ian Gordon's vibrant, brawny setting of Whitman's O City of Ships; Christina Courtin's intensely lyrical Fresh Kills; Daron Hagen's skillful, Broadway-tinged duet, The New Yorkers; Jorge Martín's exuberant honky-tonk City of Orgies, Walks, and Joys!, based on Whitman; Scott Wheeler's lovely, distinctive setting of Charles MacKay's At Home in Staten Island, for soprano and violin, which has the unmannered, memorable melodic directness of an Appalachian ballad; and Richard Pearson Thomas' giddily frenetic The Center of the Universe. The sound quality is adequate but not especially lively. The album offers an intriguing snapshot of the world of New York song at the end of the first decade of the century and should especially interest fans of new vocal music.

A great Opergasm Review of Talise

OPERAGASM EXCLUSIVE REVIEW: TALISE TREVIGNE, AT THE STATUE OF VENUS- A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY DELIGHT 04/24/12 REVIEWS by Liz Mattox If you are not familiar with the composer and pianist Jake Heggie, you should be. If you have never heard of four time Emmy award winner, conductor, lyricist, and composer Glen Roven, get acquainted. If the refined voice and artistry of soprano Talise Trevigne doesn’t ring a bell, drop everything and listen to the album “At the Statue of Venus,” which features her beautiful interpretation of two of Heggie’s song cycles “Natural Selection” with poetry by Gini Savage and “At the Statue of Venus,” with libretto by Terrence McNally and Roven’s settings of poems by various poets, accompanied by the composers themselves. The first set of songs, “Natural Selection,” “trace a young woman’s search for her own identity.” The first notes of Heggie’s piano introduction in the song “Creation” paint a vivid image of a young woman opening her eyes for the first time to the idea of being an adult out from under the watchful eyes of her parents, with beautiful two note suspensions and resolutions leading into a soft entrance of the vocal line, managed exquisitely by Trevigne. The next song in the set describes a youthful evolvement of the character’s sexuality. Entitled “Animal Passion,” Heggie mimicks animal sounds in the piano accompaniment while the vocal line dips and soars in a wide range of melody that Trevigne handles with technical expertise and stellar musicianship. The next two songs in this set “Alas! Alack!” and “Indian Summer” may be my two favorite in this cycle. The former’s poem compares the different men that the character dates to all sorts of heroes and villains from various well-known operas, like Tosca and The Magic Flute, which is perhaps my singer’s biased affinity coming forth. In “Indian Summer,” Heggie spices the music up with a jazz bass line in the piano while Trevigne adds some delicious, darker colors to her voice. When listening to the next set of songs on this album, Roven’s “Santa Fe” songs, one word comes to mind and that is melancholy. In the liner notes of the CD, Roven explains the process out of which these songs came to be: During the summer of 2011 in the wake of a “monumental personal tragedy” he found himself in the city of Santa Fe where the town’s “mystical magic crept into [his] very marrow although [he] didn’t know it the time.” Attempting to come to terms with his loss he came upon a book of Santa Fe poems that he later evolved into this set of songs, ultimately aiding his healing process. The result is this beautiful, deeply personal and raw setting of emotions into his “Santa Fe Songs.” The music in these songs requires the performers, both pianist and vocalist, to be masters of their craft. “Spring, 1948,” for example, has completely opposing piano and vocal lines where one does not lend itself to the other, meaning both musicians must know exactly what they are doing. Roven and Trevigne pull this off effortlessly, uniting the two lines into a duet that makes the words and music come together seamlessly but with the sad passion that which the composer wrote it. Like Heggie, Roven also includes a jazz-infused song in this set called “Listening to jazz now.” This being one of the peppier tunes, the piano is a fun partner to a lighter tone in Trevigne’s vocal line, which add to the phrases in the poem such as “I’m happy, sun shining outside like it was my lifetime achievement award.” Two of my other favorites from this set are “Signs and Portents”, in which Trevigne displays her marvelous breath control and musical understanding of the strikingly morbid words in the poem, and “Bowl,” where Roven writes some gorgeous melodies to a tender poem by Valerie Martinez. The last set on the album, “At the Statue of Venus,” could be called a one-woman show, similar to “The Vagina Monologues,” only set to music. The libretto by Terrence McNally is a hilarious description of a woman named Rose waiting for a blind date at the Statue of Venus, a situation that all of us can relate to on some level, whether or not we’ve ever been set up on a blind date before or not. In his brief note on the set Heggie asks “To be willing to be judged by another person – does anything make us more vulnerable but human, too?” An excellent point and idea to keep in mind as one listens to his setting. The first song’s title, “The Slacks Were a Mistake,” in and of itself made me LOL. In the piano introduction Heggie sets the stage as though Rose were nervously walking to her destination at the Statue, sits down or stops walking once she reaches it, and declares with a gripping interval that the slacks were indeed a mistake. The piano brilliantly accompanies the rest of the character’s monologue as if it were her thoughts, imitating and exaggerating the words she is saying. One of the elements I appreciate in contemporary music, especially if the composer is alive and you are able to discuss with them their intent when they wrote their music, is that some rules are often thrown out. In classical singing, sliding notes together (a lazy glissando, if you will) might be frowned upon, but Trevigne and/or Heggie (I’m not sure whose decision it was) makes a splendid use of this ornament in the second song, “It Was a Sexy Voice.” When imitating the “sexy voice”, the singer appropriately uses the “lazy glissando” on words like “sexy” or the phrase “shall we” when the character’s date is speaking to her. In several of the songs in the set “Rose” sings “la, la, la, la…” to a simple melody, depicting the character’s uneasy mind frame. I enjoy the fact that Trevigne held back in this part of the song and kept it uncomplicated. Each time it happens in the music she doesn’t turn it into a moment of operatic display: She keeps it simple, in tune with the character’s overall anxious sentiment. Criticisms I have of this work are few but if I had one it would be that, as a singer, knowing how difficult English is to sing in and often understand (although Ms. Trevigne does an overall excellent job with her diction) it would have been nice if the CD came with the words printed in the jacket. However, GPRecords has conveniently made note that the texts are available on their web site, GPRecords.com. If you consider yourself a champion of classical music, if you claim to know very little but would like to learn more about the composers of the twenty-first century, this album is an excellent place to start. Jake Heggie and Glen Roven are clearly some of today’s outstanding composers, pianists, and conductors, and Talise Trevigne puts a unique and enjoyable stamp on their compositions.

LARB

I'm thrilled to be a contributed to the LA Review of Books. Here's my profile!

Glen Roven
Glen Roven has Four Emmys, played Carnegie Hall three times, has two nephews, and had one great love.




(From the LARB Questionnaire:)



Best piece of advice you ever received?



When I was twenty-one and conducting the biggest hit on Broadway, I had dinner with Phyllis Diller and Ann Miller. (How's that for an opening sentence, all my novelist friends?) Phyllis looked across her pasta and gave me a piece of advice I have never forgot, a piece of advice I didn't really understand at the time, or rather didn't believe: "Kid," she said, "never expect ANYONE to help you. No one ever will. Trust me on that. You do it all yourself. Every last Goddamn thing. And you do it all the time, every day." Now that I'm 51 all I can say is, "How true, Phyllis. How true."



Who reads you first?



As I'm primarily (I hope!) a composer, the question really is, Who listens to you first? Easy. For 30 years, my companion, partner, significant other, oh heck, whatever the term is, my sweetheart was the best critic a composer could ever have. Although not a musician by profession-he trained horses--, he had the most critical ear and unfailingly good judgment about music, especially vocal music, of anyone I have ever encountered. What more could someone want? If he liked something, I was golden. If he didn't, it went right into the trash. Most of the time. There was one song I wrote, or rather, one melody, he absolutely loathed. He made me cut it from every show or every album I tried to shoe-horn it into. Unfortunately we never agreed to disagree. He was adamant. Despite me telling him incessantly how Blue Moon and Getting to Know You also appeared in several shows before they landed. He hated the song so much, no matter what new title or lyric I gave it, he would invariably attack my producer and say, "You're not going to let him put that rubbish in your show, are you? That cut-out. That old-news-rewritten crap!" You got to love a man like that. And I did.

An article about doing the Opening of EuroDisney

A man got in touch with me a while ago saying he liked my music that I wrote for Disney! I was thrilled someone noticed. He got in touch again and did an interview with me about my music for the opening of EuroDisney! Nice!

Two decades ago on Saturday the 11th of April 1992, The Grand Opening of Euro Disney was broadcast around the world. This live TV special introduced Disney’s new £2.2 billion resort to the general public and finally revealed many of its closely guarded secrets. @CafeFantasia recently got in contact with the show’s Music Director, Glen Roven, to write an exclusive interview for Euro Souvenirland.

In the closing credits of The Grand Opening of Euro Disney, you’re listed as the Music Director. For those of us that don’t know, could you explain the basics? What is a Music Director, and how does being one differ from being a Composer?

Titles like this are always a bit vague and are usually open to interpretation. I feel a Music Director is in charge of every aspect of the music of a show. A show like this has original music to be written, original musical numbers to be written, music to be picked, music to be orchestrated, arranged, recorded, conducted, rehearsed, delivered in the proper technical TV format. And I’m a bit of a control freak with these things, so I like to control and supervise everything! In fact, I even like to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong.

I wrote a great amount of musical numbers for a show called Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood a while back (in 1987) and I made the costume designer show me his sketches! Of course I wouldn’t change a thing, but I liked to see how everything adds up to a final product. A specific answer to your question, as to how does it differ; the Musical Director would supervise the composer or even hire the composer, unless the composer is a big star like Alan Menken, where the Music Director would realise his vision.

How did you first get involved with The Grand Opening of Euro Disney? How did the opportunity come about to work on such a large project?

I got a phone call from Don Mischer, the Executive Producer. He used to hire me a lot, because I was known for being able to handle huge events, Presidential Inaugurations, Emmy shows, etc. Plus I did the same job for the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park Grand Opening special in 1989. I also did the same job for the Grand Opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom in 1998, but that was after. They all blend together a bit.

Did you get to visit Euro Disney during the project, or did you compose the music remotely in America?

I remember we had two trips. One as a survey where the park was hardly even completed but we got a tour of what was about to happen so we could get ideas and have the layout in our collective heads. And then we went again, about a month before the park opened to prep the show. It was a great job!

What was your initial impression of Euro Disney when you first visited the park? How did it feel to experience it before the general public?

Going to the parks before they are open is always an amazing experience. You have the entire theme park all… to… yourself! And you get to go on the rides over and over and over. And then the Imagineers ask you, “was it too fast, too slow?” And sometimes things simply don’t work and are completely revamped immediately. That was especially true when Eisner was running Disney. I remember when he saw a specific ride, didn’t like it, and they closed the ride till they re-jigged it. Riding the Kilimanjaro Safaris at the opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom was amazing. I was able to do it ten times in a row!

For those of us who don’t know, which pieces of music in The Grand Opening of Euro Disney did you specifically compose?

I don’t really remember! But chances are, if it’s not a famous song, I wrote it!

Out of everything you composed for The Grand Opening of Euro Disney, which piece of music is your favourite and why?

Again, I don’t really remember. But I do remember creating a whole Western sequence, with lots of different traditional Cowboy songs interwoven, for the opening of Frontierland. I guess because I remember it, I probably liked it.

Could you talk a little bit about your process? Where do you start when you’re composing?

I usually hear things quickly in my head. And then it’s a matter of writing them down. I’ve never been one to get writer’s block, especially with a job I’m hired for. I think of myself as a craftsman. They need music, I write music!

Did you encounter any challenges while working on The Grand Opening of Euro Disney? What was the most difficult thing to accomplish?

Well, I remember we had Cher, The Four Tops and The Temptations on the show. I went out to Munich to record. They assured me there were good session musicians out there (drummers, bass players, pianists). However, when we got there, they were not up to our usual standard; they were in fact horrible! Anyway, I recorded the music with them, then we threw it all out! Then I flew out musicians from London and Hollywood and re-recorded everything. That was a challenge. I remember being on the phone with Don Mischer who couldn’t believe the first recordings were as bad as I said. So I help up the phone to the playback speakers. I could hear Don almost faint on the other end. Without a moment’s pause he said, “Trash ‘em. Come back. We’ll do it again!”

How did the decision to record with the Munich Philharmonic come about? Was it always the plan that a full orchestra would perform your music, or was it an idea that evolved?

We needed a big sound for that old fashioned “Disney” sound. And we were in Europe. I think someone at the studio suggestion the Munich Philharmonic. And they were great.

What’s your fondest memory of working on The Grand Opening of Euro Disney? What’s the one thing you’ll never forget?

I just loved getting a trip to France all paid for! I loved the small restaurant in Marne-la-Vallée that we ate at. I loved taking the RER A into Paris. I loved the details in Euro Disneyland. The artisans Disney found to paint the rides were amazing. I loved going to Munich. So many memories…

Out of all the rides and attractions at the Disney theme parks around the world, which one do you think has the best score and why?

That’s a hard one. Music is really such an integral part of the Disney Parks and their rides. I like the songs the best. I guess my absolutely favourite is it’s a small world! I know some people find that song annoying, but I find it astounding! Imagine being able to write a song that’s so damn memorable that it is annoying!!!! That song wasn’t written; it was dictated from God!

Do you find it frustrating that so much of the music composed for the Disney theme parks, such as yours for The Grand Opening of Euro Disney, is never released commercially?

Nah, it’s just a part of my job.

With 2012 marking the 20th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris, what’s the biggest change in music you’ve seen in the last 20 years?

It has to be how to incorporate electronic technology. 20 years ago the technology was so primitive compared to what we have now.

Looking back on your career in music, what has been your most memorable project and why?

That’s a tough one. I like to say the best is yet to come. But a few highlights: Conducting the First Inauguration of Bill Clinton on the steps of the Lincoln Monument. My first huge number I wrote for Liza Minnelli. Working with Julie Andrews, Whitney Houston, Patti LaBelle, Michael Jackson. Conducting Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr.’s last concerts on TV. Having great classical artists like Daniel Okulitch and Talise Trevigne record my songs. Conducting my Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall. Playing the piano at Carnegie Hall. Seeing all my songs published. Seeing all my translations published.

And looking ahead, can you tell us about any upcoming projects?

I just finished writing a new opera called ANDERSON’S SOLO. Hopefully that will get produced. I have two musicals hopefully headed to Broadway. I am running a small CD label now and we have amazing artists. Now that major classical labels are all tanking, all the biggest opera stars in the world are recording with little GPR Records. So I’m looking forward to recording with Patricia Racette, Stephanie Blythe, Charles Castronovo, Poulo Szott, Ramon Vargas, etc.

Patricia Racettes First Night concert

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012

Patricia Racette: Diva on Detour (and right at home)

"Would you be interested in attending a live recording session for a cabaret album Patricia Racette is doing?" is a question admitting of only one answer. And so, Gentle Readers, I found myself yesterday at the studio of GPR Records, in an atmosphere fizzing with champagne and cheerful anticipation. Eventually, we settled ourselves, obediently applauded for sound technicians, and then Craig Terry took his place at the Bechstein, and Racette entered and took possession of the room. The contrast with the physical space of the Met could hardly have been more dramatic (the diva flattened herself against the piano in mock alarm) and the smoky smolder Racette brought to the evening's program was a far cry from her Tosca. But it turns out the soprano has a voice for Piaf, as well as Puccini, and she sang the cabaret program with the same emotional directness that has won me over in the opera house. The evening was opened with an energetic medley of "Get Happy" and "I got Rhythm," filled with a joy mirrored in audience cheers when Racette sang "I got rhythm / I got music / I got my gal..." The follow-up of "Here's that Rainy Day" was given with an unrestrained tenderness pointed up by pianistic melancholy. Racette performed Vernon Duke's "Not a Care in the World" with exuberant flair for jazzy syncopations. With the smoky sensuality of "Angel Eyes," we were all drawn into the painful aftermath of a relationship's disintegration. Necessary respite was accorded as Racette invited us to laugh with her as she sang "I'm calm (I'm calm, I'm perfectly calm.)"

Brave is the woman who undertakes to sing songs created by Edith Piaf. Racette not only sang them, but took ownership of them, and of her audience. "Milord" was given with a saucy lilt, transitioning into a fearlessly sensual "Padam." "La vie en rose" was sweet-toned, and unabashedly radiant. "The Man That Got Away" was paired with the deliciously tongue-in-cheek "To Keep my Love Alive." Racette and Terry next gave us an arrangement, devised by Terry, of "Come Rain Or Come Shine," with the piano part based on Bach's Prelude No. 1 in C Major. Racette sang with the radiant confidence and the shattering vulnerability of desire--of love--and I cried so hard I had to take my glasses off. Well, Gentle Readers, you already knew I was sentimental. Rodgers & Hart's lovely "Where or When" was next, followed by a medley of soul-crushing ballads. "I like singing sad songs!" said Racette, by way of introduction; as she pointed out, this is a distinct asset given an operatic repertoire which assigns her a variety of suicides "and death by that good old-fashioned soprano-killer, TB." With remarkable attention to text, she gave us an unflinching examination of hope lost and found in "You've Changed," "Guess Who I Saw Today," "Where Do You Start?" and Cole Porter's "So in Love." We were all still a little emotionally shell-shocked (well, I was, anyway) when Racette segued into her next offering: Piaf's "Mon Dieu." And she got it. And I was completely wrecked. (Did I mention that I love Edith Piaf?) Racette closed with Sondheim's "Not a Day Goes By." No, it's hardly an emotional restorative, but she had us in the palm of her hand and wanting more.

The album resulting from this week's sessions is available for pre-order here.

Two Great Pieces about Patricia Racettes LIve Concert

Concert Review: Tosca at the Cabaret
Patricia Racette records standards.

Ed. Note (A clarification: this wasn't exactly a concert, but an invitation-only recording session. Before delving into it, I'd like to thank composer/producer Glen Roven for the gracious invitation, and my good friend Singing Scholar for putting the set list details on her excellent Opera Obsession Blog.)


There is nothing more remarkable than hearing a big voice in a tiny, intimate space.

Such was the case with Thursday evening's recording session with soprano Patricia Racette, who was taking a well-deserved break from the verismo roles that are her bread and butter to record Diva on Detour, a live album of Broadway, songbook standards, and songs by Edith Piaf.

Opera stars don't always get good results when they attempt cross-over repertory, but as the charming soprano assured us, this was music that she grew up singing. Accompanied by the light-fingered pianist Craig Terry, Ms. Racette opened with a quicksilver medley of "I Got Rhythm" and "Get Happy", injecting an exuberant mood into the small recording studio.

The mood darkened with Jimmy Van Heusen's "Here's That Rainy Day," a Sinatra favorite that is all too pertinent in this age of high unemployment and government cutbacks. Vernon Duke's "Not a Care in the World" continued the theme of economic depression, which was lifted by a soulful, pain-drenched reading of "Angel Eyes." Ms. Racette then offered a peep into the hectic world of opera with "I'm Calm," playfully mocking her own backstage persona.

She then shifted into the repertory of Edith Piaf, soaring through the great French singer's vocal lines with ease and idiomatic delivery. She inhabited "Milord" and "Padam" with fierce dignity, drawing long spans of notes and producing a crescendo effect as she moved from song to song. The beloved "La vie en Rose" followed, with the singer delivering France's other national anthem with potency and warmth.

The theme of the set moved to relationships, with the serious ("The Man that Got Away") nimbly paired with parody ("To Keep My Love Alive.") Mr. Terry's unique arrangement of Come Rain or Come Shine, built around the C Major Prelude from Bach's first book of The Well Tempered Clavier bridged musical styles across the centuries, creating a quite lovely, timeless effect.

The climax of the set was a devastating triple-knockout punch of "You've Changed," "Guess Who I Saw Today", and Cole Porter's mighty "So In Love", drawn from his best musical, Kiss Me, Kate. Ms. Racette brought all of her operatic experience inhabiting the broken heroines of Verdi and Puccini to bear on this miniature three-act tragedy, presenting a raw, naked light on the heartbreak of obsession and failed romance.

She returned to the warm arms of Edith Piaf for the finale, the singer's glorious "Mon Dieu." For this fearless artist, who has walked her own path in the course of a remarkable career on the stage, it was a fitting statement of artistic purpose. After a brief pause, she ended with the words of the great Stephen Sondheim. The song was "Not a Day Goes By."

Diva on Detour is available for sale from GPR Records. And it's highly recommended.

From Taminophile about Talise

Mecco all' altar di Venere
No, dear reader, it's not another Norma post, but how could I resist making a comparison between the name of Pollione's aria and that of the wonderful CD I am reviewing today, Talise Trevigne's recording At the Statue of Venus, on GPR Records. OK, it's a stretch, but if about half of you think it's clever, I'm OK with it.


Courtesy GPRRecords.com
I say this is a wonderful CD because I am enamored with the lovely Miss Trevigne's singing and her interpretation of the three works on the CD--a song cycle and a scena by Mr. Jake Heggie, known for his widely acclaimed operatic setting of Dead Man Walking, among other things, as well as a song collection by Mr. Glen Roven. Those with razor-sharp memories will recall that I praised Miss Trevigne's singing in the brief role of Jemmy in Guillaume Tell at Caramoor last July.

The centerpiece of this CD is Mr. Heggie's "At the Statue of Venus", a scena with a very likable libretto by Terrance McNally. This is, in fact, a soprano monodrama in six sections. The story, if one is necessary, is about a woman waiting to meet a blind date and enduring a wide range of predictable adolescent feelings about what she might expect. Junior high school never really ends, does it? The woman becomes pensive, thinking about what she really wants from love and recalling the feeling of safety and certainty in her father's arms, and in the last section is finally her confident self, appearing to put her adolescent fears to rest, believing that if the man she is meeting today is truly the one for her, she'll know.

I call the libretto likable, but the songs as a whole are quite beautiful, showing the conflict and fear in the woman's heart and the humor of the libretto at the same time. As she grows in turns fearful, angry, self-deprecating, pensive, and confident, Mr. Heggie's piano accompaniment and vocal lines tell us all, reinforcing the humor and pathos in the libretto, skillfully building tension and release. Miss Trevigne gives us lyrical, passionate, beautifully heartfelt performances of these songs. This work is worth the price of the CD.

I also enjoyed the other cycle from Mr. Heggie's pen, "Natural Selection", to five poems by Gini Savage. The liner notes explain these songs "trace a young woman's search for her own identity." My favorites of this cycle were "Animal Passion", in which the poet revels in fantasies of behaving like a wild animal in heat--or at least in the gutter--and "Alas! Alack!", in which she rather too proudly complains about being attracted to the bad boys. Cavaradossi bores her, but Scarpia has all that power and a steady job! (I would swear I heard motives from Tosca in Mr. Heggie's piano part!) In "Indian Summer" she rhapsodizes about the car that gave her freedom in her teenage years and contrasts it to her current life as the wife of a Bluebeard-like man, a veritable emotional hostage. I quite like Mr. Heggie's boogie-woogie piano part for the automotive rhapsody compared to the blues feel when the poet sings about being Bluebeard's wife.

The songs in the third collection, "The Santa Fe Songs," are settings by Mr. Roven of eight poems by various poets each related in some way to Santa Fe. Mr. Roven discloses in his liner notes how finding the volume that contains these poems offered some solace in the dazed period after suffering a tragic loss. Among my favorites are "Listening to jazz now" (Jimmy Santiago Baca), a joyful song about simple pleasures. "Bowl" (Valerie Martìnez) contemplates a bowl as metaphor for the cosmos, the earth and sea, and a chalice that unites all mankind. In "Flying Backbone" (Christopher Buckley), Mr. Roven's piano part reflects the logy feeling of the first verse ("...our selves water heavy and/Low, lusterless as river bottom clay. ") and the more airy feeling of the second. "Bone Bead" and "Sowing the Pecos Wilderness" (both Thomas Fox Averill) are about the emptiness and eventual hope felt after flinging a loved one's ashes to the wind. Miss Trevigne sings these songs, somewhat more complex in melodic nature than those of Mr. Heggie, with beauty of tone and feeling for the poems. As with all the songs on this album, it is easy to understand her English diction. This is a major accomplishment for any singer.

I've written before that I'm not qualified to judge the technical merits of new-ish music, and have joked that November 29, 1924, was to me The Day the Music Died (sorry, Don McLean), but I like these songs, and this CD will not gather dust on my shelf. (Well, not much--I'm a very bad housekeeper.) I especially like Miss Trevigne and hope to hear more recordings and see more live performance by this appealing artist.

Me in Gramaphone!!!!!!!

TALISE TREVIGNES: and the good review continue!!!!

THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 2012

At the Statue of Venus: Talise Trevigne looks for love

When I was asked if I'd be interested in reviewing a CD with the tantalizing title At the Statue of Venus, my response was, approximately, "Would I!" The album showcases the dynamic soprano Talise Trevigne, who sings the music of Jake Heggie and Glen Roven. It's titled after Heggie's scene for soprano and piano, to a text by Terrence McNally, but also features a song cycle by each of the composers, who play the piano parts of their respective works. To me, both Trevigne's name and voice were new, and the latter was the most exciting discovery of the album, supple and expressive across her range. I found Trevigne to be a very emotionally engaging communicator, using varieties of vocal color, and nuanced phrasing, which drew me into the worlds of unfamiliar music and texts. The album was a pleasure on first and repeated listenings, and is recommended especially to those among you, Gentle Readers, who are lovers of art song or sopranos.

The first cycle on the disc, Heggie's Natural Selection, is exuberant in musical invention and allusion. The trajectory of the cycle is tragicomic, condensing the matter for a Bildungsroman into five songs. The persona journeys from confidence on the threshold of adulthood ("Creation,") through fiercely passionate, though still abstract desire ("Animal Passion," a sly, dark tango,) to feverish discontentment ("Alas! Alack!") to "Indian Summer," the lament of a woman trapped in marriage for lost freedom, which is recovered at last in "Joy Alone." The discordant, jumpy anxiety of "Alas! Alack!" is packed with operatic allusion (what would happen if Tosca fell for Scarpia?) which continues in the ragtime, Bluebeard-referencing "Indian Summer." The voice of the piano, helping to illustrate the narrator's emotional state, reinforces the rightness of where we leave her: the style of the first song has been recovered, altered, but at peace and ready for new journeys.


Flying Backbone, Georgia O'Keefe
Glen Roven's Sante Fe Songs carry with them some of the atmosphere of surreality which the composer describes as enveloping his first visit to Santa Fe, following a personal loss. Some time later came the selection and setting of texts; the finished cycle explores simultaneously the landscapes of the city and of grief. The poems ("Spring, 1948," "Listening to jazz now," "Signs and Portents," "The Boy Soldier," "Bowl," "Flying Backbone," "Bone Bead," "Sowing the Pecos Wilderness") are all strong in their own right, and the musical settings let the texts shine, syllables blooming into melismatic significance. Roven also uses silence eloquently, notably in "The Boy Soldier" and "Flying Backbone." Elsewhere, denser musical textures recall other compositions, with Porter and Gershwin invoked in "Listening to jazz now,"and reminiscences of "La cathédrale engloutie" in the final song. Defiance and bafflement are coaxed into expression, not fully resolved, but given beauty.


Image (c) Malissin/Valdes, via photos-galeries.com
After so much suffering, it's a relief to come into the presence of Rose, a lively, self-amused, generous woman waiting for a blind date in the Louvre. Terrence McNally's libretto is witty and insightful, allowing us to laugh with Rose as she frets and mocks her own anxiety, and to admire her self-knowledge, compassion and--to use an old-fashioned word--wholesomeness. (There is, in "Look at all those women," some idealization of the idealization of women which I found irksome despite its seductions.) The text is rich, but it's the music which gives it emotional specificity, telling us when Rose is irritated, dreamy, or optimistic. Despite the black slacks which she regrets wearing, Rose's agitated vigil gets a hopeful conclusion.

more barihunks

Barihunk Chart Topper; Great Gatsby in SF; Andrew Garland for Valentine's Day: Meikle Takes Marcello to Italy

David McFerrin (Top L), David Adam Moore (Bottom L) & Jesse Blumberg (R)


A little over two weeks ago we mentioned the CD release party and concert for the Five Borough Music Festival's songbook of works by twenty composers. Each song was inspired by places, themes, and poetry from every corner of New York City. We're thrilled to announce that the CD has shot up the Classical Billboard charts to #12 ahead of the Metropolitan Opera and Sir Paul McCartney. Barihunks David Adam Moore, Jesse Blumberg and David McFerrin are all featured on the CD.

Composers include Lisa Bielawa, Tom Cipullo, Mohammed Fairouz, Ricky Ian Gordon, Daron Hagen, Gabriel Kahane, Jorge Martin, Russell Platt, Matt Schickele and more. Click HERE to buy your copy today.

CONGRATULATIONS to everyone involved!

Another Five Borough Songbook review

The Five Borough Songbook - The Show and the Recording

Last year I attended the Queens, NY, premiere of the "Five Borough Songbook," a collection of 20 songs commissioned from 20 composers by the Five Boroughs Music Festival. A few weeks ago, I attended the Manhattan premiere - the same twenty songs, but a slightly different mix of singers. I was curious to hear this music a second time, having been so impressed on first hearing. So on January 12 I was in the auditorium at Baruch College in Manhattan, not only to hear the live performances but also to pick up the recording, which was released that day (and since the release has quickly climbed to number 12 on the Billboard classical list).

This is not a "live in concert" recording. Instead, taking the collection of 20 songs as a starting point, producers Glen Roven (one of the participating composers), Peter Fitzgerald, Richard Cohen, and Megan Henninger took the musicians into the Sound Associates studio during October and November, dividing up some of the songs between people who had sung them at the Brooklyn premiere and the Queens premiere (since there were cast changes between the two shows) and also involving 5BMF Artistic Director Jesse Blumberg (a noted baritone) in some of the performances even though he hadn't sung in the two concerts. The results are splendid.

Each of the composers was asked to come up with a text to set. Some looked through available published poetry, others reached out to poets for new text or devised their own. The unifying factor was that the Five Borough Songbook was not just composed by individuals who live or work in the City of New York, but would also provide musical settings for texts that somehow had something to do with New York City, the "something to do" being loosely defined. Several of the songs relate to the subway system, which is surely one of the defining features of New York. Others focus on particular places, from Times Square to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island to Coney Island Avenue. Others relate experiences, incidents, or feelings associated by the poets and/or the composers with New York. There is even some "found text," such as Lisa Bielawa's song "Breakfast in New York" which sets snippets of conversation she would overhear and jot down while eating breakfast in her favorite Queens diner.

There's even something in here for my own specialized collection of musical settings of The Psalms, as Yotam Haber set a poem by Julia Kasdorf which is based on Psalm 137 in his song "On Leaving Brooklyn."

The composers also ranged from well-established people with international reputations to those with more localized fame. In some cases this marked my first exposure to music by these composers, while in other cases I am very familiar with the work. But despite this range of reputation and experience, I thought the entire collection achieved a uniformly high standard of inspiration and quality.

With twenty different composers, there are also a wide variety of musical styles on display, demonstrating a melange of influences from Broadway to the highest of high art songs. Two things noticeably missing, however, are atonality or serial music. All of these songs sound to me like they have a tonal center, and most seemed concerned with inventing and developing lyrical lines. The enunciation of the singers is so fine and the audio engineering is so well done that one can pick up just about all the text without having to look at a printed version, but this release is also excellent in providing complete texts in the insert booklet, something that one can't necessarily count on when purchasing vocal recitals on independent labels. (This is a production of GPR Records.) (The booklet cover provides two appropriate NYC scenes, one of an MTA train, of course.... The only thing missing that would have been useful are bios of the composers and performers.)

It remains, for purposes of Google accessibility, for me to list the artists involved with this superb production. The composers are Christopher Berg, Lisa Bielawa, Tom Cipullo, Christina Courtin, Mohammed Fairouz, Renee Favand-See, John Glover, Ricky Ian Gordon, Yotam Haber, Daron Hagen, Martin Hennessy, Gabriel Kahane, Gilda Lyons, Jorge Martin, Russell Platt, Glen Roven, Matt Schickele, Richard Pearson Thomas, Christopher Tignor, and Scott Wheeler.

The singers are: Tenors Javier Abreu, Keith Jameson and Alex Richardson; Sopranos Mireille Asselin and Martha Guth; Mezzo-Sopranos Meg Bragle and Blythe Gaissert; Baritones Jesse Blumberg, Scott Dispensa, David McFerrin and David Adam Moore. Violinist Harumi Rhodes and Pianists Thomas Bagwell and Jocelyn Dueck collaborate with the singers. The pieces range from unaccompanied singing to "choral" numbers involving the entire cast at any given performance. On the recording, the songs have been arranged to present a coherent and entertaining cycle varying vocal types and instrumental participants in a way that keeps things fresh and exciting.

Favorite songs from among those presented? It would be invidious to single any out, since having heard two complete performances and listened to most of the recording twice, I have to say there is not one dud in the bunch. Every song is interesting and entertaining or moving or stimulating in its own way, and they are all worth hearing.

I hope that there can also be a sheet music publication, or at least a downloadable version of the sheet music, because this Songbook would be a wonderful source of individual numbers for singers to take up in their song recitals. There is something in here for most vocal ranges, and quite a few that limit themselves to piano accompaniment, making them more easy to integrate into a general song recital. (Perhaps in a publication of the music the composers could adapt their compositions so that all could be performed with piano accompaniment, but that would definitely undermine the distinctive flavor of some, especially those that used the violin rather than the piano as the sole instrumental collaborator.) Several of these songs would make dandy encores, and it would certainly be possible for any singer wishing to include a selection of NYC-related songs to make up a fine "suite" extracted from the book. Indeed, I can imagine an entertaining suite made up of just the subway songs...

BILLBOARD CLASSICAL LIST!!! NUMBER 12!!!!!!!!!

Opera Obsession Five Boroughs Review

OPERA OBSESSION

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2012

Not just Broadway's lullaby: Five Borough Songbook

The Five Boroughs Music Festival is an undertaking to which I'm admittedly partial. With (mostly) young artists, a wide-ranging repertoire, and lots of enthusiasm, their self-appointed mission is to bring creative classical programming to all of NYC. Loud cheers from this outer-borough blogger. Their latest project has been the commissioning of twenty songs, from twenty different composers, celebrating the city's architecture, history, and inhabitants... and even, wryly, its transit system. This has given rise not only to an acclaimed concert series, but also the festival's first recording.

I was a bit apprehensive about the coherence of such a deliberately kaleidoscopic project, but the aural odyssey through so many styles proves to be as oddly hypnotic as watching the pieces of colored glass fall into seemingly inexhaustible combinations. This approach to creating the songbook ensures discoveries for any listener, but also that these discoveries may be different for each. My own tastes inclined towards the rich texts of poets re-focused through their lean, contemporary settings (there is Whitman, of course, but also Auden and, to my delight, Julia Kasdorf for Yotam Haber's "On Leaving Brooklyn.") There are also, though, delights in Lisa Bielawa's "Breakfast in New York," which feels like a compressed song cycle, the setting of conversations overheard in the city's diners.

The strange metamorphoses of metaphor can be traced from a couple finding "all the Eden earth affords" in Scott Wheeler's "At Home in Staten Island" to the subway rider seeking escape from eternal significance in Glen Roven's evocative "F from DUMBO." Perhaps the recording's most endearing characteristic is its willingness to joyously hymn everything from tourist-thronged Times Square (Richard Pearson Thomas, "The Center of the Universe") to the particular pleasures of a New York neighborhood. Yes, even--no, especially--if, as in Gabriel Kahane's "Coney Island Avenue," these comprise "The Chinese laundry, the Puerto Rican fruit stand, / the probably illegal, definitely sketchy / Hasidic copy shop slash passport office." More information on the odes of the songbook's two CDs may be found here.

Five Borough Songbook NY TIMES REVIEW

MUSIC REVIEW
A Score of Ways to Serenade a City

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Five Borough Songbook From left, Harumi Rhodes, violinist; Martha Guth, soprano; David McFerrin, baritone; Alex Richardson, tenor; and Jamie Van Eyck, mezzo-soprano, at the Baruch Performing Arts Center.
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: January 15, 2012
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The Five Boroughs Music Festival began in 2007 with the idea of presenting concerts all over New York. The festival has no preconceptions about genre: its offerings have included folk music, early music and art song. To celebrate its fifth anniversary the festival commissioned 20 composers to write songs about the city for one to four voices, using texts of their choice (several wrote their own). The resulting “Five Borough Songbook” had its premiere at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn three months ago and made its way to Manhattan on Thursday, to the Baruch Performing Arts Center.

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With 20 composers involved you might expect every current style to be represented. Quite a few were, though one conspicuous absence was 12-tone or even sharp angularity. Unalloyed minimalism was missing, too, although Yotam Haber uses passing hints of it, along with light but insistent dissonances, in “On Leaving Brooklyn,” a haunting ensemble treatment of Julia Kasdorf’s updating of Psalm 137.

Mr. Haber’s work was the program’s most experimental piece, though inventive approaches to taking the city’s pulse were plentiful. For several composers, that pulse was best taken on the subway. In “F From Dumbo,” Glen Roven mimics a handful of train rhythms in his piano writing, and Gilda Lyons transforms acronyms, route numbers and letters and a listing of transit-authority service changes into a comic soprano and mezzo-soprano duet, “rapid transit.” Tom Cipullo marshals the four singers for a blunt comic piece about the depredations of one route in “G Is for Grimy: An Ode to the G Train.”

Lisa Bielawa uses snippets of overheard conversation in “Breakfast in New York,” a melodic vocal quartet with an inviting, detailed violin accompaniment. And Richard Pearson Thomas captures the dizzying bustle of the city in the vigorous, tongue-in-cheek patter of “Center of the Universe.”

Wry observation is a crucial undercurrent in this collection, but so is wistfulness. Gabriel Kahane’s energetic “Coney Island Avenue” and Renée Favand-See’s alluringly chromatic “Looking West on a Humid Summer Evening” treat motley sections of Brooklyn with a warmth that evokes Barber’s “Knoxville: Summer of 1915.” Matt Schickele is similarly nostalgic in “Days Afield on Staten Island,” a lively, counterpoint-rich setting of an 1892 poem by William Thompson Davis, and Christopher Tignor’s exquisitely harmonized evocation of longing, in “Secret Assignation,” is one of the set’s purely musical highlights.

Mohammed Fairouz’s “Refugee Blues” is an arresting, self-contained melting pot: it begins with Middle Eastern modal writing and moves decisively into Western melody, with driven rhythms that convey the shape (metrically and emotionally) of that dark Auden poem.

Jorge Martín’s “City of Orgies, Walks, and Joys!” matches Whitman’s paean to Manhattan with a bluesy, Gershwin-esque melody. Other pop styles make brief appearances. The barest flicker of jazz illuminates “The City of Love,” Martin Hennessy’s languid setting of Claude McKay’s poem, and Scott Wheeler borrows an old English ballad style for his take on another McKay poem, “At Home in Staten Island.” Folkish directness also drives Christina Courtin’s “Fresh Kills,” a pained look at a landfill.

Ricky Ian Gordon, whose “O City of Ships” (based on Whitman poem) opened the program, draws on a theatrical style. Others — Daron Aric Hagen, Russell Platt John Glover and Christopher Berg — take a more straightforward art-song approach.

The singers — Martha Guth, soprano; Jamie Van Eyck, mezzo-soprano; Alex Richardson, tenor; and David McFerrin, baritone — were strong individually and made a finely balanced ensemble. The violinist Harumi Rhodes and the pianists Jocelyn Dueck and Thomas Bagwell were solid, colorful accompanists.

FIVE BOROUGH REVIEW FROM OPERA TODAY

23 Jan 2012

Five Boroughs Songbook

What does it say about New York that, in the songs of the city commissioned by the Five Boroughs Music Festival and given performances in Brooklyn, Queens and, now, Manhattan, the poets (often the composers themselves) rarely refer to life in that central part of the city, Rodgers and Hart’s “isle of joy”?
Five Boroughs Songbook

“The Five Boroughs Songbook.” Martha Guth (soprano), Jamie Van Eyck (mezzo-soprano), Alex Richardson (tenor), David McFerrin (baritone), Harumi Rhodes (violin), Thomas Bagwell and Jocelyn Dueck (piano). Manhattan premiere; Baruch Performing Arts Center, January 12.


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These twenty songs by as many composers are largely concerned with the city as an abstraction, a beloved object, a universal core, or else they address the outer boroughs. Composers, poets, songwriters can no longer afford Manhattan perhaps. They live in Brooklyn’s lovely and not-so-lovely neighborhoods, or in the recuperating Bronx, or even Staten Island. They no longer even dream about Manhattan. Larry Hart wouldn’t recognize the place. Greenwich Village was not mentioned all evening—nor Chinatown, nor Harlem, nor even Inwood. Times Square, in Richard Pearson Thomas’s “The Center of the Universe,” was invoked to “remember the bad old days.” It is no use asking (though I do ask) how much longer New York will be “the center of the country, the world, the universe,” when none of the young, the adventurous, the energetic and creative immigrants can afford to live closer in than Bushwick or Newark.

This has an understandable effect on song output. In the gaudy days of Tin Pan Alley, songwriters stumped for inspiration could look out the window and come up with “Lullaby of Broadway” or “Way Out West on West End Avenue” or “When Love Beckoned on Fifty-Second Street.” But there is no Tin Pan Alley any more. Musically, there’s barely a Broadway. Few of the twenty composers on this program write that kind of theater (at least four of them have composed operas), but on this occasion they often seemed to channel the wisecracking New York wit and the nostalgic art largely missing from Broadway for the last generation. Requested by the Five Boroughs Music Festival to write about some aspect of New York, they have not been parochial in their choice of subject or text—some were old, some were modern, some were the composers themselves. Two of the songs were poems by the ever-exultant Walt Whitman, who retired in New Jersey but drew his universal point of view from his Brooklyn youth.

A lot of numbers in the Songbook boasted rumbling piano accompaniments to symbolize the constant basso continuo throb of the city. There were jazz inflections and dance rhythms, passing in and out of a song as if overheard while ambling by in the darkness. There were songs made up of fragments—fragments of overheard conversations, fragments of overheard melody (Harold Arlen, Giuseppe Verdi), fragments of dying or undying love affairs, fragmentary impressions of Brooklyn on a summer night or the odor of the garbage dumps on Staten Island, fragments of gnomic subway announcements.

Van Eyck, Guth, Richardson, McFerrin, Bagwell, Dueck and Rhodes

There seemed to be quite a lot of songs about the subway. Glen Roven’s “F from DUMBO” seemed to consist of glances at the crowds by a numbly daydreaming straphanger. Gilda Lyons’ “rapid transit” invoked and celebrated the whole crazy system, its changeable schedules and half-audible warnings. Tom Cipullo’s “G is for Grimy: An Ode to the G Train” celebrated (and trashed) the one line in the system that never enters Manhattan at all. John Glover’s “8:46 AM, Five Years Later” unsensationally presented memories of being caught on the N train beneath the city on the morning of 9/11. There had to be one such song, just one, and this was one’s felt unforced and meaningful.

Yotam Haber’s exquisite setting of “On Leaving Brooklyn” made the very syllables of Julia Kasdorf’s revision of Psalm 137 into musical tones, “borough” and “Babylon” and “Jerusalem” becoming harmonized values and nostalgic wisps of melody. Scott Wheeler’s “At Home in Staten Island,” from an old poem by Charles Mackay, became a parlor ballad concealing its ache in an old-fashioned tune. Mohammed Fairouz’s ambitious “Refugee Blues” (which describes a more general situation rather than one specific to New York), builds on W.H. Auden’s use of a repetitive, folk song-like refrain, to achieve a gathering power. Jorge Martin set Whitman’s “City of Orgies, Walks and Joys!” to an irresistible boogie-woogie rich with the delight of simply romping about the town, while a solo violin gave the fantasy a piquant turn by chiming in just “off” the harmonies we had been led to expect.

Harumi Rhodes was the violinist. The pianists, Thomas Bagwell and Jocelyn Dueck, were both fine, but Rhodes played with almost vocal inflections of intricate participation rather than accompaniment: the violin as lieder singer. This speaks well of the composers who provided for her as well as her own poetic technique.

The songs were arranged for four contrasting voices, and the program varied and balanced their duties. Soprano Martha Guth and mezzo Jamie Van Eyck partnered well in the deadpan wit of “rapid transit.” Guth, having plumbed near-alto depths earlier, suddenly became a high, keening opera soprano for the melancholy of “At Home In Staten Island,” mated here with Rhodes’s violin, and (on the other side of that large borough) deplored the air of Christina Courtin’s “Fresh Kills.” Van Eyck brought drama to the mourning, accusing “Refugee Blues” and wistfulness to Renée Favand-See’s “Looking West on a Humid Summer Evening,” and lightly aired the brittle wit of Gabriel Kahane’s “Coney Island Avenue.” Tenor Alex Richardson was the yearning, regretting lover of Russell Platt’s “The Avenue” and Christopher Berg’s “OuLiPo in the Bronx.” David McFerrin’s grainy baritone gave us Martin Hennessy’s love song to the mothering city itself, “The City’s Love,” partnered Guth in Ricky Ian Gordon’s setting of Whitman’s invocation, “City of Ships,” and quietly made the point of “8:46 AM.” Texts were provided but the diction of all four was impeccable in the intimate confines of the Baruch Performing Arts Center.

The Songbook was recorded at an earlier performance with different singers, and the two-CD set is available from GPR Records on the Five Boroughs Music Festival web site.

John Yohalem

Click here to purchase the CD.

Nice barihunk piece about 5 Borough Songbook

New Yorkers, Don't Miss This: Five Borough Songbook Concert and CD Release on Thursday

Don't miss the Five Borough Songbook concert and CD release party

We've been covering the Five Boroughs Music Festival as it has moved around New York, but the January 12th concert in Manhattan promises to be extra special. In addition to the concert they wil be releasing their first recording that day, a stunning 2-disc set of the Songbook. We've had the privilege of previewing the recording and it is a must for any lover of art songs or opera.

We can't think of a better evening out than hearing a concert and then heading home with a CD of the all the great music that you just heard. The Songbook is a collection of newly commissioned vocal works by many of the leading composers working today. It celebrates New York City through its history, poetry, and geography. Some of the titles will certainly evoke distinct images or memories to New Yorkers past and present. They include "F From Dumbo," "G Is For Grimy: An Ode To The G Train," and "Coney Island Avenue."


Barihunk David McFerrin will sing Martin Hennessy's "The City's Love"


Did you ever wish that you could have spoken to Bach, Schubert, Verdi or Puccini? Unless you're Shirley MacLaine, you missed your chance. But you'll have a chance to talk to many of the composers on the program on Thursday night, as quite a few of them have agreed to appear for a "Composer Chat" beginning an hour before the 7:30 PM concert.


The concert will be at Engleman Recital Hall at the Baruch Performing Arts Center 55 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Click HERE for tickets or HERE to purchase a CD.