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.