Inviting performers, educators, and all lovers of song to explore connections between poetry and music, between history and culture, through the work of American composers and poets
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LGBT Center, 208 W. 13th St
New York City
Composer Laura Kaminsky curates and hosts a salon of contemporary songs by LGBT identified composers and librettists. Featuring the world premiere of a collaboratively created song cycle by Kaminsky, Jennifer Higdon, Laura Karpman, Paula Kimper, Nora Kroll Rosenbaum, and new face on the scene, Kayla Cashetta, who will all set new poems by Elaine Sexton. The evening will also include a performance of Fierce Grace: Jeannette Rankin by mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson and pianist Mila Henry, with libretto by Kimberly Reed and contributions from Kaminsky, Karpman, Kitty Brazelton, and Ellen Reid. (Opera America commission; 2017 world premiere was at Library of Congress). A co-presentation with Five Boroughs Music Festival and the LGBT Center, in honor of Pride Month and the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood Festival
Lenox, MA
Beloved American baritone Thomas Hampson opens the American Songbook to explore the influential people and monumental events that helped create and define “the land of the free.” Guiding the audience through centuries of stories, Mr. Hampson will share personal anecdotes and readings, offering a rich context within which to celebrate America’s history of song. Pianist Lara Downes and The Beyond Liberty Players join him.
Irish poet and composer Thomas Moore used his gifts to champion the cause of Irish freedom, and his many volumes of Irish Melodies were influential across Europe and America.
Transcendentalism was a visionary way of thinking that was widespread in 19th-century American art and thinking. Among those associated with the movement were Emerson, Thoreau, and the Alcotts. Composers who were influenced by Transcendentalist thinking include Edward MacDowell, Charles Ives, and Charles Griffes.
The best-known of the artists who tried to capture the drama of the American West and its inhabitants were the painter Albert Bierstadt and the illustrator/writer/painter/sculptor Frederic Remington.
A production of The Hampsong Foundation. It was produced by Miriam Lewin of Lavine Production Group, with camera and editing by Randi Cecchine. Our thanks to singers Catherine Swindle, Nita Baxani, and Justin Austin; pianist and composer Richard Pearson Thomas; the Stephen Gaynor School in New York City…
