Music Meets Drama

Preparing art song recitals has always been one of my great loves.  Choosing a theme or a story to tell through songs, then, hunting through countless volumes and stacks of music by assorted composers, finding just the right poetry and songs that fit my idea takes hours and hours of research.  My hope always is that the 15-20 art songs I choose to perform will be a musical challenge for my pianist and me, then the audience will be engaged for a musical journey of not only poignant but entertaining songs.  Yes, this is a lot of work however it is work that brings me joy.   Over the July 4 th weekend of 2014, pianist Julia Bad y and I performed at the Deerfield, Massachusetts’ Memorial Hall Museum. Since this was the celebration of our nation’s independence, why not celebrate America’s poets and composers?  My research took me to anthologies of American songs and song cycles ….. what set our country apart, what songs would best depict life in Amer...

Community music organizations are the backbone of classical music in the United States .  Whether you have a community concert series that presents well-known artists, a local symphony orchestra or chamber music society, area choruses or a grass roots group that presents concerts on a year-round basis, all are promoting and presenting great music to their local people.  These organizations rely on their year-round residents to sell or purchase tickets, promote the concert by word-of-mouth, make brownies or hors d’oeuvres for the reception and then be in the audience.  Creative concert planning is a must for in this day and age, it is a struggle to find interested audience members and volunteers, yet somehow concert societies persevere and the reward is great.  For forty-six years the Friendsof Music at Guilford ( Vermont ) has been presenting concerts to the public in the Brattleboro area.  Starting with an organ recital in a rural barn in the ...