Featuring

The New York Festival of Song In

Dance Date With Cuba
on July 15th at 8p.m.
Featuring Vivica Genaux, Monique McDonald,
Jeffrey Picon, Steven Blier and Michael Barrett

  Katonah, New York-The Caramoor Festival continues its Extreme Chamber Music Series with The New York Festival of Song in Dance Date With Cuba on July 15^th, beginning at 8p.m. in the Spanish Courtyard.

NYFOS's program will tour Cuba's complex music with its combination of burning passion and drawling ease. Songs by Ernesto Lecuona, Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, Eliseo Grenet, Jorge Anckermann, and others will be performed.

Steven Blier, co-founder and artistic director of The New York Festival of Song said, "By now everyone has realized how exciting Cuban popular music is--and it's a thrill for us to play and sing it in Dance Date with Cuba. But the Cuban art song, chamber music, and light opera we've programmed is also very hot stuff--filled with beautiful melodies and terrific stuff for our percussionist, Danny Villanueva. Our cast--Vivica Genaux, Jeffrey Picon, and Monique McDonald, have a chance to cut loose as in few other recitals, and Michael and I also get to ride the amazing Cuban bucking bronco at the piano."

Artists include Vivica Genaux, mezzo soprano; Monique McDonald, soprano; Jeffrey Picon, tenor; and Steven Blier and Michael Barrett, pianists.

The series continues to explore Cuban music on July 29^th with Paquito D'Rivera and Friends and closes on August 5^th with The Shanghai Quartet with Xu Ke, erhu, in a unique program that mixes Eastern and Western music.

Artists

The New York Festival of Song brings a special energy to the once-faded form of the song recital, now re-imagined as a vibrantly entertaining theater experience meticulously researched and engagingly narrated by its two artistic directors, Michael Barrett and Steven Blier.  Blier and Barrett's innovative, thematic programs present a broad repertoire of art songs, concert works, and theater pieces. In a single evening, concerts may range from Brahms to the Beatles, or may take the audience on a tour of exotic vocal terrain from Russian art song to Argentinean tango. NYFOS also supports and builds the American song repertoire by performing and commissioning new works and exploring seldom-heard music from the country's rich musical heritage.

Vivica Genaux, mezzo-soprano, is one of the leading exponents of the Baroque and bel canto repertoires.  She is applauded on the world's great musical stages for her astonishing technical prowess, vocal beauty, and vivid character portrayals.  The evening marks Miss Genaux's seventh Caramoor appearance, having previously offered two recitals and performed in four operas in their Bel Canto series.  During the 2005-06 season, the Fairbanks-born singer makes her San Francisco Opera debut and appears throughout North America and Europe in roles of Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Handel and Rossini, as well as in concert and recital.  The complete operas, as well solo discs, of the repertoire for which she is most noted continue to receive critical acclaim; one, Arias for Farinelli, was nominated for a Grammy.

Monique McDonald, soprano, recently enjoyed great success in her first performances as Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos for her Seattle Opera debut. Other recent engagements include Lincoln Center's American Songbook evening featuring the music of Ricky Ian Gordon, as well as appearing in Gordon's Only Heaven, based on the poetry of Langston Hughes, Poulenc's Gloria and the Verdi Requiem with the North Carolina Symphony. Ms. McDonald can be heard as the soprano soloist in the Grammy-nominated recording of Ned Rorem's Evidence of Things Not Seen, recorded live at the Library of Congress with the New York Festival of Song, and available from New World Records.

Jeffrey Picon, tenor,has proven his versatility as a concert and opera singer in a diverse selection of repertoire.  He has won acclaim across the country for the natural beauty and richness of his voice and for his compelling stage presence.  Highlights of recent seasons include both Ramiro in La cenerentola, and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni with Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Paolino in Il matrimonio segreto with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and a concert presentation of the Janacek's From the House of the Dead with the American Symphony Orchestra. Recent concert appearances include Songs of War and Peace for the New York Festival of Song, Brahm's Liebeslieder Waltzes with Moab Music Festival.

Steven Blier, pianist and co-founder and artistic director of The New York Festival of Song, is a musician with extensive expertise in the art songs and popular music of many countries. For NYFOS he has programmed, performed, translated and annotated more than ninety vocal recitals.  An accomplished accompanist and vocal coach, Mr. Blier has partnered in recital such renowned artists as Samuel Ramey, Susan Graham, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Frederica von Stade and Jessye Norman, and appeared at Carnegie Hall with Cecilia Bartoli and throughout North America and Europe with Renée Fleming. Mr. Blier is on the faculty of the Juilliard School and appears regularly on the Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcasts. 

Michael Barrett, pianist, is Chief Executive and General Director of Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts and co-founder of the critically acclaimed New York Festival of Song, and Music Director and Co-founder of the Moab Music Festival in Utah. A protégé of Leonard Bernstein, he served as his assistant from 1985 to 1990. Mr. Barrett has been a guest conductor with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, New York Philharmonic, London Symphony, Israel Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de France among others.

EXTREME CHAMBER MUSIC

July 15                          New York Festival of Song -- Dance Date with Cuba
Friday, 8:00 pm              Extreme Chamber Music III
Spanish Courtyard
Tickets: $35, $25     

Monique McDonald, soprano

                                    Vivica Genaux, mezzo-soprano
                                     Jeffrey Picon, tenor
                                     Michael Barrett and Steven Blier, piano
                                     TBD, clarinet
                                     TBD, cello
                                     TBD, percussion

 Songs by Ernesto Lecuona, Eduardo Sánchez de Fuentes, Eliseo Grenet, Jorge Anckermann, and others.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Chamber Music at Caramoor is underwritten, in part,  by the Ernst Stiefel Chamber Music Initiative.

 About Caramoor

Caramoor is the legacy of Walter and Lucie Rosen, who built the great house and filled it with their treasures. Walter Rosen was the master planner for the Caramoor estate, bringing to reality his dream of creating a place to entertain friends from around the world.  Their musical evenings were the seeds of the International Music Festival of today.  Realizing the pleasure their friends took in the beauty of Caramoor - the house with its art collection; the gardens; and the musical programs on summer evenings - the Rosens established a foundation to open Caramoor to the public in perpetuity.     

Lucie Rosen survived her husband by seventeen years.  During those years, she expanded the Music Festival:  The Spanish Courtyard was used as a setting for musical events, as it is today. Under her direction, the great stage of the Venetian Theater was built.

Caramoor is a Garden of Great Music.  "We invite people to come early, explore our beautiful grounds, take a tour of the House Museum, visit our gift shops, enjoy a pre-concert picnic, and discover beautiful music in a relaxed setting," advises Paul Rosenblum, Caramoor's Managing Director.  With its unique heritage, Caramoor remains a place where magical summer days and nights are shared and enjoyed by thousands.  "Caramoor is the loveliest Festival of them all." - The New York Times   

Art and Gardens

Concerts take place in two outdoor theaters - the large, acoustically superb Venetian Theater, and the more intimate, romantic Spanish Courtyard.  Caramoor is more than just music - there is beauty at every turn.  The House Museum, the former summer home of Caramoor's founders, Lucie and Walter Rosen, contains a vast collection of Renaissance, 18th-century, and Eastern art objects - furniture, tapestries, sculpture, paintings, fabrics, porcelain and jade. There are entire rooms that were imported from European palaces and villas, twenty of which are open to the public.  On Thursdays and Fridays, Afternoon Tea is served in the Summer Dining Room, which overlooks the Spanish Courtyard. 

A special exhibition, "If These Walls Could Talk:  17^th, 18^th, and 19^th Century Wall Decorations at Caramoor," will be on view in the House Museum from May 14 through December 2005.  There will be a Preview Party Benefit and Silent Auction on May 13, 2005.

Caramoor's gardens are also well worth the visit.  Nine unique perennial gardens, including a Sense Circle for the visually handicapped, a Butterfly Garden, and a Medieval Mount, may be seen on a guided tour or on one's own.

Getting to Caramoor
Caramoor is easy to get to by car or mass transportation.  From Manhattan, take the Caramoor Caravan and ride comfortably in a luxurious, air-conditioned coach.  Round trip service is $21 and is available for all Saturday and Sunday performances during the festival. The Caravan departs from the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Upper West Side and East Side locations. Call the Box Office (914-232-1252) for further information and reservations.  By train, take the Harlem Division of the Metro-North Railroad to Katonah, New York. Taxi service from the station to Caramoor (5 minutes away) is available.  By car: (West Side Manhattan and New Jersey) Take the Saw Mill River Parkway north to Katonah.  Exit at Route 35/Cross River. Turn right, and at the first traffic light make a right turn onto Route 22 south.  Travel 1.9 miles to junction of Girdle Ridge Road. Follow the signs to Caramoor.  (Detailed directions:  914-232-5035, press 2, or online at www.caramoor.org).