FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 18, 2008
Contact:  David Mayhew for Cohn Dutcher Associates
(203) 738-9280     david@davidmayhew.net

CARAMOOR SPRING CONCERTS BEGIN WITH NEW COMIC OPERAS
BY JOHN MUSTO AND WILLIAM BOLCOM

Bastianello and Lucrezia to receive semi-staged performance on March 15 to open the
CARA(moor) ITALIA celebration of the glorious musical tradition of Italy

Katonah, NY - Two new comic operas, John Musto's Bastianello and William Bolcom's Lucrezia, will receive their Westchester premieres on Saturday, March 15, 2008 as the opening event in Caramoor's of CARA(moor) ITALIA, a special series of three Great Artists in the Music Room concerts evoking the glorious musical tradition of Italy. 

New York Festival of Song will present the world premiere of the operas several nights earlier at Carnegie Hall.  Bastianello, based on an Italian folktale, is a family fable of love and folly set in 18th-century rural Italy.  Lucrezia, based on Machiavell's La Mandragola, is a wickedly funny seduction satire, retold from the viewpoint of the story's wise and captivating heroine.  Both works, with libretti by Mark Campbell, are scored for five singers and two pianos and will be presented in semi-staged performances.  Featured in the operas will be Lisa Vroman, soprano; Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano; Paul Appleby, tenor; Patrick Mason, baritone; and Matt Boehler, bass.  Steven Blier and Michael Barrett will collaborate at the pianos.

Caramoor Indoors concerts take place in the Music Room of the House Museum, the residence of Caramoor's founders, Walter and Lucie Rosen.  Caramoor's Chief Executive and General Director, Michael Barrett, describes the Music Room as "the most elegant and intimate performance space in the metropolitan area."  The Music Room, which seats 200 for performances, is richly decorated with an extraordinary collection of original Renaissance paintings, sculptures and tapestries, as well as Asian art.

The Spring 2008 Indoors season is made possible, in part, through generous funding from Floy and Amos Kaminski.

Tickets are $40, or $96 when purchasing all three Great Artists in the Music Room's CARA(moor) ITALIA performances.  The other concerts in the series are an April 13 recital featuring violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and pianist Norman Krieger, and an April 26 concert featuring the Caramoor Virtuosi. 

Tickets may be purchased by calling the Caramoor Box Office at 914.232.1252 or by visiting www.caramoor.org. 

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts is located at 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah, New York.

The Company

Soprano Lisa Vroman starred on Broadway as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera and made her New York City Opera debut as Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella with Paul Sorvino in the title role.  With a repertoire that ranges from Stravinsky to Weill to Broadway, Ms. Vroman is a frequent guest soloist in theater and with opera companies and orchestras in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington DC, Vancouver, and with the Boston Pops.  Her solo CD, Broadway Classic, features Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe.  Ms. Vroman had the honor of singing at the Profiles in Courage Award dinner in Boston at the JFK Library, as a guest of the Kennedy family. She has also sung on separate occasions for Queen Elizabeth II, former President Bill Clinton, and former Vice President Al Gore.

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke won First Prize in the 2007 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. She made her Washington, D.C. debut in the Young Concert Artists Series at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater and her New York debut at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in October. Ms. Cooke holds the Lindemann Vocal Chair of Young Concert Artists. She has performed as soloist with Orchestra New England and with the National Symphony Orchestra as Mercedes in a concert performance of Bizet's Carmen, as Aloës in Chabrier's L'Étoile, and in a recital program entitled Manhattan Diaries hosted by Steven Blier. Her other notable performances include NYFOS's Brava Italia! concert at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall.

Tenor Paul Appleby is a second year master's student at The Juilliard School.  Mr. Appleby's opera credits include the roles of Achille in the Juilliard Opera Theater's production of Iphigénie en Aulide, Ferrando in Così fan tutte at the Chautauqua Institute, and Le Mari in Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias with Notre Dame Opera.  He has sung numerous times with the South Bend Symphony, as well as in performances as tenor soloist in Handel's Messiah, Bach's Magnificat, and Haydn's Harmoniemesse with the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra. Past performances include an appearance with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and his debut with the Opera Theater of St. Louis.

Baritone Patrick Mason, a faculty member at the University of Colorado, performs operatic and concert repertoire throughout the world. Most recently he performed in the New York premiere of Black Water by John Duffy and Joyce Carol Oates. He has recorded music from tenth-century chant to songs by Stephen Sondheim on the Sony, Vox, L'Oiseaux-Lyre, and Erato labels. His two most recent CD releases on the Bridge Records label are recordings of Schubert's Winterreise and Mélodies, a set of French songs by Ravel, Fauré, Dutilleux, and Poulenc, with pianist Robert Spillman.

Bass Matt Boehler made his debut with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. Mr. Boehler garnered praise in the title role of Sweeney Todd during his residency with the Wolf Trap Opera Company. He was the soloist in performances of Mozart's Requiem with the New York Symphonic Ensemble and the Colonial Symphony.  He is also a three-time First Prize winner of the Schubert Club's vocal competition and a recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation.

Composer William Bolcom was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America and honored with multiple Grammy Awards for his groundbreaking setting of Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.  He is a composer of cabaret songs, concertos, sonatas, operas, symphonies, and much more. In February 2008, his Eighth Symphony will be premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in three performances conducted by James Levine in Boston, MA, followed by its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall on March 8.  His opera, A View from the Bridge, premiered at the Washington National Opera in Washington, D.C. this past November. Other recent premieres include his Canciones de Lorca with tenor Placido Domingo, the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Carl St. Clair at the gala opening concert of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall (Orange Country Performing Arts Center), and his Nine New Bagatelles for solo piano.

Composer John Musto stands at the forefront of contemporary composers writing for the voice. He was a nominee for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for his song cycle, Dove Sta Amore, a setting of the poetry of Sandburg, Agee, and Ferlinghetti. Other recent vocal works include The Book of Uncommon Prayer, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Rags for the Richest, commissioned by the New York Festival of Song, and Penelope, commissioned by the 92nd Street Y. His vocal compositions also include Encounters, Calypso, Quiet Songs, and Shadow of the Blues: Four Poems by Langston Hughes. Mr. Musto's orchestral and chamber works have been performed by numerous ensembles, including the Dallas Symphony, the Rochester Symphony, the Ahn Trio, and the Janus Ensemble. He has won Emmy Awards for his scores to the documentary films Into the Light and Brick City Lessons, and his most recent film collaboration, George Segal: An American Still Life, was seen on PBS.  His "New Work for String Quartet" received its world premiere during last summer's Caramoor International Music Festival.

Librettist Mark Campbell writes lyrics and libretti for musical theater, performance art, opera, and dance. He was honored with the first Kleban Foundation Award for Lyricists and received two Richard Rodgers Awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Rockefeller Foundation Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship, and a Drama Desk Award nomination. Most recently, he wrote the libretto for Later the Same Evening, a new opera by John Musto inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper, commissioned by the National Art Gallery and the University of Maryland.  His works for music theater include: Splendora, The Paradise Project (with Michael Torke), Akin, Ring Around the Rosie (with Richard Peaslee), Therèse Raquin, and Chang & Eng. He is currently writing the lyrics for a song cycle for tenor Michael Winther, a short opera with composer Martin Hennessy, and an evening of three short operatic works with composer Lance Horne. In May, Mr. Campbell joins Michael Torke and A.R. Gurney at the Sundance Theatre Lab to collaborate on a musical adaptation of The House of Mirth.

Steven Blier co-founded the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) in 1988 with Michael Barrett and has performed frequently at Caramoor.  Since NYFOS?s inception, he has programmed, performed, translated, and annotated over 100 vocal recitals with repertoire spanning the entire range of American song, art song from Schubert to Szymanowski, and popular song from early vaudeville to Lennon-McCartney. NYFOS has also undertaken in-depth explorations of music from Spain, Latin America, Scandinavia, and Russia. In addition, Mr. Blier enjoys an eminent career as an accompanist and vocal coach. Among the many artists with whom he has partnered in recital are Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Holzmair, Susanne Mentzer, and Sylvia McNair.

Michael Barrett is Chief Executive and General Director of the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts where he is responsible for administration, year-round programming, and the Summer Music Festival.  In 2003, building on a career of over 25 years of programming and performing experience in the arts, Mr. Barrett assumed this position at Caramoor, where he leads the artistic mission, is responsible for its fiscal well-being, and has reaffirmed his reputation as an innovator.  He has enhanced and implemented programming for a wide variety of ambitious music that is rarely heard in a festival setting and that covers an expansive range of new presentations thus attracting diverse audiences.  In 1988, Mr. Barrett co-founded, with Steven Blier, the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), which presents a diversity of thematic song recitals in New York City and beyond.  In 1992, he co-founded the Moab Music Festival (MMF) with his wife, violist Leslie Tomkins.  He is also the Artistic Advisor for the Estate of Leonard Bernstein.  Mr. Barrett has been a guest conductor with the Orchestre National de France, among others.  He also has served as conductor, producer, and music director of numerous special projects, among them:  The Bernstein Beat (a young people's symphonic concert about rhythm at Carnegie Hall), the world premiere of Volpone by John Musto, which took place at Wolf Trap in 2004, and Hopper's Wife by Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie at the Long Beach Opera.

About Caramoor

Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts 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.