Schwab Vocal Rising Stars: New York to Paris, Paris to Paradise
By Roslyn WertheimerSCHWAB VOCAL RISING STARS: NEW YORK TO PARIS, PARIS TO PARADISE
Katonah, NY ~ March 5, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Cohn Dutcher Associates
CARAMOOR CENTER FOR MUSIC AND THE ARTS PRESENTS
2012 SCHWAB VOCAL RISING STARS:
NEW YORK TO PARIS, PARIS TO PARADISE
SUNDAY, MARCH 11, 2012, 4:00 PM
IN THE ROSEN HOUSE MUSIC ROOM AT CARAMOOR
WHO:
Steven Blier, Artistic Director and piano | Michael Barrett, vocal coach and piano
Meredith Lustig, soprano | Kristin Hoff, mezzo-soprano | Brenton Ryan, tenor | Eugene Chan, baritone
WHEN:
Sunday, March 11, 2012, 4:00 PM
WHERE:
Rosen House Music Room at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts
PROGRAM:
Songs by Trenet, Poulenc, Fauré, Milhaud, Delage, Roussel, Copland, Berlin, Gershwin, Bowles, Lasser, Rorem, Musto, and Blitzstein
TICKETS:
Individual tickets are $25. To purchase tickets, call the Caramoor Box Office at 914.232.1252, or visit www.caramoor.org
PRESS TICKETS:
Danielle Green, 917.339.7188, dgreen@cohndutcher.com
KATONAH, NEW YORK — On Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 4:00 PM, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts presents the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program in the Rosen House Music Room. Now in its fourth year, Caramoor’s Schwab Vocal Rising Stars, in collaboration with New York Festival of Song, continues its vital mentoring program devoted to shaping the next generation of vocal talent. The week-long residency culminates in a performance of New York to Paris, Paris to Paradise—a program featuring New Yorkers’ and Parisians’ eloquent hymns to their hometowns and their dream vacations: Americans in Paris, Parisians in exotic climes. Featuring selections by Ned Rorem, Charles Trenet, Darius Milhaud, Albert Roussel, George Gershwin, and others, the songs will be performed by soprano Meredith Lustig, mezzo-soprano Kristin Hoff, tenor Brenton Ryan, and baritone Eugene Chan. These young, emerging North American singers will be joined by vocal coachesMichael Barrett and Steven Blier at the piano. This concert concludes NYFOS's fourth annual professional training residency at Caramoor.
"This tale of two cities has a four-stop itinerary: New Yorkers in Paris, Parisians at home, Parisians abroad, and New Yorkers back in Manhattan,” says Artistic Director and pianist Steven Blier. “We'll hear from the globe-trotting French and American musicians who straddled the Atlantic: Ned Rorem and George Gershwin, Francis Poulenc and Charles Trenet, Irving Berlin and Darius Milhaud. The snazzy elegance of French music and the elegant snazziness of American music will provide our Caramoor Schwab Vocal Rising Stars with a week of joy and stimulation. It's always a high point of my year to welcome the spring in that peaceful beehive of artistic creativity."
Since its inception, the program has received funding from the Terrance W. Schwab Endowment Fund for Young Vocal Artists. Caramoor is pleased to announce that the Vocal Rising Stars have been renamed the Terrance W. Schwab Vocal Rising Stars, to honor the memory of long-standing Caramoor Trustee Terrance Schwab and the Schwab family’s ongoing commitment to this vital program as the endowment continues to grow and help the Vocal Rising Stars program to thrive.
Caramoor Classics
A series of concerts in the Rosen House Music Room that presents artists participating in Caramoor’s mentoring programs: Rising Stars, Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence, and Schwab Vocal Rising Stars. Local middle and high school students are invited to attend at no charge as a part of our Student Strings program. Caramoor Classics are appropriate for families and will often include comments from the artists about the program. (Good music requires good listeners -- these concerts are recommended for ages 8 and above.)
About the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars
The success of Caramoor's Rising Stars mentoring program has inspired a new initiative known as the Schwab Vocal Rising Stars, a program presented in collaboration with the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), Steven Blier, Artistic Director. This initiative, launched as a pilot program in spring 2009, focuses on singing outside the realm of opera, including the song recital and vocal chamber music. Singers at the beginning professional level are invited to Caramoor for a week-long residency that offers intensive daily coaching, rehearsals and workshops with mentors. Last year's residency culminated in a stupendous performance of The Sweetest Path: The Evolution of French Art Song at Caramoor, which was repeated to tremendous enthusiasm three days later at Merkin Hall in New York City.
The identification and development of young musical talent has long been central to Caramoor's mission. This mentoring program, Schwab Vocal Rising Stars, has a specialized focus on providing singers with an opportunity to form collaborative partnerships with one another, the Caramoor staff, and the coach/accompanists, who also participate in the residency program. Caramoor believes that the work leading up to a performance is of equal if not greater importance than the concert itself and will have a lasting impact on the growth and development of young artists. This year's Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program was underwritten through the generosity of the Terrance W. Schwab Fund for Young Vocal Artists.
The 2012 Schwab Vocal Rising Stars are: Meredith Lustig, soprano; Kristin Hoff, mezzo-soprano; Brenton Ryan,tenor; and Eugene Chan, baritone.
Michael Barrett
Michael Barrett is Chief Executive and General Director of Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, where he is responsible for year-round administration and programming for the Caramoor International Music Festival each summer. In 2003, building on a career of twenty-five years of artistic programming and performing experience, Mr. Barrett assumed his position at Caramoor, where he leads the artistic mission of the organization. In the last four seasons, Mr. Barrett has reaffirmed his reputation as an innovator. He has enhanced and implemented programming for a wide variety of ambitious music rarely heard in a festival setting. In 1988, he and Steven Blier co-founded the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), which presents a diversity of thematic song recitals in New York City and beyond, and in 1992, Mr. Barrett co-founded the Moab Music Festival (MMF) with his wife, violist Leslie Tomkins. 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. He also has served as conductor, producer, and music director of numerous special projects, among them the world premiere ofVolpone by John Musto at Wolf Trap in 2004; Hopper's Wife by Stewart Wallace and Michael Korie at the Long Beach Opera; and, most recently, Lucrezia and Bastianello, a double bill of one-act comic operas by William Bolcom and John Musto at Carnegie Hall and Caramoor.
Steven Blier
Steven Blier enjoys an eminent career as a vocal coach and accompanist, having performed throughout North America and Europe including engagements at Carnegie Hall, La Scala in Milan, and a Live From Lincoln Centertelecast. Among the many artists he has partnered in recital are Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Samuel Ramey, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Jessye Norman, Wolfgang Holzmair, Susanne Mentzer, Sylvia McNair, José van Dam, and Arlene Augér. Mr. Blier is on the Juilliard School faculty, and has been active in encouraging young recitalists at summer programs including the Wolf Trap Opera Company and San Francisco Opera Center.
Blier has been working with Michael Barrett on the Caramoor Schwab Vocal Rising Stars program since its inception in 2009, and he was made Director in 2010. Mr. Blier also co-founded New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) in 1988 with Barrett, for which he has programmed, performed, translated, and annotated over 125 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 made in-depth explorations of music from Spain, Latin America, Scandinavia and Russia.
About Caramoor
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts – a performing arts center located on a unique 90-acre setting of Italianate architecture and gardens in Westchester County, NY – enriches the lives of its audiences through innovative and diverse musical performances of the highest quality. Its mission also includes mentoring young professional musicians and providing educational programs for young children centered around music. For more information go to www.caramoor.org or call (914) 232-5035.
Tickets: Individual tickets: $25.00. To purchase, call the Caramoor Box Office at 914.232.1252, or visit www.caramoor.org.
For Press Tickets: Contact Danielle Green, Cohn Dutcher Associates | 917.339.7188 | dgreen@cohndutcher.com
PROGRAM
CARAMOOR SCHWAB VOCAL RISING STARS
NEW YORK TO PARIS, PARIS TO PARADISE
SUNDAY, MARCH 11, 2012, 4:00 P.M. | ROSEN HOUSE MUSIC ROOM AT CARAMOOR
Steven Blier, Artistic Director and piano
Michael Barrett, vocal coach and piano
Parisians at Home
CHARLES TRENET ‘La romance de Paris’
FRANCIS POULENC ‘Voyage à Paris’
‘La grenouillère’
‘Parisiana’
New Yorkers in Paris
NED ROREM ‘For Poulenc’
AARON COPLAND ‘Pastorale’
PAUL BOWLES ‘Letter to Freddy’
PHILIP LASSER ‘Parisian Evening’
IRVING BERLIN ‘Harlem on My Mind’
GEORGE GERSHWIN ‘Hi-ho’
Parisians Abroad
GABRIEL FAURÉ ‘Les roses d’Ispahan’
MAURICE DELAGE ‘Un sapin isolé’ from Quatre poèmes hindous
DARIUS MILHAUD ‘Mon histoire’
ALBERT ROUSSEL ‘Amoureux séparés’
‘Réponse d’une épouse sage’
GABRIEL FAURÉ ‘Tarantelle’
New Yorkers at Home
MARC BLITZSTEIN ‘In Twos’
IRVING BERLIN ‘Slumming on Park Avenue’
JOHN MUSTO ‘Litany’
IRVING BERLIN ‘Manhattan Madness’
CARAMOOR CENTER FOR MUSIC AND THE ARTS IS LOCATED AT
149 GIRDLE RIDGE ROAD, KATONAH, NEW YORK.
This performance is made possible, in part, by ArtsWestchester
with funds from Westchester County Government.
This performance is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of
Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
The Spring 2012 Indoors season is made possible, in part, through generous funding from
Floy and Amos Kaminski.
Caramoor’s Vocal Rising Stars program is made possible by generous support from the
Terrance W. Schwab Fund for Young Vocal Artists.
The Music Room piano, a Steinway Concert Grand, was the generous gift of
Susan and John Freund.
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