Composers in our Midst: Art Songs by Regional Composers
Saturday, March 31, 7:00 pm, All Souls Church, West Brattleboro, VT
Kristen Carmichael-Bowers, soprano
Clifton J. Noble, piano
Richard Ullman, guitar
Carol Wood, harp
Works by Clifton J. Noble, David Kidwell, Carol Wood, Ronald Perera, and John Duke
TICKETS: $15, $8 students
FREE to BMC students under 21 and their companion
Contact the Brattleboro Music Center at 802-257-4523 or purchase on-line at www.brattleborotix.com
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Brattleboro Music Center presents “Composers in Our Midst,” a unique opportunity to hear art songs written by composers in our region, featuring Kristen Carmichael-Bowers and friends, on Saturday, March 31, 7 pm, at All Souls Church in West Brattleboro, Vermont.
Soprano Kristen Carmichael-Bowers, along with pianist Clifton J. Noble, guitarist Richard Ullman and harpist Carol Wood, will bring to life works by Noble and Wood, as well as composers David Kidwell, Ronald Perera, and John Duke.
“Of all compositional forms, art song is my favorite,” says Noble. “Give me an evocative text full of visual images and a passionate, emotional, dramatic sweep, and I will do my best to give you a powerful song.”
Saturday’s concert includes Noble’s setting for some of his most beloved poetry. “Tagore’s poetry (When I Bring To You Coloured Toys, The Day is No More) is ideally suited for singing. Frost’s ‘Stopping By Woods’ conjures images from my childhood, ‘The Road Not Taken’ always reminds me why I chose to be a musician, and Dickinson’s poetry (I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose, Summer for Thee) never fails to raise an eyebrow or crystallize a tear.”
The program also includes: David Kidwell’s Three Shakespeare Sonnets; Carol Wood’s The Translation of Atlas (John Wood), The Night-Piece to Julia (Robert Ronald Perera’s Shakespeare Songs; and John Duke’s From a Very Little Sphinx (Edna St. Vincent Millay).
Although live performance are abundant in our region for many musical genres, opportunities to hear live music from the art song repertoire that is being composed right now within an hour's drive of Brattleboro is scarce. That is why Kristen Carmichael-Bowers decided to embark on the “Composers in our Midst” project.
“My fantasy is to have a weekend each year to celebrate local art song. To have students learn new music, coached by composers, that they did not first hear on the radio, YouTube or iTunes. To build it from the ground up and understand it in their own terms,” says Carmichael-Bowers.
“Working on complex new music can be like staring at those pictures made up of the dots and you're supposed to relax your eyes and it emerges...With visual art, the images never emerged for me. But with music, I can work at the song mathematically, and through engagement with the material, I can have that "aha" experience - the understanding emerges. And hopefully, what the audience hears is the finished product, the cohesion, the shimmering beauty of the quick shifts in texture and pattern, and the complexities of poetic truth.”
“New music builds on the foundation of the great music from the past, and brings it into the context of now, utilizing harmony and rhythm in interesting ways, and bringing an interpretation that is born of this century, this time. Now. I think it appropriate that we recognize these composers in our midst!”
Carmichael-Bowers studied at the New England Conservatory, and completed both a BA and an MA in music with a focus on vocal pedagogy at Smith College. She has performed in concert, operatic and musical theater settings, and enjoys singing a variety of music from Renaissance to song cycles by contemporary composers. In addition to teaching voice and directing “Get Real!” summer programs at the Brattleboro Music Center, she is on the faculty at the Putney School and Northern Stage, where she works with a variety of singers from amateur to professional.
Clifton “Jerry” Noble, Jr. will be featured as both pianist and composer. Noble’s father taught him to play piano and guitar at age 5, and encouraged him to write music shortly thereafter. He earned degrees from Amherst and Smith Colleges, and has served as the Staff Accompanist at the latter institution for 25 years. His compositions and arrangements include vocal, choral, chamber, and orchestral. Noble is an avid traditional jazz pianist and has recorded several CDs.
Richard Ullman has been on the Brattleboro Music Center faculty, teaching classical guitar and solfege, since 1991. He has accompanied fellow faculty member Kristen Carmichael-Bowers, on guitar and lute, several times. Ullman received a B.A. from Harvard College and M.F.A. in Early Music from Sarah Lawrence College. He is a graduate of the Kodaly Pedagogical Institute, Hungary and studied with Peter Pears at the Britten-Pears School, England. He is on the music faculty at Castleton State College.
Harpist and composer Carol Wood, has written works for the pedal harp and other instruments. One of her major aims as a composer is to enlarge the repertoire of the Celtic harp. Before her retirement from McNeese University, Carol was a professor of English literature.
“It was my good fortune to spend my life reading and teaching great poetry,” explains Wood, “and so it’s probably inevitable that much of what I compose falls into the category of the art song or choral works based on literary texts.”
As a harpist, she has performed from Houston to Paris, and her music can be heard on several CDs.
Join the Brattleboro Music Center for this unique opportunity to hear art song repertoire composed in our region on Saturday, March 31, 7 pm, at All Souls Church in West Brattleboro, VT. Tickets for “Composers in Our Midst” are $15, $8 students, and free to BMC students under 21 and their companions. Please contact the BMC at 802-257-4523 or purchase tickets on-line at www.brattleborotix.com. |
