All material found in the Press Releases section is provided by parties entirely independent of Musical America, which is not responsible for content.
Press Releases
Copland House Announces 2010-11 Season at Merestead
The burgeoning creative center at the historic, 130-acre estate less than one hour north of Manhattan presents one of the only ongoing concert series in the U.S. that regularly focuses on new and recent American music. Last season’s Merestead programs drew capacity audiences eager to venture into the vibrant realm of dynamic, ear-opening works of our own time. As Copland House Artistic and Executive Director Michael Boriskin noted, “Through both content and presentation, we want to re-imagine the entire concert experience, re-ignite a real sense of adventure and discovery, and establish an up-close connection among composer, performer, and listener. Copland House at Merestead is the place to hear things not heard anywhere else!”
The 2010-11 series is bracketed by two of Copland House’s popular Composer Hour programs, which feature America’s leading composers exploring the creative process. The season opener on September 19 brings to Merestead an intimate afternoon with legendary, multiple-Oscar-winner Stephen Schwartz (composer of Godspell, Wicked, Pippin, and many other hits), who will take listeners on his journey from Broadway to the operatic stage, and preview the New York City Opera’s forthcoming premiere production of his new opera, Séance on a Wet Afternoon. The opera’s star, explosive soprano Lauren Flanigan, will sing several songs from the opera and discuss creating the role with composer.
A second Composer’s Hour program, on May 15, celebrates the 75th birthday of iconic composer Steve Reich, who will introduce his classic Different Trains, which explores the extraordinary contrast a young Jewish boy would have experienced traveling on trains in the U.S. and Germany during World War II. The stellar Borromeo String Quartet brings its “edge-of-the-seat music-making” (The Boston Globe) to this landmark work, which uses recorded speech as a melodic source.
On October 24, Copland House at Merestead will salute the beloved renaissance man David Amram on the eve of his 80th birthday, when the internationally-acclaimed Music from Copland House ensemble offers a lively program of his chamber music. A Hudson Valley fixture for decades, Amram was one of the early pioneers of the 1950s beat generation, and a creative force who worked with nearly everyone from Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Willie Nelson, and Leonard Bernstein to Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, and Arthur Miller.
Audiences on November 7 will be treated to Osvaldo Golijov’s monumental The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, inspired by a renowned 12th century kabbalist French rabbi. The Borromeo String Quartet returns with Music from Copland House’s outstanding founding clarinetist Derek Bermel to perform this vast work, which blends klezmer, folk, and many other ethnic influences into Golijov’s intensely personal voice, and quickly became a modern classic following its 1994 premiere.
On December 5, Dorothy L. Crawford, acclaimed author of A Windfall of Musicians, will lead listeners on a fascinating excursion back to World War II-era Los Angeles in a program called “Heaven, Hell, and Hollywood” about the extraordinary émigré community of writers, painters, actors, and musicians that grew in southern California out of the mass exodus from Nazi tyranny. Music from Copland House will perform works by several composers who became stalwarts in the film industry, including Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, and Miklos Rosza, as well as such highly influential, newly-transplanted musical figures like Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Toch, Ingolf Dahl, among others. The program is sponsored by the Westchester Community Foundation.
On March 27, celebrating Women’s History Month, the radiant soprano Angela Brown, who made worldwide page-one news with her break-out, last-minute Metropolitan Opera appearance as Aida several seasons ago, comes to Merestead to premiere the piano version of Richard Danielpour’s critically-lauded A Woman’s Life, set to texts by the legendary Maya Angelou. Written especially for Ms. Brown, who was hailed as “the future of opera” (CBS Evening News), the work details a lifetime’s many stages. Also on the program is a rare performance of pioneering African-American composer William Grant Still’s From the Hearts of Women.
The World Premiere of former Copland House resident Pierre Jalbert’s new work, Crossings, commissioned for Music from Copland House by Meet the Composer, is the centerpiece of the April 17 program. Jalbert, winner of the BBC Masterprize, Rome Prize, and many other prestigious awards, will be on hand to discuss the conception and birth of a major new composition. The work harkens back to Jalbert’s ancestry and was inspired by French-Canadian migration from Europe to Canada, down through New England, and ultimately to Louisiana.
On June 5, the incendiary season finale features Igor Stravinsky’s seminal masterpiece, The Rite of Spring, in a rare performance of the dazzling two-piano version of this symphonic showpiece by two America’s keyboard wizards, Caramoor’s Michael Barrett and Copland House’s Michael Boriskin.
For a festive, season pre-opener this summer, Copland House at Merestead journeys outdoors and into cabaret on Saturday evening, August 21 at 7.30pm with Skylark: Marcovicci Sings Mercer.
Called "the greatest cabaret star of her generation" (International Herald Tribune) and "the epitome of elegance and showbiz savvy" (Variety), the incomparable Andrea Marcovicci offers a personal tribute in Merestead’s exquisite formal garden to the four-time Oscar-winning lyricist, filled with her trademark interpretations of Johnny Mercer's pensive, often impish words to hits and rarities by Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, Henry Mancini, and other favorites from the American Songbook. And on October 3, the captivating, up-and-coming Jennifer Sheehan, winner of the first annual Noel Coward Cabaret Award and the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s Julie Wilson Award, presents You Made Me Love You: 100 Years of the American Songbook. Both events are generously sponsored, in part, by Adela and Lawrence Elow.
The revival of the majestic Merestead estate as a unique creative center for American music and the arts is the result of an innovative public-private partnership between Copland House and Westchester County. Merestead was designed and built in 1906-07 by Delano & Aldrich as the country home of William Sloane, President of the W & J Sloane Furniture Company, and his wife, Frances Crocker Sloane. It was bequeathed to the county in 1982 by the Sloanes’ daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Dr. Robert L. Patterson, Jr., “so that present and future generations of the public will be able to use, see, and enjoy it.” Upon her death in 2000, the county took possession of the property, which is now a county park.
Copland House, a National Historic Landmark, is the only composer’s home in the U.S. devoted to nurturing and renewing America’s rich musical heritage through a broad range of musical, educational, public, informational, and electronic-media activities. The hilltop, prairie-style 1940s home in Cortlandt Manor was legendary composer Aaron Copland’s residence for the last thirty years of his life, from 1960 to 1990. The house has been operational as a creative center for American music since Fall 1998. As the American Record Guide noted, “Copland’s generosity, gentleness, and a sense of measure live on at Copland House … its Music from Copland House ensemble has become our paramount keeper of Copland’s flame.” A 501(c)3, not-for-profit organization, all programs are supported by the nationwide Friends of Copland House.
Tickets to Copland House at Merestead performances are popularly-priced at $25 and $20 (for Friends of Copland House), and even less in various subscription packages; student tickets are $10. For more information, contact Copland House at (914) 788-4659 or office@coplandhouse.org.
The 2010-11 series is bracketed by two of Copland House’s popular Composer Hour programs, which feature America’s leading composers exploring the creative process. The season opener on September 19 brings to Merestead an intimate afternoon with legendary, multiple-Oscar-winner Stephen Schwartz (composer of Godspell, Wicked, Pippin, and many other hits), who will take listeners on his journey from Broadway to the operatic stage, and preview the New York City Opera’s forthcoming premiere production of his new opera, Séance on a Wet Afternoon. The opera’s star, explosive soprano Lauren Flanigan, will sing several songs from the opera and discuss creating the role with composer.
A second Composer’s Hour program, on May 15, celebrates the 75th birthday of iconic composer Steve Reich, who will introduce his classic Different Trains, which explores the extraordinary contrast a young Jewish boy would have experienced traveling on trains in the U.S. and Germany during World War II. The stellar Borromeo String Quartet brings its “edge-of-the-seat music-making” (The Boston Globe) to this landmark work, which uses recorded speech as a melodic source.
On October 24, Copland House at Merestead will salute the beloved renaissance man David Amram on the eve of his 80th birthday, when the internationally-acclaimed Music from Copland House ensemble offers a lively program of his chamber music. A Hudson Valley fixture for decades, Amram was one of the early pioneers of the 1950s beat generation, and a creative force who worked with nearly everyone from Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Willie Nelson, and Leonard Bernstein to Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes, Allen Ginsberg, and Arthur Miller.
Audiences on November 7 will be treated to Osvaldo Golijov’s monumental The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, inspired by a renowned 12th century kabbalist French rabbi. The Borromeo String Quartet returns with Music from Copland House’s outstanding founding clarinetist Derek Bermel to perform this vast work, which blends klezmer, folk, and many other ethnic influences into Golijov’s intensely personal voice, and quickly became a modern classic following its 1994 premiere.
On December 5, Dorothy L. Crawford, acclaimed author of A Windfall of Musicians, will lead listeners on a fascinating excursion back to World War II-era Los Angeles in a program called “Heaven, Hell, and Hollywood” about the extraordinary émigré community of writers, painters, actors, and musicians that grew in southern California out of the mass exodus from Nazi tyranny. Music from Copland House will perform works by several composers who became stalwarts in the film industry, including Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman, and Miklos Rosza, as well as such highly influential, newly-transplanted musical figures like Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Toch, Ingolf Dahl, among others. The program is sponsored by the Westchester Community Foundation.
On March 27, celebrating Women’s History Month, the radiant soprano Angela Brown, who made worldwide page-one news with her break-out, last-minute Metropolitan Opera appearance as Aida several seasons ago, comes to Merestead to premiere the piano version of Richard Danielpour’s critically-lauded A Woman’s Life, set to texts by the legendary Maya Angelou. Written especially for Ms. Brown, who was hailed as “the future of opera” (CBS Evening News), the work details a lifetime’s many stages. Also on the program is a rare performance of pioneering African-American composer William Grant Still’s From the Hearts of Women.
The World Premiere of former Copland House resident Pierre Jalbert’s new work, Crossings, commissioned for Music from Copland House by Meet the Composer, is the centerpiece of the April 17 program. Jalbert, winner of the BBC Masterprize, Rome Prize, and many other prestigious awards, will be on hand to discuss the conception and birth of a major new composition. The work harkens back to Jalbert’s ancestry and was inspired by French-Canadian migration from Europe to Canada, down through New England, and ultimately to Louisiana.
On June 5, the incendiary season finale features Igor Stravinsky’s seminal masterpiece, The Rite of Spring, in a rare performance of the dazzling two-piano version of this symphonic showpiece by two America’s keyboard wizards, Caramoor’s Michael Barrett and Copland House’s Michael Boriskin.
For a festive, season pre-opener this summer, Copland House at Merestead journeys outdoors and into cabaret on Saturday evening, August 21 at 7.30pm with Skylark: Marcovicci Sings Mercer.
Called "the greatest cabaret star of her generation" (International Herald Tribune) and "the epitome of elegance and showbiz savvy" (Variety), the incomparable Andrea Marcovicci offers a personal tribute in Merestead’s exquisite formal garden to the four-time Oscar-winning lyricist, filled with her trademark interpretations of Johnny Mercer's pensive, often impish words to hits and rarities by Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Hoagy Carmichael, Henry Mancini, and other favorites from the American Songbook. And on October 3, the captivating, up-and-coming Jennifer Sheehan, winner of the first annual Noel Coward Cabaret Award and the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s Julie Wilson Award, presents You Made Me Love You: 100 Years of the American Songbook. Both events are generously sponsored, in part, by Adela and Lawrence Elow.
The revival of the majestic Merestead estate as a unique creative center for American music and the arts is the result of an innovative public-private partnership between Copland House and Westchester County. Merestead was designed and built in 1906-07 by Delano & Aldrich as the country home of William Sloane, President of the W & J Sloane Furniture Company, and his wife, Frances Crocker Sloane. It was bequeathed to the county in 1982 by the Sloanes’ daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Dr. Robert L. Patterson, Jr., “so that present and future generations of the public will be able to use, see, and enjoy it.” Upon her death in 2000, the county took possession of the property, which is now a county park.
Copland House, a National Historic Landmark, is the only composer’s home in the U.S. devoted to nurturing and renewing America’s rich musical heritage through a broad range of musical, educational, public, informational, and electronic-media activities. The hilltop, prairie-style 1940s home in Cortlandt Manor was legendary composer Aaron Copland’s residence for the last thirty years of his life, from 1960 to 1990. The house has been operational as a creative center for American music since Fall 1998. As the American Record Guide noted, “Copland’s generosity, gentleness, and a sense of measure live on at Copland House … its Music from Copland House ensemble has become our paramount keeper of Copland’s flame.” A 501(c)3, not-for-profit organization, all programs are supported by the nationwide Friends of Copland House.
Tickets to Copland House at Merestead performances are popularly-priced at $25 and $20 (for Friends of Copland House), and even less in various subscription packages; student tickets are $10. For more information, contact Copland House at (914) 788-4659 or office@coplandhouse.org.
FEATURED JOBS
RENT A PHOTO
