Andrew Garland in two upcoming recitals of American music

Andrew Garland's American Portraits CD and sporting a BARIHUNK t-shirt

We've long maintained that barihunk Andrew Garland is one of the foremost interpreters of new American music. He has two upcoming recitals that will feature this repertory.

The first is on April 6, when he joins soprano Jessica Rivera for the American Pianists Awards Song Recital at the Indiana Historical Society in Indianapolis. Other singers in the series include Alex Beyer, Sam Hong, Henry Kramer, Steven lin and Drew Petersen. Tickets are available online.

The American Pianists Awards are held every four years to discover the best aspiring young American classical pianists. Winners receive cash and two years of career advancement and support valued at over $100,000, making this one of the most coveted prizes in the music world.

Andrew Garland's complete American Portraits recital:

The second recital will be on April 8, 2017 at the Newer Every Day Presbyterian Church of Wyoming in Cincinnati, Ohio. The recital is called Americana: Newer Every Day, named after Jake Heggie's song cycle for soprano. Also on the program is Juliana Hall's Christina's World for soprano.

Garland will perform Tom Cipullo's America 1968 and Steven Mark Kohn's Selections from American Folk Settings.

America 1968 was commissioned and premiered by Andrew Garland in 2008. The song cycle was inspired by the events of 1968 in America, including two assassinations, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Apollo 8 orbiting the moon and the black power salute of John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the medal-stand of the Mexico City Olympics. The texts by poet Robert Hayden include Monet's Water Lilies, Hey Nonny No, The Point, The Whipping, Those Winter Sundays and Frederick Douglass.

Garland has suggested that Steven Mark Kohn's Selections from American Folk Settings is the most important setting of old American songs since Copland. Kohn is an award-winning composer of children's films and director of the electronic music studio at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The set includes the light-hearted The Bachelor's Lay, the story of a young man who ignores a father's advice to avoid a career in coal-mining, the humorous The Farmer's Curst Wife and The Ocean Burial, which captures the flavor of the California Gold Rush.

If you can't make the concerts, you can enjoy Andrew Garland's two recordings of American songs, including American Portraits and American Folk Song Settings.