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.

Introducing Israeli barihunk Oded Reich

Oded Reich and soprano Yael Levita (center)

Israeli barihunk Oded Reich, who is new to Barihunks, will open on July 3rd in the world premiere of Yoni Rechter's Schitz, which is part of a double-bill with Haim Permont's The Lady and the Peddler at the New Israeli Opera. Both operas feature all-Israeli casts.

Schitz has a libretto by Hanoch Levin and edited by Muli Meltzer. It tells the story of the Schitz family, a stereotypiccal Israeli family who want to get daughter Shprachtzi married. Desperate to get away from her parents, she meets a former IDF officer Tcharchess, sung by Reich.  She wants a wedding ring and a family, but he wants the family inheritance and schemes to get rid of the parents. War breaks out and things don’t quite go as planned for everyone involved.

The Lady and the Peddler is set in Russia of 1940 and centers on an exiled Jew trying to make his way through life. Performances run through July 10th. For tickets and more information for the double-bill, call (03) 692-7777 or order online.  

Oded Reich and Alla Vasilevitsky sing La ci darem la mano from Don Giovanni:

 

Oded Reich studied at the Jerusalem Music Academy before becoming a member of the Israeli Opera Studio in 2011 and the Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. At the Israeli Opera he performed the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Akko Festival, Prince Yamadori and the Imperial Commissar in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Marullo and Usciere in Verdi's Rigoletto, Marchese and Dr. Grenvil in Verdi's La Traviata, Montano in Verdi's Otello, Silvano in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera,  Luther in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann and other roles.

He is also a founding-member of Profeti della Quinta, an ensemble of male voices performing a repertoire of Renaissance and early Baroque music.

Andrew Garland's Buff New Photos, his new CD and his upcoming Schaunard in Seattle

Andrew Garland

We recently posted a teaser about Andrew Garland's new CD "American Portraits," which we're thrilled to report has shot to the top of the Amazon classical music charts. We had the privilege of previewing the recording, so we were pretty certain that he had a hit on his hands.

Accompanied by Donna Loewy on piano, Garland sings four song cycles, Stephen Paulus' "A Heartland Portrait,"  Tom Cipullo's "America1968" (dedicated to Garland and Loewy), Lori Laitmen's "Men with Small Heads" and Jake Heggie's  and "The Moon is a Mirror."

Like tenors Peter Pears and Anthony Rolfe Johnson, who excelled in the music of British composers, Garland has seemed to master the American composers. He has previously performed works by Mark Adamo, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Lee Hoiby, Stephen Sondheim and Gian Carlo Menotti. Garland and Loewy previously collaborated on the masterful 2009 CD "American Folk Song Settings."

Order the CD HERE

You can next see Andrew Garland on stage at the Seattle Opera where he's singing Schaunard in a production of Puccini's La boheme with rotating barihunks as Marcello: Keith Phares and Michael Todd Simpson. Performances run from February 23 to March 10 and tickets are selling fast. You can reserve your seats online. We should also mention that the fabulous young tenor Michael Fabiano is alternating Rodolfo with Francesco Demuro.

Oh, and about those pictures. They are from a new photo shoot by the gifted photographer Matt Madison-Clark. By the way, if you're wondering about Garland's fitness regimen, it includes lots of bicycling and workouts at the gym. His colleague Michael Todd Simpson stays fit with a disciplined yoga regimen.

Andrew Garland Returns to NY Festival of Song

Andrew Garland

We're unabashedly huge fans of Steven Blier's "New York Festival of Song" which is a guaranteed evening of great music and intellectual enlightenment. After his hugely successful "Manning the Gay Canon," Blier had turned his attention to women with a program aptly titled "Women."

The program features songs from John Musto, Ned Rorem, Benjamin Britten, Arnold Schoenberg, Thea Musgrave, Judy Collins and new works from Mark Adamo, Mohammed Fairouz, and Harold Meltzer. The songs explore the lives of women in their own words, as well as through the eyes of men.

Barihunk Andrew Garland will return to the Festival of Song and will be joined by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and soprano Corinne Winters. Garland will perform Carla Kihlstedt's  new piece "A Woman’s Body," which was inspired by Susan Sontag’s matter-­‐of-­‐fact list of observations about her own body. Kihlstedt asked some favorite women for their own lists, which make up the lyrics to the piece.

The performance will be at Merkin Concert Hall on December 4th at 8 PM. Tickets are available online.

After the Festival, Garland will perform Handel's Messiah with the Boston Baroque on December 7 and 8, and then with the Colorado Bach Ensemble on December 21 and 22.

Buy your 2013 Barihunks Charity Calendar before the holiday rush:

Local Paper Heralds Return of Gregory Gerbrandt

Colorado native Gregory Gerbrandt is returning to his hometown of Greeley to star in two performances. The Greeley Tribune ran this feature on the emerging star in anticipation of his performance with the Greeley Chorale on April 3 and a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah and Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Got Me Flowers" at the Greeley Congregational Church on April 10.

Gerbrandt recently wowed audiences at the Hawaii Opera with his intense portrayal of Enrico in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor." In July, his recording of Kamran Ince's "The Judgment of Midas" will be released on Naxos.

The singer comes from great musical stock, as his father led the University of Northern Colorado opera program for 21 years. 

Here is an amateur video of him singing "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific.



Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Tweet

Free TIm McDevitt Recital

Tim McDevitt 

Tim MCDevitt will be performing his final recital at Julliard on Saturday, April 2 at 8:30 PM. The program will feature works by Mozart, Caplet, Wolf, Ullman, Poulenc, Weill, and others.


The emerging barihunk will be joined by Renate Rohlfing on piano and Allison Job on double bass. The concert will be in Paul Hall. 


Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Tweet