August 2, 2014, Saturday - WordSong with Florestan Recital Project at The Loft

Time: 7:00pm

Location: The Loft at Open Book (Performance Hall), 1011 Washington Ave S

WordSong with Florestan Recital Project

Join Co-founder and Artistic Director of WordSong Boston Howard Frazin along with the Florestan Recital Project (Alison d’Amato, piano & Aaron Engebreth, baritone) as they present the inaugural WordSong Twin Cities event as part of the Source Song Festival. An interactive song program, Alison and Aaron will present 5 songs by 5 composers on Langston Hughes’ “Harlem.” Complete with conversation between performers, composers, and audience, you won’t want to miss this engaging event!
 
WordSong believes that contemporary American society has lost the connection to artistic experience as an effective means of personal and social reflection. Composers today have, in large part, failed to engage listeners in an appealing and thought-provoking way; they have traveled down wonderful yet often very foreign roads of musical expression and simply expected audiences to follow without question. As a result, new music is often simply played at the audience, when it needs to be presented with the audience as an active participant. WordSong will help begin to bring about this change.
 
WordSong is a new concert format in which one text is presented in multiple, newly composed settings and is the focus of directed conversation among composers, performers, and audiences. WordSong’s goal is to reconnect musicians and listeners through shared, active artistic experiences. It is a public conversation about intuitive musical understanding.
 
Composer Howard Frazin is the Co-founder and Artistic Director of WordSong. He teaches composition at the New England Conservatory of Music where he is also the director of the CPR [Composer- Performer-Repertory] Ensemble. He recently served as the Boston Classical Orchestra’s Composer-in-Residence at the Boston Arts Academy. His music has been performed throughout the U.S. and abroad, including festivals at Tanglewood, Aspen, Banff, Rockport, Monadnock, Bowdoin, and Yellow Barn. Recent commissions include those from Triple Helix, A Far Cry, the Claremont Trio, the Boston Classical Orchestra, the Fromm Foundation, World-wide Concurrent Premieres, the PALS Children’s Chorus, and Andover Chamber Players. The Claremont Trio’s premiere of Mr. Frazin’s piano trio on Dallas Chamber Music’s concert series was praised by the Dallas Morning News as “... [a] genuinely touching triptych, which wastes not a note,” and the performance made Scott Cantrell’s Top 10 Performances list for 2010. Mr. Frazin’s work is published by Peters Editions.
 
Pianist Alison d'Amato is a dynamic and versatile musician, committed to performing and teaching in the full spectrum of solo and chamber music genres. A member of several pioneering organizations, she is Artistic Co-Director of Florestan Recital Project and Founding Faculty Artist of the Vancouver International Song Institute (http://www.songinstitute.ca/). In 2011, she joined the faculty at Eastman School of Music as Assistant Professor of Vocal Coaching. Alison enjoys a variety of interdisciplinary projects that energize the relationships and communication inherent in music. She is a Program Director of Art Song Lab (http://www.artsonglab.com/), an intensive workshop that presents new works in collaboration with composers, poets, and performers. In addition to traditional masterclasses in collaborative repertoire, Alison has shared classes with musicologists, English professors, singers, and instrumentalist partners. She has performed at venues across North America, including Boston’s Jordan and Symphony Halls and New York’s Weill Recital Hall. http://www.alisondamato.com/.
 
Acclaimed for his “exemplary diction and rich baritone voice,” baritone Aaron Engebreth enjoys an active solo career in opera, oratorio and recital, and devotes considerable time to the performance of new music. Featured in performances from Sapporo Japan's Kitara Hall and Boston's Symphony Hall to Le Theatre de la Ville in Paris, Washington's Kennedy Center and the AmBul festival of Sofia, Bulgaria, he has been a guest of the Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Monadnock Music Festivals, as well as many symphony orchestas, among them Portland, San Diego, Virginia and Charlotte. As a recording artist, he is featured on two operatic recordings with the Boston Early Music Festival and Radio Bremen, each nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Operatic Recording. His 2013/14 season's performances include concerts with Newport Chamber Festival, Radius Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, his debut at Carnegie Hall, and guest vocal recitals at Minneapolis' Antonello Hall and the University of Wisconsin.