Latest News
Art Song Album Release
My new compilation album ‘A Breath of Air: American Art Song’ is now available on the Navona Label featuring 6 works for voice and piano, which are (in order of composition) :
In Singing Weather (1996) on poems of Maggie Anderson
Three Songs on Poems of Walt Whitman (2002/2010)
Whalefall (2006) poem by Elizabeth Bradfield
Five Songs on Poems of James Wright (2009)
Three Gems from Emily Dickinson (2011/2022)
Six Songs on Poems of Langston Hughes (2016)
The Anderson, Hughes and Wright Songs were conceived as song cycles, the Dickinson and Whitman as sets of three, and the Bradfield is a single stand-alone song.
Soprano Andrea Chenoweth Wells, baritone Andrew White, and tenor Albert Rudolph Lee, together with collaborative pianists Eric Charnofsky, John Benjamin, and John Etsell perform the music.
Here is a link to listen or purchase all or some of the selections on various platforms:
https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6607/#listen
‘I, Too’ from the Hughes cycle, recorded by Albert R. Lee and John Etsell, was selected by Apple Music for “The Classical Voice” playlist following the album’s release on March 15, 2024 .
Trio ‘Toiyabe’ Tour
Mark your calendar for the upcoming World Premiere performances of Trio ‘Toiyabe’ in May 2024.
Commissioned by the Toiyabe Chamber Music Society to celebrate their new name, and featuring Dustin Budish, viola, Aaron Hill, oboe, and Emily Montoya Barnes, harp.
On Saturday, May 11, 2024, at 7 pm at St. Thomas Aquinas, 310 W. 2nd Street, Reno, Nevada, with additional performances on Friday, May 24, 2024, at 7 pm at the Fallon Theater in Fallon, Nevada, and on Saturday, May 25, 2024, at 3 pm at Eureka Opera House in Eureka, Nevada.
All three concerts will be presented free of charge.
For further information please visit:
https://toiyabemusic.org
World Premiere of “Variations on Jehan Alain’s ‘Litanies'” for Solo Violin on Valentine’s Day
Violinst Stephanie Sant-Ambrogio presented the World Premiere of this new work in recital on February 14, 2024, in the Harlan O. and Barbara R. Hall Recital Hall, at the University of Nevada Reno.
Here is the link to listen and view:
https://vimeo.com/user10937821/videos/sort:date/format:detail
Song Cycle ‘de la Noche’ premiere at Bowling Green State University
Mezzo-soprano Katherine Pracht Phares and pianist Kevin Bylsma delivered an impressive premiere performance of this cycle of seven songs on poems of Federico Garcia Lorca, in Spanish, on the evening of January 17,2024, in Bryan Recital Hall, at Bowling Green State University in Toledo, Ohio.
String Quartet No. 3 presented by Nevada Chamber Music Festival on New Years Eve 2023
On December 31, 2023, at 2:00 p.m., in Harlan O. and Barbara Hall Recital Hall on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno, the Nevada Chamber Music Festival presented Monica’s String Quartet No. 3, on a program entitled, ‘Beyond Tomorrow.’