As the composer reaches a milestone birthday, Soprano Rayanne Dupuis and Pianist Guy Livingston (FEU alumnus) team up to serve up some Bolcom at his best: a selection of “serious” songs, as well as theatrical offerings and, of course, some Cabaret thrown in for good measure. In honour of his youthful years in Paris, studying with Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen, the programme includes a new composition by Bolcom in french. William Bolcom (b. 1938) is one of the most versatile contemporary American composers, writing chamber music, piano works, song cycles, concertos, music theatre, opera, and symphonies, displaying a mastery of many different compositional styles. In his operas and stage works he chooses to set pieces about American characters by American authors, and includes idioms such as ragtime and jazz in his works. In addition to this wide stylistic diversity, his works often display a trenchant sense of humor. He is the winner of a Pulitzer Prize, multiple Grammys as well as a National Medal of the Arts.
Program
Ghost Rag The Crazy Woman (Gwendolyn Brooks)
Annie (Apollinaire) *world premiere
Sonnet 29 (William Shakespeare)
Sept 1, 1939 (WH Auden)
Last Days of Mankind (Frank McGuiness)
May I feel (E.E. cummings)
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Cabaret Songs (Arnold Weinstein): Amor, Last Lousy Moments of Love, Waitin Graceful, Ghost Rag, The Actor Toothbrush, Time Blue
The Jersey Side (Arnold Weinstein)
Biographies of the Musicians
Canadian soprano Rayanne Dupuis, has performed with opera companies and orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably in 20th century and modern repertoire. Her versatility has allowed her to perform a wide variety of roles Lulu, Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites), La Voix humaine, Erwartung, The Governess and Miss Jessel (Turn of the Screw), Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle), to name but a few. She has performed with the BBC Symphony, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, and with Seattle Opera, Florida Grand, Canadian Opera Company, Theater Basel, Opéra de Montpellier, Opéra de Nantes-Angers. She has a premiered works by composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Gerald Barry, Marvin David Levy, Michael Daugherty, Bernard Cavanna and Paul Méfano. She holds a Masters of Music from Yale, a Doctorate of musical arts from SUNY Stony Brook and is currently based in Paris, France.
A Student of Alexander Edelman and Claude Helffer, and graduate from Yale University, the New England Conservatory (working with John Cage and Stephen Drury), and the Royal Conservatory of the Netherlands, pianist Guy Livingston was awarded Huntington Beebe and Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarships for studies in Paris (resident at the Fondation des États-Unis), and won several awards including the Gaudeamus Prize in piano. He is the premiere performer of futuristic composer George Antheil. In 2013, at the SinusTon Festival, he created a new version of Ballet Mécanique for piano and 48 speakers. The Holland Festival commissioned a one-man-show from him, “Dada at the Movies” inspired by the films of Man Ray and Hans Richter. As artistic director of Le Piano Ouvert, Livingston often collaborates in performances with writers, dancers, or actors (The Nothing Doing Bar, The Night of John Cage in St. Merri, The 75 Years of William Bolcom). Le Piano Ouvert has also presented a hundred musical activities in suburban hospitals since 2010. His “American Highways” podcast is available every Friday night on iTunes.