Killer B's — American Song From Amy Beach to the Beach Boys
Steven Blier NYFOS Artistic Director
A Free Concert Featuring Music of Irving Berlin, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, The Bobs, Marc Blitzstein, Eubie Blake, William Bolcom, and many others
Friday August 13, 1:30-3:00 p.m. in The Alice Busch Opera Theater
Join Steven Blier, celebrated pianist and Artistic Director of the renowned New York Festival of Song (NYFOS), for Killer B’s: American Song from Amy Beach to The Beach Boys. This concert will feature Mr. Blier at the piano with sopranos Jessica Cates and Jamilyn Manning-White, mezzo-sopranos J’nai Bridges and Rebecca Jo Loeb, tenor Alex Mansoori, baritones Will Liverman and Steven LaBrie and bass-baritone Zachary Nelson, all members of Glimmerglass Opera’s acclaimed Young American Artists Program. This concert marks the third collaboration between NYFOS and Glimmerglass Opera and is made possible by a grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc. Supplemental Program.
To reserve your free ticket to Killer B’s, please contact Glimmerglass Box Office at (607) 547-2255.
See below for more information regarding the composers whose music is featured in the performances.
Composers:
Samuel Barber (1910 – 1981) Probably most famous for his Adagio for Strings, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer’s vocal music includes Knoxville: Summer Of 1915, Dover Beach, The Hermit Songs and the operas Vanessa and Antony and Cleopatra.
Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867 – 1944) was the first successful American female composer of large-scale works. Most of her compositions and performances were under the name Mrs. H.H.A. Beach. Besides her songs, she wrote symphonies, chamber music, choral works and piano concertos.
Eubie Blake (1887 – 1983) composed ragtime, jazz and popular music. With collaborator Noble Sissle, he wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African-Americans. Blake's compositions also included the hits Love Will Find A Way, Memories of You and I'm Just Wild About Harry.
The Beach Boys gained fame for its close vocal harmonies and lyrics reflecting a southern California youth culture of cars, surfing and romance. Early successes included Surfer Girl and I Get Around, and beginning with the album Pet Sounds, they became more artistically innovative, earning critical praise and influencing many later musicians.
Irving Berlin (1888 – 1989) One of American music’s greatest songwriters, he wrote music and lyrics for such classic Broadway shows as Annie Get Your Gun and As Thousands Cheer, and his many near-anthem songs include White Christmas, God Bless America and Alexander’s Ragtime Band.
Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990), conductor, composer and pianist, “One of the most prodigally talented and successful musicians in American history (New York Times),” wrote classic musicals (West Side Story, On the Town, Wonderful Town, Candide), as well as operas, symphonies, masses and vivid shorter instrumental works.
Marc Blitzstein (1905 – 1964) is best known for his politically-themed musical The Cradle Will Rock and for his off-Broadway translation/adaptation of the Brecht/Weill The Threepenny Opera. His works also include the opera Regina, an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play The Little Foxes, and the Broadway musical Juno, based on Sean O'Casey's play Juno and the Paycock.
The Bobs, a quartet of acoustic singers, all with “Bob” as part of their names, composes witty and original material. Their albums include Get Your Monkey Off My Dog; My, I’m Large; and Shut Up and Sing.
Jerry Bock is an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical Fiorello! and the Tony Award for Best Composer and Lyricist for the 1965 musical Fiddler on the Roof with Harnick.
William Bolcom (b. 1938). The Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer has created instrumental concertos, songs and the operas A View From the Bridge, McTeague, A Wedding, as well as the comic one-act Lucrezia, which received its world premiere with NYFOS in 2008.
Charles Brown (1922 – 1999), a blues pianist, singer and composer, created an ultra-mellow jazz-inflected genre with his Drifting Blues and Get Yourself Another Fool and All My Life, and influenced later artists such as Ray Charles.
Jason Robert Brown (b. 1970), often cited as one of the "New School" theatrical composers, fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics. His score for the 1999 musical Parade won a Tony Award, and his songs for Broadway’s Urban Cowboy were nominated for a Tony.
