Join the Mirror Visions Ensemble for a sung celebration of America–in all its complicated glory. Their songs soar with music from classical American composers, and also from historically marginalized American groups. Those who sing about America have long found causes for cynicism and celebration, parody and patriotism, resistance and reverence. And all of them are saying, in their own way, this land is ours.
Performers Justine Aronson, mezzo-soprano, Scott Murphree, tenor, Mischa Bouvier, baritone, and Grant Wenaus, piano will sing of urban, suburban, and rural life – its moods, landscapes and sounds. The program features music by immigrants (Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, Hanns Eisler, and Erich Korngold), women (Ruth Crawford Seeger, Francine Trester), and African Americans (Adolphus Hailstork, Brittney Boykin, Florence Price and Leslie Adams), as well as by classic American composers (Charles Ives, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, and Pete Seeger).
Mirror Visions Ensemble was founded 27 years ago with a desire to explore the relationship between music and text, initially through the creation of “mirror visions” — settings of the same text to music by different composers. The group’s passion for storytelling has produced thematic concerts on surprising subjects.
This concert is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Greene County Council on the Arts.