This is the new album I put together in Houston when I heard that I was going to be an Auntie for the first time! I wanted to create music that would be in a low enough pitch so that you can sing along quietly enough so as not to disturb the baby. I love every song on this album and hope you enjoy listening to it. I am using the name Hana Bird for my contemporary albums. It was what my uncle used to call me when I used to sing when I was a little girl. I worked with the wonderful guitarist, also from Houston, Mark Moore. The album is on iTunes and Amazon. Album cover by Marina Veselinovic.

Seattle Opera’s The Magic Flute

from Seattle Opera’s Website:

Synopsis

The action takes place in an imaginary ancient Egypt.

ACT I

A serpent chases Prince Tamino through a valley. When he falls unconscious, three ladies in the service of the Queen of the Night emerge from a temple and kill the beast. They leave to tell the queen, and Tamino awakens, assuming he was saved by Papageno, a good-natured bird-catcher who has just arrived. When Papageno accepts the credit, the three ladies reappear and padlock his lips to punish him for lying. They show Tamino a picture of Pamina, the beautiful daughter of their mistress, and he immediately falls in love with her. When they tell him she has been kidnapped by a magician named Sarastro, the Queen appears and asks Tamino to rescue Pamina. He agrees, and the ladies free Papageno, giving him a set of magic chimes and Tamino a magic flute for protection.

Papageno, sent ahead by Tamino, arrives at Sarastro’s palace. A villainous guard, Monostatos, is attempting to seduce Pamina, but is scared off by Papageno. The bird-catcher tells Pamina that Tamino has fallen in love with her and plans to rescue her. Pamina rejoices that she now has somebody to love, and the lonely Papageno dreams of a wife.

Three spirits lead Tamino to the entrance of a temple in Sarastro’s palace. A priest, the Speaker, informs him that the Queen is really the evil one and that the good Sarastro was merely trying to free Pamina from her mother’s dark influence. Tamino departs to find Pamina, who has escaped from Sarastro’s palace with Papageno. Monostatos soon finds them, but Papageno plays his magic bells, rendering the villains harmless. Sarastro enters and tells Pamina she is free to marry but not to return to her mother. Monostatos drags in Tamino and demands a reward, but is instead punished for his evil deeds. Sarastro orders the priests to take Tamino and Pamina to the temple for purification.

ACT II

Sarastro informs the priests that Tamino and Papageno must undergo initiation rites to determine their worthiness to enter the Temple of Light. Brave Tamino and faint-hearted Papageno receive contradictory counsel from the priests and the Queen’s three ladies but decide to follow the priests’ advice. The Queen visits Pamina, commanding her to murder Sarastro. Horrified, Pamina refuses and begs Sarastro to forgive her mother. He agrees, declaring that only love, not vengeance, will lead to peace and happiness.

As part of their initiation trials, Tamino and Papageno are sworn to silence. An old woman appears briefly to Papageno, declaring that she is really 18 years old and in love with him. Pamina arrives but misunderstands Tamino’s silence and leaves heartbroken.

The old woman returns to the lovesick Papageno. The Speaker promises him that if he swears fidelity to the woman, she will be the wife of whom he has dreamed. When Papageno agrees, the old woman is transformed into the young Papagena, but she is quickly ordered away by the Speaker. Meanwhile, Pamina, about to commit suicide using the dagger her mother meant for Sarastro, is prevented by the three spirits, who take her to Tamino. Pamina joins him in the final trial, and the pair emerges unscathed thanks to the magic of Tamino’s flute.

The three spirits encounter Papageno attempting to hang himself and suggest that instead he play his magic bells. When he does, Papagena appears and the two declare their love and their intent to raise a large family. Monostatos joins forces with the Queen of the Night to kill Sarastro, but their plan is foiled when their powers are magically destroyed and they are cast into eternal night. Sarastro, joined by Tamino and Pamina, celebrates the victory of light over darkness.

Mainly Mozart Series

The Mainly Mozart series will open with guest conductor Michael Francis leading Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony and Copland’s classically-inspired Clarinet Concerto performed by clarinetist Jon Manasse. The program also includes Mozart’s Symphony No. 33 and Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn. Also on the Mainly Mozart series, Schwarz will lead the Orchestra and Seattle Symphony Chorale in Mozart’s Requiem, and the composer’s Horn Concerto No. 2, performed by Seattle Symphony Principal Horn John Cerminaro. Performers in Mozart’s Requiem include soprano Hanan Alattar, mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy, tenor Ross Hauck, and baritone Weston Hurt. Guest conductor Krzysztof Urbanski rounds out the series by leading the orchestra in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4, featuring violinist Alina Ibragimova, Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8.

click here for more informations: Seattle Symphony Press Release

September 18, 2009

Wortham Theater Center

Sing for Hope: An Evening of Art Songs and Arias Benefiting Bering Omega Community HIV/AIDS Services

Bering Omega Community HIV/AIDS Services provides a haven for more than 2,600 HIV-positive people each year, and targets indigent and uninsured individuals and their caregivers who have no other healthcare alternatives. Inspired by the mission of Being Omega, ten rising stars of the international opera scene lift their voices to raise vital funds for people living with HIV/AIDS.

For tickets and more information, please click here

By Georges Bizet

English National Opera

London Coliseum

Review by Kevin Catchpole (2010)

However it is achieved, the vision of two pearl fishers swimming bravely in the depths of the South China Sea, projected full stage during the prelude, sets precisely the right sense of excitement for the opening of Bizet’s first great opera The Pearl Fishers. The production, staged this month by English National Opera, is at the Coliseum for the first time in 23 years.

There are those who have it that the picture is of acrobats in a digital simulation. I prefer to see them as real swimmers letting us into the secret of this remarkable and truly grand opera.

It is small wonder that this work, completed some 20 years before Carmen, is seldom performed. The demands on chorus and staging are enormous. Happily, ENO are currently particularly well blessed in the former with the excellent services of chorus master Martin Merry for good measure, and, so far as the latter is concerned, fortunate in securing the services of noted film director Penny Woolcock and her excellent design team led by Dick Bird.

Nor is there anything remotely sentimental about the choice of the opening scene, for Woolcock has the sea as central to the piece, mindful of climate change and its destructive force around the Far East.

Dick Bird’s remarkable setting is distinguished by the crowded stage of flimsy shacks, densely packed in tiers from top to bottom, not to mention the placing of the 50-strong chorus!

And this production rejoices in especially fine principals. I missed Quinn Kelsey’s Zurga – but baritone Roland Wood is in such fine voice with a performance that could hardly be bettered and his duets with the rising English tenor favourite Alfie Boe are worth a long journey. Boe of course has the slim physique as well as the powerful voice that have already made him something of a matinee idol. Where that power and clarity come from is one of the mysteries of art and technique – something for those of us who were mere childhood choristers simply to hear and enjoy.

The role of Leila is superbly sung by the silken voiced American soprano Hannan Alattar whose duets with Boe are the great feature of this performance. And none finer than the off-stage finale reprisal of the great Act one duet when Leila and Nadir are joined by Zurgar in a closing moment of pure Bizet perfection.

There is also a lovely performance by bass baritone Freddie Tong as High Priest Nourabad.

This large and exciting production is conducted by Rory Macdonald whose control of his massive forces is exemplary.

Jul 4 at 3pm

A thrilling tale of friendship tested by love, set on an exotic isle in an eastern sea, Bizet’s early masterpiece is a gem of 19th-century French opera, full of fabulous tunes, colourful orchestration and evocative choruses. With Tony Award-winning tenor Alfie Boe as Nadir, ENO’s new production is directed by outstanding film-maker Penny Woolcock, following her explosive debut with John Adams’s Doctor Atomic at ENO and the Metropolitan Opera, New York. Conducted by rising Scottish podium star Rory Macdonald, who made his own impressive ENO debut last season with Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, it offers UK audiences a rare chance to discover what a pearl of a piece Bizet’s opera can be.

11 performances. Running time: 2hrs 30mins

Conductor Rory Macdonald; Director Penny Woolcock; Set Designer Dick Bird; Costume Designer Kevin Pollard; Lighting Designer Jennifer Schriever; Movement DirectorAndrew Dawson

visit ENO WEBSITE for original listing.

posted in The Volume by Olivia Giovetti on April 12th, 2010

We sometimes wonder if conductor Leon Botstein has made his own Faustian deal with the devil. On the one hand, the music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra has a talent for bringing rare gems from both well-known and criminally neglected composers to the musical forefront, often with some of the most thrilling up-and-coming vocalists around. On the other hand, many of these performances show the audience only snapshots of each composer’s world, sending the audience postcards without getting under the skin. He does a great job of telling, but falls short on showing. But since Botstein’s concerts are rare chances to hear these works, we keep going.

Friday night was par for the course with Schumann’s dramatic and potent Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, the third and final installment of the ASO’s Schumann oratorio cycle (which began in 2003) and a tribute to the composer’s bicentennial. Like Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, Schumann’s work is not categorically an opera, but has as much license to thrill as anything on the Met stage. Apart from some troubles in the brass section, the playing was accurate, yet it was also unaffecting. Dramatic thrusts were punctuated with corresponding dynamics that drowned out the Concert Chorale of New York and Brooklyn Youth Chorus, who both had some heavenly moments that went unheard.

While many of the soloists faced similar struggles, Michael Spyres and Hanan Alattar emerged victorious. Rarely heard in the United States, Spyres had a radiant and poetic tenor with blushes of ardor and musical evangelism. Likewise, Alattar boasted a magnetic, feline personality onstage and a crystalline soprano to match. As Faust and Gretchen, respectively (with separate roles to sing in the oratorio’s final part), baritone Andrew Schroeder and soprano Twyla Robinson were a fantastic pair and dramatically at home in their roles, though both took some time to warm up to the orchestra and the hall. Bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen descended further and further into the Mephistophelean recesses of his devilish character. There was still more to love among the remaining soloists, including the rich and resonant mezzo Eve Gigliotti. Yet despite all the blooms of considerable talent, the evening failed to fully flourish.

Read more: http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/thevolume/2010/04/live-review-the-asos-arrested-development-at-lincoln-center/#ixzz0l73HOuNG

Avery Fisher Hall

Robert Schumann – Scenes From Goethe’s Faust (1853)

The greatest poetic rendering of the story of the man who sells his soul to the devil, set to music by a composer who knew very well what it is like to be haunted by demons. On the occasion of the bicentennial of Schumann’s birth, ASO completes its trilogy that began with Manfred and Das Paradies und die Peri, with the third of Schumann’s great dramatic oratorios.

Hanan Alattar, Soprano

Michael Spyres, Tenor

Eve Gigliotti, Mezzo-soprano

Andrew Schroeder, baritone

Kyle Ketelsen, Bass-baritone

Matt Boehler, Bass

Concert Chorale of New York, James Bagwell, Director

Enjoy an illuminating pre-concert discussion with Maestro Leon Botstein

75 minutes prior to performance at the Avery Fisher Hall Mainstage