Sat
10/9/2010
9:00pm
Cabaret
William Bolcom & Joan Morris
- $35 Assigned Rows 1-2
- $25 Assigned Rows 3-5
- $15 General Admission
- $10 Student
- William Bolcom & Joan Morris, husband-wife duo
Event Details
The internationally renowned husband-and-wife duo of composer-pianist William Bolcom and mezzo-soprano Joan Morris perform Bolcom's cabaret songs plus a program drawing on their vast repertoire of classics and obscure gems spanning the history of American popular song.
This concert is the second in Kerrytown Concert House's newest Kerrytown Club series, a chance to kick back and enjoy great music in an informal setting. A cash bar will be included. The first concert in the Kerrytown Club series is the previous night with the Paul Keller Trio, paying tribute to Nat King Cole.
William Bolcom & Joan Morris
Since 1972, America's celebrated husband/wife team, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and pianist William Bolcom, have been performing a wide range of American popular songs ranging from the late 19th-century through the 1920s and '30s. Recent material includes later songs by Leiber and Stoller and cabaret songs by Bolcom and poet-lyricist Arnold Weinstein. They have performed in concert halls and at major festivals throughout the U.S., Canada and abroad, including concerts in Lisbon, Florence, Istanbul, Cairo, London, Moscow, Rome, and Forbach, France. The duo has appeared as guest soloist with the Boston Pops, in varied orchestral pops programs, on The Dick Cavett Show, and has taped programs for CBS Cablevision, NPR, and PBS. Bolcom and Morris were featured by Charles Kuralt on "CBS Sunday Morning" in May 1993. Occasionally Joan Morris's voice can be heard underlying various documentaries on the people and times that she sings about in their programs.
Bolcom and Morris have made over two dozen recordings together. The first one, "After the Ball - A Treasury of Turn-of-the-Century Popular Songs," garnered a Grammy nomination for Joan Morris for Best Vocal Soloist Performance on a Classical Album. Other recordings include: two collections of cabaret songs, "Black Max" and "Lime Jello - An American Cabaret" (both recorded live at Kerrytown Concert House); anthologies of songs by Eubie Blake, Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers and Hart, Porter, and Kern; two albums by lyricist Vincent Youmans ("Orchids In the Moonlight" and "The Carioca" with tenor Robert White); and two recordings, "Cabaret Songs" and "Ancient Cabaret," featuring all of Bolcom and Weinstein's work. The albums are available on Albany, Columbia, Centaur, Nonesuch, RCA, Omega, Arabesque, and Original Cast Recordings.
In December 2005 Morris wrote, produced, directed and appeared in a musical entertainment at The Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan (where she is Adjunct Curator) about Jenny Lind and her 1850 tour of America under the sponsorship of P. T. Barnum.
Many in the area recall the performance of Bolcom's setting of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" at Hill Auditorium in April 2004. This full-evening work, composed over a period of 25 years, featured conductor Leonard Slatkin with professional soloists (including Joan Morris), choruses and orchestra from the UM School of Music, as well as the MSU Children's Chorus and University Musical Society Choral Union. The performance, which commemorated the re-opening of newly renovated Hill Auditorium, was recorded by Naxos and released in October 2004. In February 2006 this recording garnered four Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Album, and Producer of the Year.
