Ginger Costa-Jackson to Charm Seattle Once Again

Piper Artist Management.

INTERVIEW: Ginger Costa-Jackson

McCaw Hall, Seattle

ERICA MINER 

Rhyming “Ginger” with ”Singer” may be a stretch, but in Ginger Costa-Jackson’s case, it might well be appropriate. The Italian-American operatic mezzo-soprano has performed worldwide, most notably at the Metropolitan Opera after participating in the company’s prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. A veteran of many international singing competitions and festivals, Costa-Jackson has been featured on The Met: Live in HD broadcasts. 

She is also an absolute spitfire, full of spunk and spirit. Born in Palermo, Italy, the multi-talented Costa-Jackson (singing, acting, dancing, violin) is part of a singing family—from her father, mother and maternal grandmother to her sisters Marina and Miriam. Having heated up the stage in the title role of Seattle Opera’s recent Carmen, Costa-Jackson is sure to charm Seattle audiences once again when she performs the title role in Rossini’s “Cinderella” this month. In addition, she will sing Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème, and in Seattle’s special presentation Three Singing Sisters with Marina and Miriam. 

Erica Miner: Welcome back to Seattle! Wow, what a change—from the ultimate anti-heroine to the ultimate angel of goodness. 

Ginger Costa-Jackson: I was thinking about the juxtaposition from Carmen to Cinderella. Obviously very different takes. The commonality is how they choose to deal with their inner pain and childhood scars. Cinderella deals with her childhood abuse and lack of childhood in goodness and forgiveness. Carmen becomes hardened and numbed by the abuse she’s received. I won’t say selfish, but self-preserving vs Cinderella who stays altruistic throughout her suffering.

Sunny Martini

EM: The focus is on what she’s like on the inside vs how she behaves on the outside. 

GC-J: Absolutely. What’s cool about this production is the stepfather is an alcoholic [Laughs]. You’re not going to see anything dark—it’s still very much a family friendly show—it’s more the comedy side. He gets up with this raging headache, and the two girls have to get him a gin. “Dad’s up, we’ll get him his morning drink.” So we see he isn’t the kindest to his own daughters. That’s why my stepsisters in turn are not kind to me. 

EM: So he’s not so much the buffoon? 

GC-J: He is, but he was once a somebody in the world and now he’s a fallen man. In this production he has an emporium where he sells all sorts of things that are the final sale, one step above poverty line. For the girls, when the beggar comes in, their fear is because it’s so close to what they could be—on the street. Their house is almost in ruins. The father, to cope, takes to drink. He’s also a widower, so he has his own pain. He lost a woman he was very much in love with. For whatever reason, he can’t bear the sight of me, probably because I resemble my mother, I’m good like her. It shows him a mirror of himself. When he sees me it’s like, “I’m not living the life I should be living.” He doesn’t want to look introspectively at the wrong he’s doing. It becomes too much for him. So it’s, “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to look at you, you aren’t my daughter. Clean the floors.” [Laughs] 

EM: Let’s talk about your stepsisters, one of whom is your actual sister. I know you’ve been asked this many times, but what is it like to perform together as sisters—doubly in “Cinderella”—as you did in Seattle’s Così fan tutte. 

GC-J: My sisters and I are very close—in age also, just one year behind the other. Marina and I actually have one month we’re the same age, 11 months apart. When we were raised, we all shared the same bedroom. We grew up playing make-believe together. I’d always play the boy. We’d go into my mother’s linen closet and—

EM: Always the boy. Interesting. 

GC-J: Isn’t it? I was the eldest and took on the responsibility—if we had to do our ballroom dancing routine I was the man and I’d lift Miriam [Laughs]. We’ve always played and sung together. Being adults and still being able to play in this world of make-believe is an incredible privilege. I’m very grateful to Seattle Opera to give me the opportunity to work with my siblings. When I’m working with my sisters, there’s this sixth sense. I know when they’re going to change their notes. When I have a new colleague I really need to look into their eyes; if I’m a 3rd underneath them and harmonizing—how can I accompany them. As the bottom voice I always feel that’s my duty—it’s so much harder to sing the high notes—to be the person underneath, to make sure everything stays together. As the older sister I felt that.

EM: I’ve known a number of singers who’ve played violin as you do. Most of them say it enhances their singing. Do you agree? 

GC-J: I once heard the violin was the closest to the human voice—the sense of vibrato. So yes. I played the violin growing up and gave it up only because we couldn’t afford violin and voice lessons. But the best thing about playing an instrument, whether violin, viola or cello, is learning to listen to the people around you when you’re in an orchestra. We opera singers spend a lot of time rehearsing by ourselves. When we come together to do a play, it’s teamwork. You have to be independent knowing what you’re doing, but you need to be flexible enough that if your colleague delivers a line with more sweetness or bitterness, you can accompany or respond to that. when your partner says, “Hello,” you sing [Sings] “Hello back.” Or if you hear they’re singing piano, to try to be with them. You have to act through the voice, to be very much aware what your colleagues are doing. There’s a sense of teamwork that being in an orchestra or band or a sport, it’s very important for an opera singer to bring that to the stage.

EM: You’re so multifaceted. You went for a degree in English literature. What made you decide on voice? 

GC-J: I don’t know. Sometimes you wonder, “How did I get in this career?” [Laughs] I began singing because of Miriam. It’s wonderful to share the stage with her because she originally was the one who wanted voice lessons, always was listening to opera. My mother was Italian, so of course she played opera in the home. But Miriam took it to another level. She would close herself in her room and listen to Callas and Pavarotti. She would cry listening to the CDs—as a 10-year-old! We all thought she was crazy. At 12 she was singing. I heard her sing high notes and remember thinking to myself, “That sounds like flying.” From there I thought, “I want to do this.” I was just the older, very studious sister, more interested in school. When I saw her ability it inspired me to want to try that. It’s like, when you have a sibling, “Oh, I can do that too.” I would go to her voice lessons and asked my mother if I could have voice lessons as well. She was like, [Italian accent] “You know, Ginger, the Lord, he has given you so many talents. I don’t know if singing is one of them.” [Laughs] It’s not like I had a great instrument. I was listening to, [sings in Pop voice] “I can show you the world.” It wasn’t necessarily very good. But it’s about the perspiration, working to achieve something. If you have the desire, really have it in your heart that that’s what you want, you will have to drive to have it. Miriam had all this ability from the get-go. I really didn’t.

EM: You had to work at it.

GC-J: Very hard.

Sunny Martini

EM: Sometimes your passion is even stronger than if you didn’t have to work so hard.

GC-J: You just require a lot more focus. Anything that’s worth having isn’t going to come easily. 

EM: You’ve sung Carmen, Cinderella, Rosina, but also less frequently done roles, like the Marchesa di Poggio in Un Giorno di regno and El Gato. How does it feel to sing those compared to more familiar roles?

GC-J: When it’s something that’s not as much done, you listen to it, and decide from there. When I’m making my decisions, if I have time in my schedule…I’m a workhorse, one of those crazy people who live to be onstage. I want to be onstage. I’m biting at the bit.

EM: Like Olive Fremstad. She practically died when she wasn’t onstage.

GC-J: [Laughs]. This year I think I see my home like two weeks. But I had so many interesting roles offered back to back. Sometimes you need to make the choice to take a couple months off to be a human, not worry about anything like makeup, to eat as much as you want, or just be with your loved ones. But I got offered Donna Elvira, Helen of Troy, super fun. I love these acting singing roles, are very interesting.

EM: Drama, or comedy you can sink your teeth into.

GC-J: Exactly. I told my husband, “Maybe I don’t take it, I can stay home with you.” He looked at me like, “I know you. one or two weeks in, you’re suddenly going to be like, [mock crying] “I don’t know what to do.” I have all this creative energy. Do I know where to put it? It’s like a cow that’s not milked! [Laughs] The difference between being in the rehearsal room, with the people behind the table making sure the movements are right—the director, the conductor—then you get onstage and suddenly there’s this heightened state of awareness, all the eyes looking at you. The audience has this ocean of energy, it changes your performance from one night to the next. If it’s a matinee crowd sometimes they’re still waking up [Laughs]. They’re enjoying what they’re seeing but they’re less vocal, easing into it, not in that zone with you right away. By the end of the matinee they’re with you. The Friday night crowd are super energetic, happy, they know it’s the weekend. We love a boisterous crowd. We want them to clap, to laugh.

Philip Newton

EM: Their energy feeds your energy.

GC-J: And when we don’t get fed as artists, we—[Laughs]

EM: It can be frightening but also delicious. Wonderful, terrible, everything in between.

GC-J: Yes! [Laughs]

EM: Tell me about being with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson in the 2008 opening night Gala, then making your debut in Thaïs.

GC-J: My first experience onstage singing and acting was with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson in HD broadcast! I was a 21-year-old who came from the Young Artists program. It was my first time on the Met stage. My first legitimate paid job as a singer. I had left home when I was 16 to attend the Music Conservatory in Italy, doing my schooling through correspondence. I never had those performances you do as a student. I’m really grateful, because the opening night Gala originally I played Rosette (Manon)—one of the 3 girls—the “Supremes.” We were supposed to have a trio. But because Renée Fleming was doing 3 scenes, it was going overtime and they cut the trio. So my opening night, the very first thing I only had a one-liner. The older guy comes to bother the girls and says, [French accent] “Oh, hello, good morning, Rosette.” And I go, “Ah! No!” That was it. My first thing. I had a splendid outfit. We did all the dancing and movement and staging. But I had this incredible opportunity to be onstage—I’ll never forget looking out and seeing the enormity and beauty of the stage—and this lavish set behind me with everyone in white powdered wigs. I think I wore the biggest hat ever on the Met stage. I didn’t have to be nervous. All I had to say was, “Ah, no!” The second time I actually got to sing—with Alyson Cambridge. We were the 2 slaves in Thaïs. I had some solo lines, but we sing together. It was a beautiful transition for a 21-year-old to go from “Ah, no!” to get used to the shock of how big the stage is, then singing with a partner, to right after that sing Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana all by myself. It became a beautiful year-long transition for me, just an easy one.

EM: Still a trial by fire to go right onto the Met stage.

GC-J: I think when you’re young you don’t realize. Being a Virgo and a perfectionist I wanted to do it right, but I never had the sense of going to fail. As an older person you’re more aware of what could go wrong in the world [Laughs] than when you’re young, There’s this fearlessness.

EM: Ignorance is bliss.

GC-J: Exactly. The “Ah, no!” was interesting. I was trying to get Lasik surgery because I have very poor vision, and they had told me I had to not wear contacts and keep my glasses, which of course I couldn’t onstage. So I made the choice as an ignorant 20-year-old to not wear contacts or glasses, so actually I remember not really singing too much [Laughs] and I think it actually helped! Everything was slightly blurry, so it was like, “Oh, am I on the Met stage? [Laughs] I could be anywhere.” 

 Next, Part 2: Mopping, not Moping 

  ---ooo--- 

Photo credits: Piper Artist Management, Philip Newton, Sunny Martini

Erica can be reached at: [email protected]

Verdi's Masked Ball Returns to S.F. Opera

Julianna Di Giacomo (Amelia) Photo by Cory Weaver

by Rodney Punt

It was the closest Giuseppe Verdi’s ambitions would ever take him to an operatic King Lear, but he had to drop that project for a more feasible one.

Verdi’s masterpiece of misplaced intentions, A Masked Ball (Un ballo in maschera) opened at the San Francisco Opera on Saturday night in a lavish, if dated, period production, last mounted here in 2006. John Conklin’s costumes, worthy of a Zeffirelli extravaganza, go back to the 1977 era of Kurt Herbert Adler. If the production seemed deja vu, the work remains fresh and unhackneyed, a tragedy unique in the Verdi canon, with human frailties but no real evildoers.

The action has a king’s misplaced love for the wife of his best friend leading to expected tragedy, but it is the manner of the story’s treatment that explores new shadings of human understanding with a dose of Shakespearean jest (left over from Lear?), keeping the tone on a lighter plane than the story’s ill-fated conclusion might suggest. With moods switching on a dime, Masked Ball foreshadows Verdi’s last two Shakespeare operas. Call it a tragedy with comic relief. 

Read full review on San Francisco Classical Voice.

Thomas Hampson: An American Hero at Tanglewood

By Erica Miner 

 As an opera singer and interpreter of the lied repertoire, American native son Thomas Hampson has reached the pinnacle of accomplishment. However, few vocal performers of our day are as closely identified with American classical music as this renowned artist. On Friday, July 18, with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood under the baton of British conductor Edward Gardner, he demonstrated this affinity with great expertise in his performance of selections from Aaron Copland’s Old American Songs.

 Despite Copland’s urban upbringing, he brilliantly depicted the decidedly non-urban character of the American folk persona in many of his works. This much-loved set of songs is no exception. Originally written for voice and piano and ultimately rescored for voice and orchestra, Songs premiered in stages during the 1950s, and was performed by such vocal luminaries as Peter Pears and William Warfield. Hampson has reemphasized his commitment to Copland’s music, and especially this particular work, in his comprehensive list of the individual song texts on his Hampsong Foundation website (http://hampsongfoundation.org/aaron-copland-song-texts/).

From the first to last of the six chosen pieces, which varied from campaign song to ballad, lullaby to minstrel melody, Hampson held the audience in thrall with his vocal ease and agility and deep understanding of Copland’s distinctly American style. With grand gestures, canny emphasis on the folk elements of each song with carefully crafted pronunciation, and a plethora of facial expressions that captured the subtleties of the form, he created an atmosphere entirely American in character that only a true devotee of the great composers of our heritage could carry off. Alternately charming and commanding, Hampson acted out the text without overplaying, displayed his virtuosity with the confidence and authority of one who could almost channel the composer, and as if that weren’t already deeply satisfying, treated the delighted audience to two captivating encores. In his rendition of this music, which he clearly loves and comprehends fully, he came across as an American musical hero for our time.

The Copland songs were bookended by two orchestral tours de force led by Maestro Gardner, in his BSO debut, replacing Christoph von Dohnányi. With this legendary virtuoso Boston ensemble as his instrument, Gardner made an impressive showing. His background as an opera conductor at world-renowned houses from the UK to New York and Paris served him well in Richard Strauss’s technically demanding Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks. With operatic flair, Gardner showed an outstanding ability to control the widely varied dynamics, from the subtle opening in the strings to the bombastic portrayals of the title character’s outrageous antics in the winds and brass; and his energy and enthusiasm kept the audience rapt until the final “Perhaps it was all a joke after all” ending.

A good conductor should most of all be a great communicator, and in the case of an orchestra of the BSO’s greatness, also should be able to guide the ensemble in such a way that the players are free to express their talents to the maximum. In the Strauss, Gardner allowed the individual “star” players, notably the principal French horn and oboist, to display their striking abilities to stunning effect, while allowing for the entire ensemble to support their colleagues’ exceptional solo playing with the outstanding team effort for which the BSO is so renowned.

The maestro’s rendition of the Beethoven Seventh Symphony was less effective. This work, performed by the BSO since their second year of existence (1882), has become almost an anthem for the orchestra, beloved by and familiar to Boston audiences. Gardner’s approach to the Poco Sostenuto introduction to the first movement Vivace was pleasingly lyrical, almost lilting, and the tempo moved along swiftly without feeling hurried. One hoped for a bit more of that lyricism, and also more depth of feeling, in the profoundly moving Allegretto, but it still flowed nicely. However, the Presto third movement felt rushed, and the final Allegro con brio was taken at such a rapid clip that the notes flew by precipitously without properly being heard. There’s no question that the BSO’s brilliant violin section can play these passages without breaking a sweat. A slightly less rushed tempo would have allowed the audience the luxury of hearing every single note impeccably played in the context of the exquisite whole of Beethoven’s masterwork: in other words, to quote a well-worn orchestra players’ phrase, “every note a jewel.”

Nonetheless, Maestro Gardner gave the overall impression of a remarkably gifted and already accomplished musician who will have much to offer as his career progresses.

  

Photos used by permission of Hilary Scott
Erica Miner can be contacted at e[email protected]

Hampson shines in Lieder and American songs

by Rodney Punt

Like the lead character in the old TV spy show, baritone Thomas Hampson has led three lives, dividing his career between the contrasting emotional states of Germanic angst in Lieder, American optimism in song, and Italian drama in opera. The first two of those lives were on impressive display at his recital presented by the LA Opera last Saturday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Resuming a US residency after two decades mostly in Europe, the American-born Hampson is a man on a mission. He is reacquainting local ears with the musical expressions of our peculiar, polyglot American vernacular. In a program of thirteen songs (including two encores), a youthful 54-year-old Hampson, with Romanian pianist Vlad Iftinca (left), made a compelling case for revival of the oft-neglected tradition of American song, reminding us also, in the program’s first half, of his credentials in Lieder.

The Chandler audience was peppered with singers, vocal teachers, and accompanists curious as to the state of the singer’s storied lyric baritone. He has been active of late in Verdi operas that can darken and coarsen a voice, his recent roles in La Traviata and Macbeth employing more than usual vocal power. Would Hampson be able to re-summon his famously creamy tone, seamless legato, and floating head voice in a recital of generally lighter-textured songs?

The answer was an emphatic yes.

Returning to the theater that, he told us, started his career (he was trained in Southern California), Hampson’s vocal apparatus proved remarkably fresh, taking just a couple of songs to open up its customarily burnished-copper timbre. Moreover, Hampson was blissfully free from the vocal mannerisms that mar many a middle-aged singer’s evening of exposed song.

Culling from “the largest shoebox on the planet”, as he described it, Hampson began his American set with Francis Hopkinson’s charming My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free, written in 1759 and presumed to be the first art song made in America. Appropriate for this occasion, it celebrates its 250th anniversary this year. Compare its upbeat words “…the little birds that fly with careless ease from tree to tree were but as blest as I” with almost any passage from a German Lied and you will at an instant grasp the essential difference in character between two peoples and their song traditions.

Hampson’s wide-ranging musical journey took us through many a regional stop. He reminded the audience in his introduction that our national motto, E Pluribus Unum, does not imply the homogenization of our people. From the romantic sentimental tradition of European-settled America came Stephen Foster’s antebellum seduction, Open they Lattice, Love, Edward MacDowell’s nautical-death lullaby, The Sea, Amy Beach’s impressionistically nostalgic Twilight, and Elinor Remick Warren’s soul-saving God Be in my Heart.

Other ethnic roots were celebrated more profoundly in Henry T. Burleigh’s Walt Whitman--penned and riveting Ethiopia Saluting the Colors, Arthur Farwell’s Omaha Indian warrior crying proudly in Song of the Deathless Voice, and the poignant lament of the William Grant Still-LeRoy Brant song, Grief.

Regional behaviors and their accents were a source of comic bumptiousness in four songs, brought off as only an American of Hampson’s pedigree and showmanship could, ably partnered by a bemused Iftinca. Two were Aaron Copland charmers, The Dodger with its nod to the great American con-man, and The Boatman’s Dance with its loveable lug of a river man. Two Charles Ives’ songs were similarly inspired, the hilariously droll cowboy yarn, Charlie Rutlage, played to the clump-footed hilt by Hampson (it could have inspired the Beatles’ similarly campy Rocky Raccoon), and as encore, the two-part Memories (Very Pleasant, Rather Sad), a hilarious yet sentimental send-up of an innocent at his first opera.

What these songs brought to the audience was something rare in a recital here: the power of personal memory. As Hampson stated, they tell us “what it’s like to be alive, now.” While we can love deeply the beautiful song traditions of other countries, in one form or another we have actually experienced life in our own songs; they stir us to the very depths of our American soul. Two in particular struck me dumb with wonder this evening, Hampson's renditions of the traditional Shenandoah and, as encore, Foster’s Beautiful Dreamer.

The German set on the first half of the program was an intelligently designed survey on the ubiquitous Austro-German poetic theme of lost or idealized love, ranging from settings by Franz Schubert to the post-romantic Erich Wolfgang Korngold. (The specific repertoire is mentioned in my earlier piece on Hampson.)

Settings by German poet Heinrich Heine were included in both the Schubert and Franz Liszt songs, and another poet, Ludwig Rellstab, set elsewhere by Schubert, was represented here in a setting by Liszt. We usually think of Schubert’s line of song succession as flowing through the Romantic traditionalists, Schumann and Brahms. But there is another, equally compelling line through the progressive styles of Franz Liszt and Hugo Wolf, the neglected songs of Liszt in particular worthy of more exploration and performance. These Lieder and those of Korngold and Richard Strauss that followed ably confirmed Hampson’s claim to interpretative preeminence in the Romantic Austro-German tradition. Here, as elsewhere, Hampson was ably partnered by the stylish and idiomatic pianism of Vlad Iftinca.

Sustained applause for their performance was justified. Looking impossibly tall and handsome, well-tailored, and exuding an eager charm, Hampson retired to the Founders Circle entry area after the recital and signed posters, pictures, and CD booklets for well over an hour. Employing all his resources, he works on overtime for a cause he embraces.

Addendum

Songs are topical; they bloom and pass away like ephemeral wildflowers. In his Johnny Appleseed quest on behalf of American song, Hampson is launching a vast inventory project on his website, Hampsong.com. He has also joined forces with the Library of Congress’ Music Division, representatives of which have accompanied him on tour with an exhibition of musical artifacts that appeared at the Founders Circle area before and after the recital. Among the items displayed was an original manuscript of George and Ira Gershwin’s Embraceable You, which I was able to hold briefly in my grateful hands. When you experience genius this close up, the customary boundary between popular and serious art is no thicker than the plastic micro-cover protecting the Gershwin masterpiece from the unintentional wear of mortal touch.

Thomas Hampson and Vlad Iftinca to give recital of German and American Songs

by Rodney Punt

Even in these budget-challenged times, the LA Opera devotes some of its resources to the art of song, and thanks be for that. American mega-baritone Thomas Hampson with piano collaborator Vlad Iftinca returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Saturday, October 3 at 7:30 pm, for a survey of two contrasting song traditions, those of Germany and the USA. When an artist of Hampson's caliber comes to town with comparable talent as his pianist, a song recital can be an enlightening experience, as many remember from his last recital a few seasons ago at UCLA's Royce Hall.

Hampson has significant ties to Southern California, having studied in his formative years at Santa Barbara's Music Academy of the West. While much of his career has been spent in Europe, with a long domicile in Austria, in recent years he has returned to his roots in the States. Always supplementing his formidable opera presence with concert and recording work in Lieder (German art songs), he is now one of the most important proponents of American song as well.

The Romanian-born pianist Iftinca has worked with several New York-based singers in recent years. As a staff pianist at the Metropolitan Opera and a coach with the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, he is also active in developing young singing talent, as well as collaboration with other pianists, notably in recordings of works for four hands.

If opera is the macrocosmos of vocal music, song is its microcosmic counterpart. The current production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen depicts externalized action on an cinematic scale. By contrast, a recital of Lieder conveys human emotions through internalized musical snapshots. Most songs last no longer than three or four minutes; singer and pianist take their places on the stage before us unadorned with theatrical setting or movement. The chromatic musical palate of song is every bit as rich as opera, but where the latter comes in dazzling Technicolor, the palate of song with piano accompaniment registers with us more like the equally beautiful flickering colors of an opal.

The LA Opera has been kind enough to provide the program selections to LA Opus in advance of the recital

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The German first half surveys the Lieder tradition from its near beginnings with the incomparable Franz Schubert, through the emotionally charged atmosphere of Franz Liszt’s progressive Romanticism, and on to two of its final exponents, Richard Strauss and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The program includes three gems of Schubert (An die Leier, Das Fischermädchen, Der Doppelgänger), three rarely heard songs of Liszt (Im Rhein im schönen Strome, Es rauschen die Winde, Die drei Zigeuner), a single song of Korngold (Pierrot’s Tanzlied from Die tote Stadt), and four late Romantic offerings from Strauss (Himmelsboten, Freundliche Vision, Traum durch die Dämmerung, Heimliche Aufforderung). What Schubert had begun in Vienna, Korngold summed up in Hollywood, as the most famous composer of the Golden Age of American film, though the song above was from his Vienna days before emigration to our shores.

The program shifts gears for its second half with mostly single song selections of no less than 11 American composers, “A Panorama of American Song” according to the program, including a rarely sung Stephen Foster piece (Open Thy Lattice, Love) two crowd-pleasers from Aaron Copland (The Dodger, The Boatmen’s Dance), a Charles Ives selection (Charlie Rutlage), and one by a former resident of our own L.A. West Adams district, the late and beloved William Grant Still (Grief).

Further program info can be found on Hampson’s website, and particularly the song projects page, which has several essays on American song. For tickets, contact the LA Opera's website.

Don't miss the opportunity of hearing Thomas Hampson at the peak of his artistic powers with a pianist in sympathetic partnership with him. Whatever your mood when you arrive, the variety of songs to be offered from these fine musical artists should guarantee some will chime with your state of mind - or shift it to a higher level !