True to the roots of the young company, the 8 PM Oct. 9 concert features music by musicians who may be more widely known as music directors rather than composers — Joel Fram, David Loud, Steve Marzullo and Georgia Stitt.
Each set of songs — to be presented in the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space in Manhattan — has been especially commissioned for four singers: Judy Blazer, Jill Geddes, Rosina M. Hill and Pedro Porro, who will each premiere their own work. Tickets are still available.
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David Loud's cycle, "Translations," focuses on the sonnets of Pablo Neruda. Each sonnet is presented twice by Pedro Porro: once in the original Spanish, and then set again as a different song in English translation. Loud was music director for Ragtime, A Class Act, The Boys From Syracuse and more.
Georgia Stitt (known for "Broadway Divas") has set the poems of contemporary New York writer Marcy Heisler, in a cycle for Geddes entitled "Alphabet City Cycle." Steve Marzullo has written the cycle "Short Songs for a Short Girl" for the singer-actress Judy Blazer (Titanic), exploring a wide range of poets from Dorothy Parker to Langston Hughes. Marzullo was music director of Once On This Island.
Joel Fram, a co-founder and co-producer of the New Voices Collective, focuses on the poems of three 20th century masters: e. e. cummings, Jacques Pravert and W. B. Yeats. Hill sings.
The singers will be accompanied at the piano by David Loud and Grant Wenaus, and will feature Naomi Katz on violin. Danny Burstein will host.
Tickets are $22 ($20 for members, $15 for students). Symphony Space is located at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street. For information, call (212) 864-5400 or visit http://www.symphonyspace.org.
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The New Voices Collective, founded by Jen Bender, Joel Fram and Doug Okerson in 2002, "provides a safe haven for a community of artists to develop new works and explore new directions." Its various programs are the New Voices concerts, First-Draft Musicals reading and the Rush Hour Chamber Music series.
