New Yorkers, Don't Miss This: Five Borough Songbook Concert and CD Release on Thursday

Don't miss the Five Borough Songbook concert and CD release party

We've been covering the Five Boroughs Music Festival as it has moved around New York, but the January 12th concert in Manhattan promises to be extra special. In addition to the concert they wil be releasing their first recording that day, a stunning 2-disc set of the Songbook. We've had the privilege of previewing the recording and it is a must for any lover of art songs or opera.

We can't think of a better evening out than hearing a concert and then heading home with a CD of the all the great music that you just heard. The Songbook is a collection of newly commissioned vocal works by many of the leading composers working today. It celebrates New York City through its history, poetry, and geography. Some of the titles will certainly evoke distinct images or memories to New Yorkers past and present. They include "F From Dumbo," "G Is For Grimy: An Ode To The G Train," and "Coney Island Avenue."

Barihunk David McFerrin will sing Martin Hennessy's "The City's Love"

Did you ever wish that you could have spoken to Bach, Schubert, Verdi or Puccini? Unless you're Shirley MacLaine, you missed your chance. But you'll have a chance to talk to many of the composers on the program on Thursday night, as quite a few of them have agreed to appear for a "Composer Chat" beginning an hour before the 7:30 PM concert.


The concert will be at Engleman Recital Hall at the Baruch Performing Arts Center 55 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. Click HERE for tickets or HERE to purchase a CD.

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Four-Time Emmy Award-Winner Glen Roven's Barihunk Concert and CD's

Branch Fields

The Winter Rhythms Festival, which runs from December 1-11 in New York City is a series of concerts that includes Cabaret, Jazz, Hip Hop, Broadway and Classical Music. On December 5th, the festival will include "I Hate Music: The Songs and Music of Glen Roven" with barihunks Chris Herbert and Branch Fields. The baritones will be joined by opera diva Lauren Flanigan, the Broadway Youth Ensemble, TV actor and Broadway star Jeff McCarthy, OBIE Award-winner Donna Lynne Champlin, jazz vocalist Luba Mason, award-winning singer Nikolas King and opera tenor Matthew Garrett.

Christopher Herbert

Christopher Herbert will be performing one of Roven's most beautiful songs, "Upon Westminster Bridge" with words by William Wordsworth. Branch Fields will be performing Mozart's "Là ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni. For tickets call (212) 868-4444 or visit Smarttix.com. Urban Stages is located at 259 West 30th Street in Manhattan.

Fans of Christopher Herbert can also catch him with New York Polyphony, which will be performing in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Minnesota during December. Check out their website for touring information. We can assure you that this is an ensemble that you won't want to miss.

Glen Roven has also recently wrapped up an innovative new CD of viola songs with barihunk and winner of numerous vocal competitions, Jonathan Beyer, (with a special guest appearance by his partner Brandon Cedel) on the GPR label. The CD is available for pre-order at the GPR website. GPR also has barihunk Daniel Okulitch's CD of great American composers available for sale. There is a special discount if you order both CDs.

Also, Christopher Herbert, Jonathan Beyer and Brandon Cedel are all featured in our 2012 Barihunks charity calendar, with all proceeds going to benefit young artist programs. Buy yours today by clicking HERE!

David McFerrin in Opera and Song

Opera Boston does Berlioz with David McFerrin

We've followed the career of David McFerrin from Boston to Seattle to Germany and now back to Boston. The Massachusetts native returns to his home turf this week to perform Claudio in Berlioz's "Beatrice et Benedict" with Opera Boston. The opera will be performed on October 21, 23 and 25 at the Cutler Majestic Theater in Boston. The production will be updated from the 16th century to Sicily of the 1950s.

David McFerrin Adds His Voice to the Five Borough Festival

Second chances don't come along often, so if you missed the first performance of the Five Borough Songbook, you'll want to grab their follow up show in Queens at at the Flushing Town Hall on November 12. If you can't make it out to Queens, there are performance left in the remaining three boroughs. as the Songbook comes to Manhattan on January 12, the Bronx in May 2012 and finally to Staten Island in June 2012.

David McFerrin, who relishes singing song recitals, is reason enough to spend an afternoon in Queens. He will be singing Glen Roven's "F from DUMBO," John Glover's "8:46 AM, Five Years Later," their new 20th song, Martin Hennessy's "The City's Love," as well as Ricky Ian Gordon's duet "O City of Ships."

The Songbook, a collection of 20 brand new songs by 20 unique composers, celebrates New York City through its history, poetry, and geography – and its most promising musical talent. Composers who wrotes works for the Five Borough Songbook include Glen Roven, Daron Hagen, Renée Favand-See,  John Glover,  Ricky Ian Gordon,  Yotam Haber,  Martin Hennessy,  Gabriel Kahane,  Gilda Lyons,  Jorge Martín,  Russell Platt,  Matt Schickele,  Richard Pearson Thomas,  Christopher Tignor,  Scott Wheeler  and Mohammed Fairouz.

Visit the Five Borough Songbook website for additional cast and performance information.

For those of you in Texas, McFerrin will be joining the San Antonio Symphony for Handel's Messiah on December 2 & 4. Visit their website for additional information. 

Here is David McFerrin singing Libby Larsen's "Before Loving You:"



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Christopher Johnstone's Sexy New Website: Five Boroughs Music Festival Reminder

Christopher Johnstone: Singer, Actor, Model (and hot!)

We get a lot of messages asking us to look at someone's new website, but we've seldom encountered one as sexy as barihunk Christopher Johnstone's new site.

The graduate of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music defines himself as a "Singer, Actor, Model" on his website and he's certainly hard to peg. The lyric baritone has sung with the Glimmerglass Opera, Lyric Opera San Diego, Opera Pacific, Cincinnati Pops, Boston Pops and performing Poulenc’s Le bal masqué for Baritone and Chamber Orchestra with Maestro James Levine of the Metropolitan Opera.

As you can see from the video he's also crossed over into musicals. But like many singers who we've featured on this site, including Hadleigh Adams and Matt Morris, their careers have also reached into television and even modeling. Johnstone has been seen on TLC’s “Personal Justice” and he has a recurring roles on “All My Children.”  If you visit his website, you can also see more examples of his modeling for David Barton Gym and DETAILS magazine.



We also want to remind readers that the Five Boroughs Music Festival is kicking off its season on Thursday, October 6th with barihunk David Adam Moore, so make sure to order your tickets. Barihunk and artistic director Jesse Blumberg has commissioned twenty songs with themes related to Gotham  from twenty of the world's leading contemporary composers. The festival première is at the Galapagos Art Space and tickets can be purchased on their website. 

Five Boroughs Music Festival kicks off in Brooklyn with David Adam Moore

We're particularly excited about Glen Roven's "F from DUMBO," since many attendees may be taking the F TO DUMBO to the recital. The clever new song will be sung by David Adam Moore, making it all the more irresistible. You can sample Roven's music in the sidebar to the right with barihunk Randal Turner singing "When you are old."

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10% Discount for Barihunks readers on Okulitch CD

GPR Records is offerings a 10% discount to Barihunks readers who order Daniel Okulitch's new CD of American composers. If you have a PayPal account, you can click HERE to directly to the discounted site.

Okulitch sings music by Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Lowell Lieberman, and Glen Roven on this recording of twenty-nine songs. As we've reported, Okulitch is currently in Santa Fe performing music by one of the masters of the mid-20th century, Gian Carlo Menotti. Tickets for Menotti's "The Last Savage" are available HERE.

Copies of fellow barihunk Randal Turner's recording of Living American Composers are still available, but are almost completely sold out. You can click HERE or on the button to the right to order. We encourage readers to order both CDs, as they are some of the best recordings of this music ever recorded. Both projects had the direct involvement of many of the composers.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GLEN ROVEN ! ! !

Award-winning composer Glen Roven

One of our favorite composers in the world today is Glen Roven and we'd like to wish him a rousing HAPPY BIRTHDAY ! ! !

Glen Roven is an Emmy Award-winning composer, lyricist, and conductor. One of his notable compositions include a violin concerto based on the children’s book The Runaway Bunny. Another notable composition is “Goodnight Moon, An Aria for Singer and Orchestra” which Lauren Flanigan performed in Central Park May 9, 2010 for an audience of 10,000. It was subsequently performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Kimmel Center. He is the Artist Director of “GPR Records” where he conceived and produced “Poetic License 100 Poems/100 Performers” where artists such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, Patti LuPone, Jason Alexander, Cynthia Nixon, etc. perform their favorite poem. The CD has become the best selling Poetry CD of all time. “Pandora’s Box”, for which he wrote music and lyrics, will be performed at the NYMF Festival October 8 starring Kerry Butler and Deidre Goodwin.

Here is Randal Turner singing two Glen Roven songs from the set "Four Melancholy Songs, Opus 16, No. 1" based on poetry by William Butler Yeats. The perforfance is from Turner's live concert in San Francisco last year. 

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"



"When you are old"



Also, we'd like to wish a Happy Birthday to another barihunk, Jesse Blumberg, who can scroll down and listen to.

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Amazing New Releases From Erwin Schrott and Randal Turner

"Hot Schrott" images from Rojotango

If you're looking for some great music you might want want to check out two new releases that we're enjoying. The first is Erwin Schrott's new CD "Rojotango," which is enjoyable from beginning to end. You can watch the sexy Uruguayan barihunk talk about this new recording in a video produced by MTV by clicking below. You can download the music at iTunes.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW VIDEO

Our other indulgence is American barihunk Randal Turner's new CD and DVD from his recent West Coast recital debut in San Francisco. Turner sings the music of "Living American Composers," including Glen Roven, Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Clint Borzoni and Julia Schwartz, who like Turner has settled in Switzerland. A little teaser: you won't want to miss the encore, which was arranged by his gifted accompanist Allen Perriello.

Click HERE to purchase the DVD

The CD is available at CD Baby and will be available on iTunes and Rhapsody shortly, so put it in your favorite searches or click the button below to purchase the CD now.

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Daniel Okulitch at Carnegie Hall

Daniel Okulitch's new CD of American Art Song

Don't miss Daniel Okulitch's upcoming recital at Carnegie Hall on Monday, March 28, where he will be performing music from his new CD of American Art Song. Composers on the program include Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Lowell Liebermann, and Glen Roven. We've heard the CD and can promise and amazing night of music making. Click HERE to buy tickets while good seats still remain.

Okulitch in the Ft. Worth Opera performance of Heggie's "Dead Man Walking"

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Randal Turner & Daniel Okulitch CDs Spotlight Living American Composers

New CDs by Daniel Okulitch & Randal Turner due for March 2011 release

Readers of this site who appreciate our great American composers are in luck. Two new CDs are due for release this month that showcase new American music. Barihunks Randal Turner and Daniel Okulitch are both releasing CDs this month that feature songs by Glen Roven, Ricky Ian Gordon and Jake Heggie. Okulich will also feature songs by Lowell Liebermann, while Turner will feature music by the wunderkind composer Clint Borzoni.

Daniel Okulitch and Randal Turner during their recordings

One other difference will be that Okulitch recorded his CD in the studio in anticipation of a series of live concerts. Turner's CD was recorded live in San Francisco and even features a special encore tribute to the "City by the Bay." Turner's concert will also be available in a high-definition DVD video format.

Both CDs will be available for pre-release purchase through this site. Stay tuned for more details.

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