Beyond NY: Caramoor Summer Season Finale with Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Susan Graham

Baroque selections at 2018 Caramoor Summer Season Finale in Katonah, NY with Susan Graham, Orchestra of St. Lukes, and Nicolas McGegan on Sunday, July 29, 2018 at 4 pm

This year the Summer Season program at Caramoor in Katonah, NY features a splendid roster of distinguished artists. Each week the Center brings about a delicious musical experience with classical and modern compositions and artistic approaches masterfully complementing each other. For the season Finale, Caramoor is presenting American treasure mezzo Susan Graham and Orchestra of St. Luke’s with  Nicolas McGegan conducting.

Graham, hailed by the Playbill as “powerhouse mezzo” who “dazzled the Metropolitan Opera audiences with performances” of a wide range of repertoire, will be singing selections from Handel’s Ariodante and Alicia in the first part of the program. It will be followed by Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and La Clemenza di Tito. For tickets click here.

Raised in Midland, TX, Graham had graduated from Texas Tech University and The Manhattan School of Music. Like everyone else in Midland, TX, Graham family knew Bush family. Both clans belong to the same church and Susan remembers George W. as “Little George” from those years. She studied the piano for 13 years and in her own words in an interview with The Guardian “sings like a pianist” with Mozartian tendencies. That inclination to bring the clarity of Mozart’s music into her singing will be perfectly suited for the second part of the program at Caramoor Finale concert on July 29.

Graham is well known for her interpretation of French Songs which call for certain classical restraint and emotional control. Graham even compares the effort to playing the violin as opposed to a piano. French repertoire has always been Graham’s signature. While remaining American national, she was awarded a prestigious French government award “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur,” both for her popularity as a performer in France and in honor of her commitment to French music.

Graham operatic repertoire covers a very wide range of high mezzo-soprano roles spanning 4 centuries from Monteverdi Poppea to Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, which was written especially for her. Turning 58 this year, she is not slowing down in her drive to explore and take on the demanding roles. She was singing the title role in M. Blitzstein’s Regina at Opera Theater of St. Luis. In addition to her brilliant operatic technique, she is a formidable actress who while well known to be the sweetest person “takes a turn for the venomous here” as Regina according to The New York Times review.

Graham will be performing at Caramoor with Orchestra of St. Luke’s led by Nicolas McGegan. Maestro McGegan is well-known to Caramoor audiences having been conducting OSL on several occasions. His appearance in the Season Finale will be his second for this season at Caramoor after leading the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in a presentation of Handel’s pastoral three-act opera Atalanta on June 22, 2018.

Orchestra of St. Luke’s is a beloved Caramoor’s orchestra-in-residence. By now internationally acclaimed the orchestra begun in 1974 when a group of virtuoso musicians started performing together chamber music concerts at Greenwich Village’s Church of St. Luke in the Fields. They now appear regularly at the major venues in New York City with the subscription series at Carnegie Hall, performances at the chamber music festivals and collaboration with Paul Taylor American Morden Dance at Lincoln Center among other engagements.

A combination of top quality music performance and spectacular Caramoor gardens and grounds makes it an ideal place for a summer night out. At Caramoor, the visitors can enjoy architecture, history, art, horticulture, and music all in one place. Arrive early to have a chance to explore them all.

For tickets click here.

Date: Sunday, July 29, 2018 AT 4 PM 

Venue: 149 Girdle Ridge Rd, Katonah, NY 10536

 

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