Exploring Luso-Latin culture through music VINCENNES, Ind. - The rich landscape of Luso-Latin culture and heritage will be explored through a voice and piano recital on Feb. 7, 7:00 p.m. (EST), at Vincennes Universitys Red Skelton Performing Arts Center. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend. Performing will be the group Yara, featuring vocalist Sarah Stone and pianist Alexandra Mascolo-David. ABOUT YARA Yara is an exciting and unique collaboration that was formed in Spring 2013 where the duo met as faculty colleagues in Michigan. Inspired by their love of all things Brazilian they adopted the Guarani (native Brazilian) name for the singing temptress of the waters: the yara. The Yara performance experience invites the audience to step “behind the curtain,” offering unique insight into the creative processes of the composers and poets behind the music. With a mission of promoting the wealth of Luso-Latin music and culture, the duo has developed an innovative approach to the recital. With a warm touch and a healthy serving of humor, Yara seeks to develop new audiences by humanizing the concert atmosphere through the weaving of music, media, and narrative into a personal, accessible, and engaging experience. Biography - Sarah Stone, voice Praised for her naturally warm and unpretentiously appealing voice, Brazilian-British-American mezzo-soprano Sarah Stone is comfortable in a variety of genres. She has been featured in both North and South America with the Bay View Music Festival, Kentucky Opera and Louisville Ballet, Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Music Center, Dorian Opera Theatre and the Traditional Jazz Band. Recognized for her versatility she is described as “a fearless performer and an imaginative actress with natural stage presence. On the stage she has portrayed varying roles - from Romeo’s page Stephano in Gounod’s opera Romeo et Juliette, to Margaret, the overbearing mother, in the collegiate premiere of Adam Guettel’s musical Light in the Piazza. An active proponent of contemporary classical music, she has recorded the works of composers Dan Powers, P.Q. Phan (premiering the lead role in his opera The Tale of Lady Thi Kinh in 2011) and premiered Ne’e (a song in the native Amerindian Guarani language for voice and piano), by Brazilian composer Marcos Balter at Seiji Ozawa Hall in the summer of 2005. In demand as a teacher, adjudicator and clinician Sarah has a private studio in the Louisville, KY, area. She has served on the faculties of Central Michigan University and Vincennes University as well as teaching secondary voice at Indiana University. An avid researcher, her interests include modern Brazilian art song and vocal technique. Sarah was raised in São Paulo, Brazil, where she played soccer professionally from age 19-24. Additional information regarding her recordings and public appearances is available at sarahstone-mezzo. Biography - Alexandra Mascolo-David, piano “A splendid pianist - refined, searching and expressive, and her playing is loaded with insight and interpretative detail.” So wrote The Washington Post after Alexandra’s performance at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in the nation’s capital. She has performed and led workshops and master classes in Europe, China, and the Americas, including a New York debut recital at Carnegie Hall (Weil Recital Hall) in May 2004, which was favorably reviewed in The New York Concert Review. Alexandra has devoted the last decade to exploring and unearthing the music of Portuguese and Brazilian composers, especially Francisco Mignone. She is in the forefront of presenting Mignone’s piano music and her performances, especially of his Valsas brasileiras (Brazilian Waltzes), have been widely acclaimed. Her compact disc recording of Volume One of the Valsas brasileiras received a rave review in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Alexandra also recorded Mignone’s Fantasias brasileiras (Brazilian Fantasies) for piano and orchestra with the Kalamazoo Symphony under Maestro Raymond Harvey, in a 2010 release for the White Pine Music recording label. This recording is of significant historical significance as it is the first set of the four Brazilian Fantasies available to the public. She has taught at the Interlochen Arts camp at Iowa State University and currently is Professor of Piano at Central Michigan University. Additional information regarding her recordings and public appearances is available at mascolodavid.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 18:54:13 +0000
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