Contact: Kathleen Adams, MSU School of Music, (517) 353-9958, adamsk10@msu.edu or musicpr@msu.edu

10/17/2005

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Who would think that 20 years after two struggling artists performed new compositions for their friends in a small apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan that they would be presenting a world premiere song cycle along with a 110-member symphony orchestra in Michigan? Those two artists, composer Ricky Ian Gordon, and soprano Melanie Helton, will reunite on the campus of Michigan State University at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, in the Cobb Great Hall, Wharton Center, to present a song cycle for soprano and orchestra.

Written by New York composer Gordon, the song cycle was commissioned as part of the MSU Sesquicentennial Celebration. The piece is a musical setting of five poems by e.e. cummings, and is entitled “and flowers pick themselves…”

Melanie Helton, assistant professor of voice and director of the MSU Opera Theatre, is the featured guest soprano. Raphael Jimenez, associate conductor of MSU Orchestras, will conduct the ensemble.

Gordon’s music draws from all vocal genres: classical art song, musical theater, jazz and opera. He has written for well-known classical sopranos such as Renee Fleming, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Harolyn Blackwell, Elizabeth Futral and Audra McDonald, and Kristin Chenoweth from the world of musical theatre. The New York Times describes Gordon’s music as “songs that blithely blur the lines between art song and the high-end Broadway music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. It’s caviar for a world gorging on pizza.”

Helton was the first to commission a song cycle from Gordon when they were both living in New York in the 1980s. Prior to joining the faculty at MSU, she sang leading soprano roles at opera companies worldwide, including the New York City Opera, Opera de Bogota, Seattle Opera and Washington Opera.

“It’s so good to be working with Ricky again,” says Helton. “He understands the voice. He knows where a soprano likes to sing. And his music is unabashedly romantic. He has a way of setting text so that it makes sense to the ear. You hear the story in poetry.

“He paints a fabulous picture with his music – presenting almost a visual to the audience,” continues Helton. “The song cycle is very American. It’s about joy and gratitude – life and the human condition.”

“In many ways e.e. cummings… is an extremely emotional poet – like a painter – able to paint in five words the most joyous or devastating picture, of which other poets may take many pages to describe,” says Gordon. “Even when cummings writes about loss, he portrays a certain gratitude for having had it in the first place.”

“This song cycle has enough appealing elements to make it become part of the standard concert repertoire,” says conductor Jimenez. “The beauty of the melodies, the beauty of the text, the colorful harmonies and the lush orchestration blend to make this piece one that will last. You can feel the American music heritage in Ricky’s work, ranging from musical theatre to opera.”

The MSU Symphony Orchestra also will perform works by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (“Capriccio Espagnol” ) and Pyotr Tchaikovsky (“Symphony No. 2”), conducted by Music Director/Conductor Leon Gregorian.

Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov wrote “Capriccio Espagnol” in 1887 and based the lively piece on Spanishmelodies. “Symphony No. 2,” written by Tchaikovsky in 1872, features Ukrainian songs and has become known as the Little Russian Symphony.

Tickets for the concert are $8, $6 for senior citizens and free for students and those under 18, and can be purchased at the MSU School of Music, or 30 minutes before the performance at the door. For more information, call (517) 353-5340. (There will be an added $1.50 restoration fee if purchased at the Wharton Center Box Office.)

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Editor’s Note: For program information, biographies or to download high-resolution photos, visit www.music.msu.edu

Gordon's family history was documented in “Home Fires,” a book by Donald Katz.

who knows if the moon's

who knows if the moon's
a balloon, coming out of a keen city
in the skyfilled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it, if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited, where

always
it's
Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

e.e. cummings