an intimate recital series
Behind the Door
219 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
miniatures behind the door
A series of intimate recitals and concerts which celebrate the beauty of simplicity. A singer, a musician, a listener. With these evenings, we would like to offer some space for the soul to bloom, worlds away in spirit from the ever more madding crowd.
Incontro Barocco
JEWELS OF THE BAROQUE
a semi-precious afternoon of high voices and low tea
Saturday, November 28, 2015, 4:00 pm
Sunday, November 29, 2015, 2:00 pm
Fancy Dress encouraged!
Refreshments will be served
Opera Feroce and VPR team up for Jewels of the Baroque, the latest episode in the Incontro Barocco series.
An uptight baroque band and an unruly troupe of singers are hired to entertain at the home of a wealthy family with pretensions to nobility. A nod to the salon concert, Jewels of the Baroque is a gleefully assembled smorgasbord of instrumental and vocal works trespassing across genres, styles and national boundaries. Singers and instrumentalists alike are costumed in High Baroque style, and the audience is shown more than a glimpse of the rivalry, revelry, and repartee among the players.
FRENCH SONG IN TRANSIT
Métamorphoses et Mélodies
Thursday, May 28, 2015
8:30 pm
Rémy Yulzari, double bass
Yegor Shevtsov, piano with
Judith Barnes, mezzo soprano
As a duo, Rémy and Yegor explore the vast potential of French music, classical and popular, using it as a springboard for improvisation, re-arrangement and re-interpretation. The program will include Gnossienne no.1 by Erik Satie, Chansons Grecques by Maurice Ravel, Milonga by Alberto Ginastera, and variations on Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves) by Joseph Kosma. They will be joined by Judith for performances of some rare French-language gems, including selections from Poèmes Juifs by Darius Milhaud, Une bouche aimée for voice, double bass and piano by Giovanni Bottesini, and Youkali by Kurt Weill.
THE VIRTUOSI QUINTET
Autumn Harvest
Wednesday, Nov 5, 2014
8:00 pm
a selection of works from baroque to contemporary, celebrating the acclaimed Virtuosi Quintet’s 31st season. Music of Bach, Damase, Grieg, Ligeti, Hindemith and Running.
Joseph Trent, flute
Elizabeth Condon, oboe
Larry Tietze, clarinet
James Jeter, bassoon
Douglas Lyons, french horn
STELLA NEMICA INFAUSTA
rare bel canto arias for mezzo soprano
Thursday, October 30, 2014
7:30 pm
Hayden DeWitt, mezzo soprano
Cathy Venable, piano
An evening of treasures plucked from the dusty attic of Italian opera and polished to their former luster. Curated by Thea Cook of the Donizetti Society, the program will feature rarities by Verdi’s rivals Alessandro Nini, Giovanni Pacini and Federico Ricci, as well as early comic arias by Saverio Mercadante and Gaetano Donizetti. Some of these arias will be receiving their first public performance since the 19th century.
THE HEMINGS DIARY
a reading of a new play by Lucille Lichtblau
Thursday, October 23, 2014
7:30 pm
with Che Ayende, Ezra Barnes, Nurit Monacelli and Libya Pugh
directed by Melissa Maxwell
A mysterious diary found at an estate sale gives a young, mixed race couple a troubling legacy to consider; that of founding father Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings, who bore him six children.
ALBUM FOR THE NOT-SO-YOUNG
Benjamin Yarmolinsky, composer and guitarist
TUESDAY, JULY 29, 8:00 PM
Composer and guitarist Ben Yarmolinsky performs his Album for the Not-So-Young, a program of transcriptions, arrangements and variations for solo guitar, based on piano pieces by Schumann, Bartok, Stravinsky and others. Yarmolinsky has taken these familiar childhood pieces and re-imagined them in various ways, creating a nostalgic and personal musical memoir.
PROGRAM INCLUDES
From Schumann’s Album for the Young:
Melody, Soldier’s March, Humming Song, Chorale, The Poor Orphan, The Wild Horseman, Folk Song,The Reaper’s Song, First Loss, and others.
From Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood: Reverie and From Foreign Lands
Selections from Bartok’s folk song arrangements
Stravinsky’s Pour les cinq doigts
Yarmolinsky’s Farewell Variations
OBSESSION SONGS
Friday, May 23, 2014, 8:00 pm
Judith Barnes, mezzo soprano
Hayden DeWitt, mezzo soprano
Bruce Rameker, baritone
Richard Pearson Thomas, piano
A program of songs inspired by obsessive love, longing and dream states, featuring the Ossessione song cycle by Richard Pearson Thomas.
PROGRAM includes
If my complaints by John Dowland, Two songs from Dichterliebe by Robert Schumann: Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet / Allnächtlichim Traume Two songs by Franz Schubert: Gretchen am Spinnrade / Ganymed Mignon Lieder of Hugo Wolf: I. Heiss mich nicht reden / II. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt / III. So lass mich scheinen Two songs by Henri Duparc: Soupir / La manoir de Rosamonde
From Mozart by Reinaldo Hahn: Il faut que tu m’aimes, Paris!
From Chérubin by Jules Massenet: Philosophe, dis moi
Two songs by Antionio Caldara: Come raggio di sol / Sebben crudele
Per la gloria d’adorarvi by Giovanni Bononcini
Ossessione by Richard Pearson Thomas: a song cycle inspired by the “Arie Antiche” Per la gloria…come raggio di sol / O del mio dolce ardor / Sebben crudele /Amarilli / Vittoria, vittoria / Caro mio ben
SLUGGING A VAMPIRE
Beautiful and Outlandish Songs
by Charles Ives and Richard Pearson Thomas
Friday, May 9, 2014, 8:00 pm
Bruce Rameker, baritone
Richard Pearson Thomas, piano
PROGRAM includes Religion / At the River / Serenity
Slugging a Vampire / Two little flowers
The white gulls / Thoreau
and other songs by Charles Ives I never saw a moor / Jordan / Diamonds / Voyeur Spinster of Chelsea Embankment /Azulao / Poison
and other songs by Richard Pearson Thomas
BUCKY’S BACK!
Bucky and his Friends “You never know what’ll happen.”
Friday, May 16, 2014, 8:00 pm
An evening of comedy and music with Bucky and His Friends, featuring Bucky Malocchio and his adorable Buckettes with a guest appearance by Bucky’s rootin-tootin cousin Billy-Bob Hannity.
Written and performed by Isidore Elias
Evelyn Thatcher, vocals
Tiffany Stoker, vocals
Beverly Closs, piano
Lane Warren, bass
Cody Rahn, drums
IL PASTORE INNAMORATO
(the lovesick shepherd)
Friday, April 11, 2014, 8:00 pm
Hayden DeWitt, mezzo soprano
Beth Anne Hatton, soprano
Cathy Venable, piano and flute
Joseph Trent, flute
PROGRAM includes
Der Hirt auf dem Felsen by Franz Schubert Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen by Gustav Mahler
Selections from Il Re Pastore by Wolfgang A. Mozart
Selections from sonatas for two flutes by Georg Philipp Telemann
PROGRAM includes Amarilli mia bella by Giulio Caccini Mattinata by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Come raggio di sol by Antionio Caldara Il bacio by Luigi Arditi Kaddisch by Maurice Ravel Elfenlied by Hugo Wolf Allah akbar allah by Karol Symanowski Siete canciones populares Españolas by Manuel de Falla
