The Music of Ricky Ian Gordon

Show Description

“If the music of Ricky Ian Gordon had to be defined by a single quality, it would be the bursting effervescence in fusing 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.”  - Stephen Holden,  New York Times 

Of Ricky Ian Gordon's latest works, the opera "The Grapes Of Wrath," (with librettist Michael Korie) was hailed as "The great American opera," in Musical America and Opera Today, and his latest musical theater work,  "Green Sneakers," was deemed a "masterpiece" in Opera Today on it's premiere this past summer. His "Orpheus and Euridice," when it premiered at Lincoln Center, won an OBIE Award.

For this evening, Mr. Gordon returns to his simple roots, not only New York City, but playing piano for singers he loves in an evening of songs, both from his theater works, his operas, his ballets, and some, just settings of American poetry.The evening features Kelli O'Hara who starred in Mr. Gordon's "My Life With Albertine," Jesse Blumberg, who was in "The Grapes Of Wrath," and for whom Mr. Gordon wrote "Green Sneakers," Elizabeth Futral, for whom Mr. Gordon wrote "Orpheus and Euridice,"  the incomparable Mary Testa, currently on Broadway in Xanadu and, Grammy nominated  clarinettist Todd Palmer, and Doug Varone.