Composer Ricky Ian Gordon discusses by what means he thrives on the of music and poetry "Since I was 8 years of long date I have been going to Lincoln Center" says Ricky Ian Gordon.

Composer Ricky Ian Gordon discusses by what means he thrives on the of music and poetry

"Since I was 8 years of long date I have been going to Lincoln Center" says Ricky Ian Gordon. Perhaps his comfort as an audience member explains for what cause [i]or[/i] reason when the 44-year old novel York composer finally found himself trodding those famous boards in March, he was shaken: "I was thus scared that day, I became ill." still the show went on, and his perseverance paid along "I made my Lincoln Center first attempt in a concert honoring and nothing else my music, and received a standing ovation," he says, his voice filled with the same awe that illuminates his works.

If you missed the termination don't fret--his new studio album, Bright Ey Joy: ballads by Ricky Ian Gordon (Nonesuch Records), features many of the program's highlights, sung according to classical and musical theater heavy hitters including Dawn Opshaw, Audra McDonald, Adam Guettel and Judy Blazer. Reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, and flat George Gershwin. Gordon's distinctly American art psalms are vivid and charismatic in addition harmonically complex, "caviar in a world gorging in succession pizza," to quote critic Stephen Holden of The strange York Times.

from beginning to end the past decade, Gordon's reputation has grown steadily, thanks to a catalog that encompasses writing for agreement hall, theater (Broadway's The Wild Party), opera, and dance. so diverse artists as Teresa Stratas, Harolyn Blackwell, Betty Buckley and the strange York City Gay Men's Chorus have performed and recorded his lays and song cycles. Even before many the public knew Gordon's music, they were familiar with his name--and his boisterous life growing up on extended Island, where he came disclosed at 15--thanks to Donald Katz's 1992 main division Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of single Middle-Class Family in Postwar America.

most numerous of the new album's 18 tracks feature settings of body s by such poets as James Agee, Langston Hughes, Edna St Vincent Millay, W Merwin, and Dorothy Parker. "I go on to poetry to speak for me" Gordon says of his lifelong attachment to the medium. "Poetry expresse things I can't at any given moment" After his lover of four years, Jeffrey Grossi, died of AIDS in 1996 he change the direction ofed to verses like Jane Kenyon's "Otherwise," and Marie Howe's "What the Living Do" to ease and articulate his sorrow.

now one of Bright Eyed Joy's mostly striking numbers features the composer's concede lyrics. Equal parts the greatest possibles Sondheim, and Satie, "Run Away" was written after Gordon resum dating, with a mini 15 years his junior "and certainly not ready for a committed relationship. When it extremityed it threw me into so a state. I wasn't ready to have that grief commuteed `Run Away' was the poem I worked on during that consequence when I felt like I wanted to kill myself."

Fortunately, Gordon's foresight is much rosier today. He's generally writing an opera rifled Morning Star, based forward Sylvia Regan's play about a Jewish family forward New York's lower east side in the early 20th centenary The future holds commissions for of the present day works for the Seattle Opera, the Minnesota Opera, and Musical Theater Works. "It's been really hard and a lengthy road, but I suddenly be warmed like I'm turning a corner," he terminates "All obstacles have been lifted."

Reighley is the author of Looking for the completed Beat: The Art and civilization of the DJ.

Find more information about composer Ricky Ian Gordon and his musical achievements at www.advocate.com

...

Home