Village Voices

Photo: Adriana Valdéz and Kitty Brazelton

For generations, many of New York’s most creative people have lived, worked and played in Greenwich Village: some briefly, like Robert Frost, others for their entire lives. Village Voices pairs their words with music, adding another dimension to the work of these innovative thinkers and experimenters.

John Cage and Henry Cowell were pioneers of the musical avant-garde, experimenting with extended techniques, indeterminacy and electro-acoustic music. Their work was controversial and ground-breaking, redefining the art of music itself. In “The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs,” Cage has the pianist perform a percussion part on the closed piano lid – on other occasions he prepared the inside of the piano with a selection of objects which altered the sound, and in the celebrated 4’33” he has the pianist sit in total silence. Cowell’s setting of “The Pasture” is relatively conservative. The story goes that Cowell left the table at a dinner party to retire to the music room and compose the song at the piano. He then performed it with one of the other dinner guests! Cowell later became notorious for his arrest on charges of homosexual conduct and was championed by the Seegers.

Ruth Crawford Seeger came to the Village to study theory and composition with Charles Seeger, whom she eventually married. The two were politically active, and the strong left-wing slant of the texts of Chinese immigrant H.T. Tsiang attracted her.

Like Cowell, black composer Margaret Bonds also felt a special affinity for the poetry of Robert Frost, and perhaps even more for that of Edna St Vincent Millay. Though separated by the color line, the two women were alike in spirit, both feminists committed to using their art to promote social justice.

Long-time East Village composer Kitty Brazelton felt a similar strong pull toward the work of black poet and playwright Angelina Weld Grimke, whose play Rachel was performed before an integrated audience in New York City’s Neighborhood Playhouse in 1917. Djuna Barnes was an author, poet and illustrator who became a fixture of Greenwich Village Bohemian society; William Anderson’s settings receive a new treatment for guitar orchestra. James Baldwin resided in the Village for most of his adult life; his themes of racial inequality and sexual identity resonated strongly with Mississippi-born Nehemiah Luckett. Poet Masha Kaléko spent much of her life as a displaced person, fleeing first war-torn Poland for Germany, then Berlin from the Nazis before immigrating to New York. Both Anderson and Jonathan Dawe found her poetry evocative and frighteningly relevant to contemporary times.

Willa Cather’s writing recalled her youth in the Prairies, but she moved to No. 5 Bank Street as a young woman and spent 14 years there. Grammy Award-winning composer Libby Larsen loves to set prose – she was attracted to the musicality, strength and rhythm of Cather’s “My Antonia.“ Tanya  Leon attended NYU for both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

The Mannes Conservatory (New School) is a relative newcomer to Greenwich Village, but is already producing young talent like pianist-composer Gavin Cappon, who studied there with composer Steven Sacco.

Sharon Harms is known for fearless performances and her passionate interpretations of new music, premiering the work of many of today’s leading composers. Cuban-born singer Adriana Valdes brings brilliant technique, gorgeous tone and a rare musical intelligence to her singing. Both Cathy Kautsky and Joan Forsyth are lovers of words and music and the magic that transpires when the two are combined.

Performers: Adriana Valdez, Sharon Harms – sopranos; Cathy Kautsky and Joan Forsyth, piano;
Village Guitar Orchestra

Composers: Henry Cowell, John Cage, Margaret Bonds, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Tania Leon, William Anderson, Jonathan Dawe, Gavin Cappon, Christine Donkin

Poets: Edna St Vincent Millay, Djuna Barnes, Robert Frost, James Baldwin, and Willer Cather