Find Your Voice

“When your soul is singing in joy then you know you are doing it right.” Abira Mukherjee

This spring there are many opportunities for you to work on your vocal skills, expand your repertoire, and work with professionals.

Wesleyan University Center for the Arts will be offering Living in Song residency with Dr. Nitanju Bolade Casel, Dr. M. Louise Rovinson and Dr. Shirley Mary Childress.  Each of the three workshops will have a specific focus and attendance at all sessions is strongly recommended.

The Vocal Movement Experience
: Dr. Nitanju Bolade Casel is a composer, dancer, cultural organizer, teacher, author, producer, arranger, and singer in the nationally acclaimed a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. "The Vocal Movement Experience" will focus on breath as the foundation for creating a unique vocal experience. Breathing is a common denominator inclusive of all humankind, regardlessliving of race, culture, age, gender, physical ability, or social status. Beginning with a basic physical warm-up and vocalizing exercises, participants will establish a repertoire of movement that will serve as the catalyst to create the sound. Each movement has at its core a breathing technique upon which a chorus of sound will be built.
The Rhythm Ring
: Dr. M. Louise Robinson is an actress, musician, composer, producer, arranger, author, teacher, and singer in the nationally acclaimed a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock. "The Rhythm Ring" is for all who enjoy singing. The workshop will create a musical conversation in the oral tradition of call and response. Through poetry, spoken word, storytelling, rhythm, and harmony, participants will come together and sing songs of change, challenge, celebration, peace, protest, and triumph. All that is required is the desire to explore and play.


Songs in the Way of Hand: 
Dr. Shirley Mary Childress is a skilled professional sign language interpreter and teacher who has interpreted for such stellar writers as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker, and is the sign language interpreter for the nationally acclaimed a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.
Songs in the Way of Hand invites people--deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing--to cultivate the art of signing songs in American Sign Language. Using demonstration, lecture and active group participation, the workshop will consider how music and singing is integral to the culture and lives of many people. Participants will develop techniques to help render visually the emotional, lyrical, and rhythmic nature of singing--culminating in an enhanced stage presence, and a conveyance of the total message of a song.
Each of these three simultaneous workshops are three days per week for three weeks. Attendance at all nine workshop sessions is preferred. Registration required, limited availability. Please call or visit the Wesleyan University Box Office at 860-685-3355. For more details, please e-mail boxoffice@wesleyan.edu.


Greater New Haven Community Chorus also has an exciting list of workshops happening this spring and into the early summer. All workshops in this series will require pre-registration in order to provide comfortable accomodations and have the necessary materials available on the evening of the workshop.  Participants who prefer not to register online with credit card information may send an email to info@gnhcc.org. Please include your name and the workshop(s) you wish to attend.  We will accept cash or a check made out to GNHCC for the member/non-member fee on the evening of the workshop at the check-in table.

Workshop I: Ritmica:  A Unique Approach to Rhythm is scheduled for April 2 at Hamden Middle School.

A great rhythm training opportunity for singers!
•    Develop a deeper concept of rhythm as a musical and choral element
•    Overcome arithmetical challenges and counting to something that is more melodic and intuitive
•    Explore the application of various types of rhythmic exercises
•    Increase your ability to concentrate while improving inner discipline
•    Improve your flexibility to feel rhythm and to internalize it in a deeper way

Chelsea Tinsler, workshop leader, has a wide variety of musical interests, having studied classical percussion, contemporary and chamber music, drum-set, steel drums, Brazilian percussion, jazz vibraphone, Middle Eastern frame drumming, and West African percussion. Chelsea freelances throughout the Connecticut area, including performances with the New Britain Symphony, Nutmeg Symphony, Valley Swing Shift Big Band, musical theater pit orchestras, and steel drum bands. She has also had the opportunity to play at venues such as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. In January 2013, Chelsea participated in a three-week residency in Ghana, Africa studying gyill, Kpanlogo, Kete, and Ewe drumming. She is the percussion manager for the Hartt Community Division’s Greater Hartford Youth Wind Ensemble and Connecticut Youth Symphony, and previously served as the percussion ensemble director at the Renbrook School in West Hartford, Connecticut. Chelsea is currently completing her B.M. in percussion performance and music education at The Hartt School, University of Hartford as a student of Benjamin Toth. For information and additional workshops click here.

Shoreline Soul

Shoreline Soul is back after a one-year hiatus while Music Director, Angela Clemmons, was on tour with The Rascals.

“Shoreline Soul” is a community choral gospel workshop directed by professional jingle and background singer, Angela Clemmons, of Madison, CT. The daughter of a Pentecostal preacher, Angela grew up singing and teaching gospel and wanted to share this uplifting, fun, spirited music on the Shoreline. Participants of all levels register for the five-week workshop, rehearsing on Monday nights for 2 hours. The five 2-hour workshop sessions will culminate in a hand-clapping, foot-stomping concert, where the participants perform the traditional and contemporary gospel songs they’ve learned at a free concert open to the public. Normally, there are two workshops per year, in the Spring and Fall at the First Congregational Church in Madison.

“Our weekly sessions are upbeat, fun and very user-friendly,” Angela says. “No one needs to know how to read music. All songs are taught by ear and everyone is given a practice CD. Because it’s all about the music and not a church service, we get singers from all faiths and even the faith-less. It works well. It’s amazing how much the choir learns and how confident they become in five short weeks, particularly when many have never sung gospel before.”

The spring workshops are on Monday evenings from 6:45 – 8:45pm at the First Congregational Church on the Green in Madison.  Dates are April 21, 28, May 5, 12, 19.  The concert will take place on Sunday, June 1.

If you’re interested in participating in a future Shoreline Soul gospel workshop, you may contact Angela at shorelinesoul@comcast.net or 203-245-6944.

Essex Winter Series presents the 2014 Stu Ingersoll Jazz Concert Celebrating “Fats” Waller With Jeff Barnhart and His Hot Rhythm

Jeff Barnhart and His Hot Rhythm will celebrate the rollicking jazz style of one of America’s greatest musicians and entertainers, the legendary Thomas “Fats” Waller, on the Essex Winter Series on Sunday,  March 2 at 3 pm. Waller is known not only for his timeless compositions such as “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” and “Twelfth Street Rag,” but also for his exuberant and often irreverent style. The charismatic Jeff Barnhart, on piano and vocals, captures Waller’s spirit in live performance with his band of top-flight musicians, including Gordon Au on trumpet; Dan Levinson on clarinet and sax; Bob Barta on guitar, banjo, and vocals; Vince Giordano on bass, tuba, bass sax, and vocals; and Kevin Dorn on drums.

“I am very excited to be bringing the music of Fats Waller to the series this winter,” says Jeff Barnhart.  “Part of my enthusiasm derives from the inclusion of brilliant musicians whose virtuosity and dedication have led them to a deep understanding of Waller's ebullient small-group swing.  Fats was everyone's musician; even people who claim not to like jazz find themselves with smiles on their faces and a beat in their feet when they encounter his approachable, joyous music.”

The Stu Ingersoll Jazz Concert, the third of the EWS 2014 season, will take place at John Winthrop Middle School in Deep River, Connecticut. Tickets, all general admission, are $30 ($12 for students) and may be purchased online at www.essexwinterseries.com or by phone at 860-272-4572. The Concert is sponsored by the Clark Group and Tower Laboratories.
About Fats Waller

Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904-1943) occupies a unique place in America's musical history. He was a wildly inventive, completely undisciplined man whose natural gifts as a pianist and entertainer joined forces with the burgeoning media of radio to make him a national star by the early 1930s. Larger than life in every way imaginable, Fats was rarely given his due as a serious virtuoso of the piano. His onstage and offstage shenanigans and irreverent recordings stood in the way of his composing longer, more serious works. Only in his rare dark moments did Fats lament this situation; he loved being the entertaining musical cut-up and his legion audiences demanded him just that way. His hundreds of recordings and compositions are treasured to this day and his music will forever be sought out by those craving hot jazz, swing and plenty of melody.

Wind on the Water ~ A Birthday Celebration

The New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s (NHSO) 120th season continues with an exciting celebration!  In honor of composer Augusta Read Thomas’s 50th birthday, Music Director William Boughton conducts Wind on the Water on Thursday, February 27 at 7:30pm at Woolsey Hall in New Haven.

The NHSO is giving Ms. Read Thomas a special birthday gift: the world premiere of her Saxophone Concerto performed by Frederick Hemke, famed teacher of international recording star David Sanborn.  The concerto, which Ms. Thomas calls “Prisms of Light”, captures in sound distinct aspects of a ray of light and also incorporates the jazzy rhythms that fill the saxophone repertoire.

Joining the Symphony are an internationally acclaimed diva and a hometown choir.  Soprano Tony Arnold is soloist for Absolute Ocean, a work for orchestra, harp, and soprano set to poems by E.E. Cummings. The Elm City Girls’ Choir performs Two E.E. Cummings Songs.  The program is rounded out by Maurice Ravel’s Mother Goose, inspired by a seventeenth-century collection of European fairy tales by Charles Perrault entitled Contes de ma mère l’oye (“Mother Goose Stories”).  Each Augusta Read Thomas piece is being recorded for commercial release on Nimbus Records.

AUGUSTA READ THOMAS is the pre-eminent female composer of her generation.  She is a University Professor at the University of Chicago and was the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997-2006.  In 2007, her Astral Canticle was one of the two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music.  In May 2009, she was elected to membership by The American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has been on the Board of Directors of the American Music Center since 2000, serving as Chair of the Board from 2005-2008.  Ms. Thomas is a passionate and devoted teacher, currently serving on the Dean's Music Advisory Board at Northwestern University.  She inaugurated the NHSO’s Young Composer Project and each of her students was admitted to a conservator or university composition program.  Ms. Thomas recently had four major world premieres: Cello Concerto No. 3 (March 2013), Harvest Drum (December 2012), Resounding Earth (September 2012), and Earth Echoes (October 2012).


Tickets for the performance at Woolsey Hall ($15-69) can be purchased at 203.865.0831 x10 or www.NewHavenSymphony.org.  KidTix are free for children up to age 18 with a paying adult. Blue Star tickets are free for the families of active duty military.
 
FREDERICK HEMKE began studies with Marcel Mule in September 1955 at the Paris Conservatoire National de Musique et de Declamation in Paris, France.  He earned the Premier Prix in 1956, becoming the first ever American saxophonist to earn this distinction.  Since 1962, Dr. Hemke has been Professor of Saxophone at the Northwestern University School of Music in Evanston, Illinois, where he currently serves as the Louis and Elsie Snydacker Eckstein Professor of Music and Associate Dean of the School of Music.  He has also served as President of the North American Saxophone Alliance, from which he was awarded Honorary Life Membership.  Dr. Hemke has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Northwestern University Wind Ensemble, and the Kronos Quartet, among others.  Augusta Read Thomas’s Saxophone Concerto was commissioned in his honor, but his students, several of whom are full time musicians in the New Haven region.

TONY ARNOLD has been hailed by the New York Times as “a bold, powerful interpreter”.  She is recognized internationally as a leading proponent of new music in concert and recording, praised for her sparkling and insightful performances of the most daunting contemporary scores.  Since becoming the first-prize laureate of the both the 2001 Gaudeamus International Competition (NL) and the 2001 Louise D. McMahon Competition (USA), Ms. Arnold has collaborated with the most cutting-edge composers and instrumentalists on the world stage, receiving consistent critical accolades for a voice of beauty and warmth, an uncanny technical facility, sterling musicianship, and her riveting stage presence. “Simply put, she is a rock-star in this genre” (Sequenza 21.

ELM CITY GIRLS’ CHOIR, founded in 1993, has received national recognition and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Walt Disney World.  The Choir has performed with many outstanding choral groups, including The American Boychoir, CONCORA, New York Virtuoso Singers, and Yale Schola Cantorum, and with professional orchestras including the Boston Philharmonic, New Haven Symphony, and Moscow State Orchestra.  Based in New Haven,  ECGC has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe, and has appeared on national television performing with Diana Ross at the women's finals match of the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament.  The Elm City Girls’ Choir is open by invitation to choristers who have sung in the United Girls’ Choir for at least one year.

Ticket to Ride

On Feb. 9, 1964, The Beatles made their first live U.S. television appearance. More than 70 million Americans gathered around their televisions to watch four young men from Liverpool make history. Now some 50 years later, the Kate welcomes its first Beatles tribute band to the stage. Four talented musicians recreate the Beatles sound and harmonies in the original key with the Beatles famous guitar and drum arsenal. Sure the wigs look goofy, but so did the boys' haircuts. Get your tickets here and commemorate a television anniversary that changed the world.

Oh, What a Night!

Shoreline Arts Alliance celebrated it's 2nd annual Mardi Gras Gala ~ laissex les bon temps rouler ~ on Saturday night at Saybrook Point Inn.  Guests were masked, bedecked with strands of beads, and strolling through the French Quarter led by our Royal Court. Senator Art Linares performed the duties as the Captain for the night and Jocelyn Maminta, Medical Reporter for WTNH and Kevin Walsh, Vice-President of Development for Yale-New Haven Hospital were the 2014 King and Queen.  In between posing on the red carpet (photos by Judy Barbosa), dancing to Bourbon Street style jazz provided by Galvanized Jazz Band and dining on New Orleans inspired cuising we successfully raised funds to support our scholarships, programs and services.
We want to thank the 125 guests who joined us for the evening to support our mission to educate, encourage, enrich and engage our community through arts, culture and heritage.  Additionally, this evening would not have been possible without our sponsors including: Sennheiser Electronic Corporation who not only proivde Shoreline Arts Alliance major organizational support but also installed the sound system for the evening's festivities.  Other sponsorship support was provided by Guilford Savings Bank, ARIA-Asset & Retirement Investment Associates, Sally Scott Interior Design, Shore Publishing, LLC, The Day, Royal Printing Service, Magenta Simply Brilliant Events, CT Office of the Arts, Vein Centers of Southern Connecticut, Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, Morningside Productions, Paul Cleary, Jacqueline Hubbard and Norman Needleman.  A special thanks to all of our auction donors, who are listed on our web site and to the more than 20 volunteers who organized and oversaw this beautiful, fun-filled evening.  
We look forward to Mardi Gras 2015 and hope to see you there!

Madison Art Society Presents Two Special Programs in February

A critique of artwork in the Madison Art Society Member's exhibit at the Scranton Library, 801 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT will take place on Sunday February 16 from 1:30-3:30 p.m.  The critique will be conducted by award winning artist and distinguished teacher Frank Federico.  Members volunteer works for review and critique thereby offering artists and non artists a unique learning opportunity. As Mr. Federico shares his response to selected works, members and the public gain insight into how a respected artist assesses the artistic elements of composition, color, light, texture and form.

Mr. Federico is the recipient of many well earned honors and awards.  He is a Master Pastelist in the Pastel Society of America and in 2012 was elected to the the PSA Hall of Fame.  He holds signature memberships in numerous art societies including the Connecticut Pastel society, Degas Pastel Society, National Watercolor Society and The National Society of Painters in Casein and Acrylic.  He conducts workshops domestically and abroad and is a sought after instructor. 

The Madison Art Society Member's Show is on exhibit February 2-28 in the community room.

 The Madison Art Society will present a lecture on Robert Henri: Dark Shadows on February 19, 2014, 6:30 - 8 p.m. at the Scranton Memorial Library, 801 Boston Post Road, Madison, CT.  The guest lecturer is noted educator at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Fred Biamonte.
Robert Henri, the leader of the "The Eight," was not only a prolific painter but also a highly respected teacher. He taught his students to ignore prevailing styles such as Impressionism and Academism. He preached tonality rather than colorist styles, and a technique of painting quickly, in a slashing manner, to capture the strength of the moment. His personal life was filled with secrets that were not revealed until after his death.  Psychobiographer Fred Biamonte will share with you some of his secrets.
Mr. Biamonte has given talks on more than thirty-five American and European artists, including Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Claude Monet, Norman Rockwell, John Singer Sargent, Henri Toulouse Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh, and Andrew Wyeth. He previously taught organization behavior at New York University and in the Graduate School at Pace University. He is an educator at the New Britain Museum of American Art.

Call for Photographic Artists

                                                      Posing in Yellow                                         Paul Beckman
Shoreline Arts Alliance will be hosting the 33rd annual IMAGES photography competition and exhibition at the Guilford Art Center, 411 Church Street, Guilford CT.  This is a Call for Photographic Artists to submit portfolios on any of the following dates and times: Friday, March 28, 4pm - 8pm; Saturday and Sunday, March 29 & 30, 10am - 4pm.  Portfolios may also be mailed to Shoreline Arts Alliance but must be received by Thursday, March 27.  Guidelines and submission information and forms may be downloaded from our website.  This year's photograph for posters and other marketing efforts is titled Posing in Yellow by Paul Beckman of Madison, CT.  This was one of the photographs exhibited during IMAGES 2013.  The poster and Call for Entry design for IMAGES 2014 have been generously donated by Chris Hyde and Lane Cooper of Cipher Creative Group.

IMAGES celebrates the art of photography in its man aspects, formats and technologies and encourages excellence among photographic artists. IMAGES is the oldest annual, statewide, professionally juried competition and exhibition open to all Connecticut photographers. All photographers with a passion and dedication to photography as an art form are invited to submit work for consideration by a distinguished panel of professionals. Judges for this annual competition bring varying areas of expertise to the review of photography and have included educators, curators, photographers, critics and gallery owners.

This year's panel of distinguished jurors include: Adriana Teresa Letourney, Co-founder and Creative Director of FotoVisura, Inc.; William Meyers, Photographer and Writer on Photography who has regularly written for The Wall Street Journal; and Steve Smith, Associate Professor of Photography at Rhode Island School of Design.  Jurying Day is March 31 and the panel of judges will spend the entire day carefully reviewing and discussing the works of art submitted for this competition and selecting the works that will be on display and selecting the award winners for IMAGES 2014.  Four First Honors winners are selected and receive a $500 cash award.  Jurors may also choose to recognize other photographers with Honorable Mention.  One photographer is awarded the Ann Christensen cash prize of $250.

Ann Christensen (1925-2010) was Executive Director of Shoreline Arts Alliance from 1982 – 1994. Through IMAGES, which she was involved with from its inception and oversaw during her tenure, she became a true aficionado of fine art photography.  The only thing that Ann loved more than the photographs in IMAGES was the photographers that she came to know and nurture over the years.  Through her influence, photography throughout Connecticut was deeply enhanced.  In fact, many photographers since the early years have worked on and participated in IMAGES, in no small measure because of their fondness for Ann.  She knew the power of photography and specified that she would like this award to be given for a photograph that has lasting impact on the viewer.
For Guidelines and Call for Entry click here.  For questions email donita@shorelinearts.org.