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Friday May 29, 2015 at 8 pm
Tickets: $30 / $20 Seniors & Students
For reservations please write info@gallery345.com
Singing the songs of seven of her contemporaries (including herself as an improvising composer), Ms. Garrison will explore the rich complexity of voices and perspectives of some of the most brilliant composers in her musical village. “We must encourage each other to create songs in response to all the myriad inspirations in our current world as we each perceive it… Life, ideas, feelings, people, Nature. That is how the collective culture that represents our time and place is born and then nurtured”, says the singer.
The composers that have written pieces for Ali and this concert, include Seattle Pacific University professor, composer, gospel/jazz vocalist, and worship leader, Stephen Michael Newby; Director of Music at Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, pianist and composer, Maria Isabel Ciudad-Real; American conductor and composer, Kevin McMahon; Toronto guitarist, teacher and composer ,William Beauvais; and Ryan Billington, Canadian conductor, arranger, improvisera teacher seductor and Composer, and voice faculty at St. Francis Xavier. Finally, improvisational co-composers, Downeast Maine pianist, Nancy Bennet and Ali Garrison created a song cycle which will be performed as a written transcription of the original improvisation.
Adding to the evening’s new music feast are three noteworthy performers. Concert and collaborative pianist Joy Lee, brings her passionate genius via University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and The Nathaniel Dett Chorale. Guitarist, William Beauvais and pianist Ryan Billington, will each perform with Ali on their own compositions.
Biography
Known as a powerful singer who “embodies the soul projected through her voice” and “palpably lives the sound”, American-born, Toronto-raised mezzo-soprano Alexandra “Ali” Garrison, dares to sing many styles of great music from around our dear planet. A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Music Vocal Performance Program, she has performed a huge variety of operatic/theatrical roles with regional companies and is a frequent concert soloist with numerous ensembles and choirs in Canada and the U.S. She especially enjoys working in tandem with artists, improvisers and composers to foster new works and promote music for a more harmonious world. She has had many works composed specifically for her by numerous composers.
Ali is a proud founding alumnus and soloist with the renowned Nathaniel Dett Chorale, and as such, toured extensively, performing for such luminaries as Nelson Mandela and Graca Machel, Muhammad Ali, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Jesse Norman, Kathleen Battle, Stephen Lewis and was privileged to be Canada’s “gift” to President Obama’s 2009 Inauguration festivities. It was for this trail-blazing ensemble that she co-wrote the education series, Canaan Lan’ and was on faculty for their Youth Training Program. She currently also mentors youth singers in the Regent Park area. Ms. Garrison has been teaching voice privately for eighteen years, leading and facilitating groups in, and writing about, the following areas: voice and body work for both ensemble singers and soloists; freeing our imaginations and our sound; the intersection of creativity, art and philosophy; free musical improvisation; advocacy for the arts and social justice.
She is a member of ACTRA, and a Gemini Nominee. Currently, Ms.Garrison leads the “Why the Sea is Salty Project”, an interdisciplinary collaboration of four female artists making works for a mythic extravaganza. For her 50th birthday earlier this year, Ali decided, after singing on everyone else’s recordings for years, that it was high time to produce her own first solo EP, entitled, Ali Garrison Sings Michel Legrand: The Summer Knows, with Danny McErlain, pianist. Visit iTunes to purchase and listen to her EP.
www.aligarrison.com
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