Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/28/2019
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Location
Cotuit Center for the Arts
Category(ies)
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Sing Sistah Sing! is the first work conceived and written by internationally renowned mezzo soprano Andrea Baker. Andrea began her operatic career with the San Francisco Opera, and now resides in Scotland. The show is both a celebration of the sound and extraordinary breadth of the African American female voice, and a heartfelt retelling of some of their most incredible life stories.
Sing Sistah Sing! brilliantly weaves together these women’s brave struggles both in the civil rights movement and in their fight for artistic freedom both at home and abroad. Some have chosen opera, jazz or blues to express themselves. Celebrated artists include Leontyne Price, Marian Anderson, Donna Summer, Nina Simone and Billie Holiday.
About the Artists
Andrea Baker, herself an artistic trailblazer, is the first African American to sing Fricka, Waltraute, Erda and 2nd Norn in Wagner’s great Ring Cycle in the Chinese premiere of the work at the Beijing Arts Festival, the first African American Carmen in Australia at the Sydney Opera House and the first African American to sing the role of Ortrud in the South Korean premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Daegu Opera Festival.
With Sing Sistah Sing! Andrea Baker tells her own deeply personal story and pays joyful, soulful and varied musical homage to many of the women who courageously paved the way. Andrea began to discover that their stories were also her story and that she too would continue to lay the path for the next generation.
Andrea is joined by one of three award winning pianists (based on availability) Richard Lewis of Scotland, Albert Horne of South Africa and Peter Maleitzke of the United States of America.
A mezzo with a sublime voice
– Sydney Morning HeraldBaker captivates and thrills the senses
– Liverpool Sound and VisionPick of the Fringe
– The Times
Peter Maleitzke is a nationally recognized singing teacher. His students include Tony Award winners, Broadway and national tour performers, principals in international opera houses and international pop sensations, and cabaret and recording artists. In 2007 alone, Maleitzke’s studio was represented by actors starring and singing in three major release motion pictures. His students have also been frequent competition finalists and are regularly accepted into prestigious music festivals and training programs.
Maleitzke has most recently reunited with former studio member, Andrea Baker, as her North American collaborator with concerts of Sing Sister! Sing! This production, also written by Ms. Baker, recently was awarded Editors Pick of the Fringe by Three Weeks Magazine, arranged, and performed on a CD, Invitation To Dream, which was released in November. Last summer he began working with Tan Jing, one of China’s most successful and respected singers, to begin developing and recording material for international audiences. In the last several years, Maleitzke helped to develop Rivets, a new musical about the World War II home front soldiers in the Bay Area. He taught “Art Song and Acting” at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and he was Music Director of a pre-Broadway workshop of The Geeks. These projects overlapped with his work as Musical Director of the first San Francisco performances of Adam Guettel’s Myths and Hymns and the completion of an eleven-year residence at the American Conservatory Theater as Associate Artist, Music Director and Master Singing Teacher in the M.F.A. program.
Image: Mezzo-Soprano Andrea Baker in Sing Sistah Sing! / Photo: John Need