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Arts & Entertainment

American Music Comes to Life

Celebrate the music of some of America's greatest songwriters, Sunday at the library.

Most people don’t necessarily think of America as having a songbook

Stefanie Watson, Rebecca Brinkley and Diana Petra think otherwise. And they’re going to prove it to you.

On Sunday, Oct. 2, at 2 p.m. at the , Brinkley and Petras, both sopranos, will be joined by Watson, an accomplished pianist, to “celebrate the music of our country during The American Songbook – Some Enchanted Afternoon.” The afternoon features the work of some of the greatest American songwriters, including George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Rodgers and Hammerstein.

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The event is free, and sponsored by the East Brunswick Art Commission and the library.

The three artists don’t all hail from the East Brunswick area, but found their way here through their art.

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“I'm originally from Southern Maryland,” said Watson, “and moved to New Jersey, specifically New Brunswick, in 2006 to attend Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts for a master's in Collaborative Piano. I now live in Highland Park, and teach piano and play piano for various choirs primarily in Hunterdon County, but also freelance throughout New Jersey, New York and Maryland. I am also music director at Emanuel Lutheran Church in New Brunswick.”

Brinkley’s hometown makes Watson’s feel like next door. “I'm originally from Ardmore, Oklahoma,” she said, “and I currently live in North Brunswick.  I moved to New Jersey in 2007 to attend graduate school at Westminster Choir College of Rider University and received a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy in 2009.  Most of my professional work has taken place in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.”

Petras splits the difference, distance wise. "I am originally from the Pittsburgh area, but I've lived near Princeton for the past six years,” she said. “I earned my master's in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College in 2007 and decided to stay in the area due to the rich musical community and also nearby family and friends.  Most of my professional work takes place near Princeton and in northern New Jersey where I perform and teach voice lessons.  I'm also on the adjunct faculty of Princeton Day School and The Peddie School.”

While all three live in New Jersey, two of them still had to travel across the country to meet.

“Rebecca and I met at a summer music program in California in June 2010,” Watson said. “During which we didn't work together extensively, but discovered that we lived quite close to one another and agreed to collaborate once we returned to the East Coast. To that end, the three of us were fortunate to perform a recital together in November 2010 at Kingston Presbyterian Church. Diana and I met through Rebecca, first collaborating for the concert in Kingston.”

“We put on another recital last fall in Kingston and had such a wonderful time collaborating with each other,” said Petra. “It is rare that three women get to perform together, let alone two sopranos in the same concert!  I also think the three of us have a found a good rhythm in which we all bring out our individuality as performers, while still making a cohesive whole.”

This concert led directly to their upcoming appearance in East Brunswick. “We were asked to perform on the East Brunswick Arts Council's concert series after a member, Bunny Gittleman, came to our recital last November,” said Brinkley “Needless to say, we were very excited and flattered to receive this offer.  It's very affirming to receive interest for future engagements based on a performance that someone attended...it really makes you feel like you must be communicating with the audience and offering something that interests people. ”

Other artists represented in the production include Rodgers & Hart, Irving Berlin, Aaron Copland, Jake Heggie (a contemporary composer from California), Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Jule Styne and Fats Waller. “For the most part, we each selected our own repertoire and then bounced the ideas off one another to make sure everything would fit together to form a coherent finished product,” said Watson. “We wanted to choose music that was both accessible to a broad audience but still hopefully would introduce them to some new repertoire.”

If you really want to stump the three artists, though, ask them which piece in the program is their favorite.

“Such a tough question to answer!” said Watson. “ 'My House’ from Leonard Bernstein's 'Peter Pan,' which Rebecca sings, is something I didn't know until we began working on it over the summer, and I have subsequently fallen in love with it; it's so beautiful, both musically and textually.”

Brinkley concurs. “I love ‘My House’,” she said, “because the words and melody are simple and express a beautiful sentiment that I think anyone can relate to.  Also, I am singing Aaron Copland's arrangement of the folk song 'Little Horses'and I love it because I had a picture book of the poem that the song uses when I was a child that I loved to look at and Copland's arrangement is beautiful.”

As for Petras, it’s sharing the stage that excites her. “We're very excited to do some fun duets in this concert,” she said. “I always leap at the chance to sing some harmony. It's my secret dream to be a mezzo!  I'm personally looking forward to ‘Anything You Can Do’ because it gives us all the opportunity to let our hair down and really be silly on stage.  I love to entertain.  From my solo sets, I have fallen in love with ‘Foolish Heart’ from 'One Touch of Venus,' and I always have such a blast performing ‘I'm a Stranger Here Myself’ with Stefanie. We really dig our heels into that one!”

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