‘The Singing Guitar,' 12 guitarists, 26 singers and a cellist, in new works by four American composers. Exploring the unique connection of voices and strings.
Listeners experience an unusual musical journey on the Delos Music recording; ‘The Singing Guitar.' Combining voices, guitars, and cello with Native American and non-native pioneer stories, it is hard to overstate the power, challenge, and difficulty of this unique collaboration that expresses these exquisitely crafted compositions by Reena Esmail, Nico Muhly, Kile Smith and Craig Hella Johnson.
On this episode of The Singing Guitar, Conspirare Company of Voices soprano - Kathlene Ritch. LISTEN
Known for her “powerful, crystal-clear voice,” Kathlene Ritch has sung with such noted ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, and the Vienna Philharmonic. She made her solo debut at Lincoln Center with the American Symphony Orchestra in Listz’s Dante’s Inferno. With that same ensemble, she recorded a live concert version of Die ägyptische Helena as Hermione opposite Deborah Voigt’s Helen. Kathlene’s true passion, musical theater, has been a lifelong pursuit. Two of her career highlights were performing Sweeney Todd at Lincoln Center, and Carousel at Carnegie Hall. Kathlene lives in Santa Fe where she teaches music and voice at the New Mexico School for the Arts, accompanies the Santa Fe High School choirs, directs the children’s choir and cantors at the Church of the Holy Faith, and is the Music Director for Tri M Productions, a non-profit organization with the mission to give local ‘Millennials’ opportunities to perform musicals at a professional level. She still loves to sing with the Grammy-winning ensemble, Conspirare, as well as the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. When she isn’t singing or playing the piano, Kathlene is also an on-air announcer for Classical 95.5 KHFM Santa Fe/Albuquerque, for which she has won a “Golden Mike” award from the New Mexico Broadcasters Association.
About the Album - The wonderful Conspirare chamber choir, known for its interpretive depth and otherworldly sonic lushness, offers another of its captivating programs-this time joined by three superb guitar quartets-in a program remarkably relevant to our time.
Conspirare's 2019 Delos album, The Hope of Loving (DE 3578), was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance in 2020. The concert version of The Singing Guitar was performed to full houses in 2019. The combination of guitar quartet and chorus is so successful it's surprising that more composers have not written for it. Four recently written compositions feature the voices of Conspirare accompanied by guitar-twelve guitars in Nico Muhly's How Little You Are, a compelling composition telling of the struggles of pioneer women. Kile Smith's The Dawn's Early Light ponders our national anthem in the writings of a Native American woman, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins. The album is rounded out with compositions by Reena Esmail and Conspirare's founder and director Craig Hella Johnson.
Music for choir and guitars with Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Texas Guitar Quartet, Austin Guitar Quartet, and cellist Douglas Harvey.
Johnson curated a program woven together by exquisitely crafted music for voices, guitar, and stories of women.
Conspirare gratefully acknowledges the following for their support of this recording: Anonymous, Dale and Tina Knobel, Legacy of Sound 2, Hella Circle, CAPTRUST: STMM, National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, City of Austin Economic Development Department, Cultural Arts Division and St. Luke's Methodist Church.
Produced by Max Horowitz - Crossover Media, This content, as well as the related podcast, are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) for redistribution and adaptation.
