Beauty Intolerable: Songs of Sheila Silver, a 2 CD album, has just been released by Albany (TROY1854-55). To buy, go to your usual online sources or click below.
Photo of Edna St. Vincent Millay courtesy of The Millay Society.
THE MUSICIANS
| SINGERS | PIANISTS |
| STEPHANIE BLYTHE | CHIRSTOPHER COOLEY |
| LUCY FITZ GIBBON | KAYO IWAMA |
| RISA RENAE HARMAN | WARREN JONES |
| DEANNE MEEK | GILBERT KALISH |
| SIDNEY OUTLAW | TIMOTHY LONG |
| DAWN UPSHAW | RYAN McCULLOUGH |
THE MUSIC
The title of the double album comes from the lead work, Beauty Intolerable, A Songbook based on the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, (composed 2010-13) which contains 14 solo songs and 2 vocal trios. The singers are: Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano; Risa Renae Harman, soprano; Dawn Upshaw, soprano; Deanne Meek, mezzo soprano. The pianists are: Christopher Cooley, Kayo Iwama, Gilbert Kalish, Timothy Long, and Ryan MacEvoy McCullough.
On Loving, Three Songs for Diane Kalish in memoriam, (2011-15), written for Dawn Upshaw, soprano, and Gilbert Kalish, piano, with texts by Shakespeare, Millay, and Khalil Gibran.
Transcending, Three Songs for Michael Dash, in memoriam, (1995) performed by Sidney Outlaw, baritone, and Warren Jones, piano, with texts by Yeats, H.S. Thoreau, and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Nocturne, for solo piano, written for Gilbert Kalish’s 2015 Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center recital.
Chariessa, A Cycle of Six Songs on Fragments from Sappho, (1978), performed by Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano, and Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, piano.
Four Songs from the Beauty Intolerable Songbook, arranged for contralto Stephanie Blythe and performed by Ms. Blythe and Kayo Iwama, piano. More than just a transposition — they offer a varied rendition of the original settings.
To learn more about Edna St. Vincent Millay, CLICK HERE.
(Click on Notes Tab)
To buy sheet music, Click Here
We had a fabulous ZOOM RELEASE PARTY on March 6, 2021. Here is the video from the party.
PHOTO GALLERY
We began recording the album at Bard College’s beautiful Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center in September 2019. A year later we completed the recording (during COVID-19) in September 2020 at the Morgan Library’s fabulous Gilder Lehrman Hall. Judith Sherman and Gene Velonis produced, recorded and edited.
Gilbert Kalish, Sheila Silver
