Album DescriptionThis project is about exploring and expanding the vocabulary of musical story telling: Stories as words, as music, as theater. And that?s exactly what the songs in "An American Song Album" are: musical stories. A special feature of the CD is an enhanced CD that can be played in the CD-ROM drive of your computer. The enhanced CD traces those roots and illumines the musical stories with more stories about the lives that created them. The songs are intriguing. They originally sprang from the lives and heritage of the Scotts Irish immigrants to the US and their descendants, and are part of the heritage of the performers themselves. EDWARD BARNES is a composer-librettist of more than 15 works of opera/musical theater. His first opera, "Feathertop," was written when he was 19 years old and won him national acclaim when produced in New York by the American Opera Association at Lincoln Center. KATE PETERS is a singer/actor/violinist with a life-long career in musical theater, classical music, and cabaret. She has appeared in numerous regional musical theatrical productions, recordings for the Musical Heritage Society, and in concerts and recitals, many with Barnes at the piano. She has premiered more than 30 works of new classical music. Edward and Kate are founding members, along with choreographer, Kimi Okada, of The Metro Ensemble, a music-theatre ensemble. For them, Edward created "The Bones of Love," and "Old Aunt Dinah?s Sure Guide To Dreams and Lucky Numbers," produced in conjunction with the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia. Other projects together include the music theater piece, "The Vagabond Queen", also available through MMB Music. All of the songs are based on traditional American folk tunes-- Appalachian ballads, cowboy songs, and gold-rush and railroad melodies-- though that is just the starting point. The combination of dramatic, new music and lyrics, with traditional music and lyrics makes this album a fresh and exciting listening experience.
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1