Search - Patrice Michaels;Kuang-Hao Huang :: Notorious RBG in Song

Soprano Patrice Michaels, a formidable interpretative talent (The New Yorker), and collaborative pianist extraordinaire Kuang-Hao Huang offer Notorious RBG in Song, an album of world-premiere recordings saluting the life and work of legal pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg in celebration of her completion of 25 years on the United States Supreme Court. Ginsburg, a longtime crusader for equal rights, has become a pop culture icon known as Notorious RBG. Michaels, a vocalist of spectacular and diverse gifts (Journal of Singing) is also a gifted composer. Her nine-song cycle, The Long View , illuminates key aspects of Justice Ginsburg s personal and professional life through letters, remembrances, conversations, and even Court opinions. The album concludes with songs by American composer Stacy Garrop, winner of many prestigious awards and commissions; JUNO Award-winning Canadian composer Vivian Fung; prolific art-song composer Lori Laitman; and an aria from Derrick Wang s new comic opera, Scalia/Ginsburg. American composer Stacy Garrop, recipient of many prestigious awards and commissions, based her deeply moving My Dearest Ruth on the farewell love letter the Justice s husband, Georgetown University law professor Martin Ginsburg, wrote shortly before his death in 2010. The aria You are Searching in Vain for a Bright-Line Solution, from Derrick Wang s opera Scalia/Ginsburg, which captured widespread media attention, crystallizes Justice Ginsburg s views on interpreting the U.S. Constitution. JUNO Award-winning Canadian composer Vivian Fung s humorous Pot Roast à la RBG provides directions for preparing the beef dish, using Justice Ginsburg s own words as related in the text by daughter Jane Ginsburg. Prolific art-song composer Lori Laitman s setting of the Emily Dickinson poem Wider than the Sky wasn t written with Ginsburg in mind, but it was performed at her 80th birthday celebration because it perfectly embodied her intellectual breadth.