BabsonARTS Announces 'On The Wing: A Celebration Of Birds In Music And Spoken Word'

BabsonARTS is pleased to announce a very special presentation - On The Wing: A Celebration of Birds In Music and Spoken Word, an evening of poetry reading, music, and ornithology - everything you wanted to know about birds - on Tuesday, March 27 at the Carling-Sorenson Theater at Babson College, Forest Street, Wellesley.

Inspired by his love of nature, composer and Berklee College of Music Professor Andrew List has created a uniquely collaborative performance piece that marries music, song, poetry, and expert commentary on birds. On the Wing will showcase 12 original songs by List and features pianist George Lopez, Artist-in-Residence at Bowdoin College and mezzo-soprano Krista River. Interspersed through the song cycle will be poems written and recited by poet and Babson College English Professor Mary Pinard (who also wrote lyrics to the music) and commentary by Wayne Petersen, Mass Audubon's Director of Important Bird Areas and an expert guide.

Presented with support by the Division of Arts & Humanities.

About the Artists:

Mezzo-soprano Krista River has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Symphony, the Santa Fe Symphony, Handel & Haydn Society, the Florida Orchestra, the Charlotte Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony and the Pittsburgh Bach and Baroque Ensemble. Winner of the 2004 Concert Artists Guild International Competition and a 2007 Sullivan Foundation grant recipient, her opera roles include Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Anna in Weill's Seven Deadly Sins, Nancy in Britten's Albert Herring, and the title role in Handel's Xerxes and Bizet's Carmen. For Ms. River's New York Recital debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the New York Times praised her "shimmering voice...with the virtuosity of a violinist and the expressivity of an actress." She has performed as a guest artist at music festivals including John Harbison's Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, Monadnock Music, Music from Salem, Saco River Festival, Meeting House Music Festival on Cape Cod, and the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Maine. A contemporary music advocate, Ms. River has given premieres of new works by numerous composers; she created the role of Genevieve in Brian Hulse's chamber opera The Game at the Kennedy Center, as part of their Millennium Stage series. She resides in Boston and is a regular soloist with Emmanuel Music's renowned Bach Cantata Series.

George Sebastian Lopez, the Robert Beckwith Artist-in-Residence at Bowdoin College, has been a dynamic performer and educator for over 25 years. He is known on several continents for his thoughtful and deeply expressive performances of the standard repertoire as well as being a champion of newly-written works. He recently premiered a piano concerto composed especially for him and is comfortable in styles of music ranging from jazz and ragtime to more contemporary improvisational styles. Lopez has given recitals and performed in chamber ensembles and with orchestras in the United States, Europe, and Australia. His interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam received critical acclaim, and a Los Angeles Times critic hailed the pianist for his "...musical perspective, continuity, and kaleidoscopic colors. This year he has toured Philadelphia, New York City, the Bay Area, Seattle, Mexico and New England, as well as making his first visit to Cuba recently to give masterclasses and concerts with the Aries Trio. His "Music in the Museum" series at Bowdoin College has consistently sold out to audiences who enjoy his creative and engaging lecture recitals on the relationship of music to art and ideas. He has also taken up the baton as conductor of the Bowdoin Chamber Orchestra

Mary Pinard is a poet and Professor of English at Babson College where she teaches courses in literature and poetry in the Arts and Humanities Division. She has also served in a range of administrative positions there, including as Director of the Undergraduate Rhetoric Program, Coordinator of the Creativity Stream in the MBA Program, Writing Center Director, and Division Chair. Her poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals-including The Iowa Review, Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Georgia Review-and she has been the recipient of several national awards for her poetry. Portal, her book of poems, was published by Salmon Press. Over the last 15 years, Pinard has also collaborated with several visual artists and musicians in the Boston area, where her poems have been variously incised in glass ("Fragment House," Slocum River Reserve, Dartmouth, MA), shaped in wire ("Lineage," Old Frog Pond Farm, Harvard, MA), and adhered to an exhibit wall ("Breaking Prairie," Hollister Gallery, Babson College).

Wayne R. Petersen is an ornithologist at the Massachusetts Audubon Society where he is Director of the Massachusetts Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program. With degrees from the University of Massachusetts/Boston and Bridgewater State University, Petersen has co-authored the Birds of Massachusetts, Birds of New England, and the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas I and II, and in 2017 he wrote a Field Guide to Birds of Massachusetts. His 35 years of international bird tour leading, and his wide-ranging knowledge of the habitats, distribution, and status of the Commonwealth's bird life were recognized by the American Birding Association when he received the Ludlow Griscom Award for outstanding contributions in regional ornithology. A regional editor for the New England Christmas Bird Count and North American Birds magazine; he wrote the National Audubon Society's Pocket Guide to Songbirds and Familiar Backyard Birds (East) and contributed accounts to The Sibley Guide to Bird Life & Behavior, and Arctic Wings. He serves on the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee, and he is a member of the advisory committees of the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program and the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, as well as serving on the board of the Wildlands Trust and Bird Observer magazine.

Andrew List (Professor of Composition at Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA) composes music in many different genres, including orchestral works, string quartet, vocal, choral music, opera, music for children, solo works, and a variety of chamber ensembles. He is a graduate of New England Conservatory of Music, with B.A. and M.A. degrees in music composition. He received his DMA in composition from Boston University, where he studied with Bernard Rands, Samuel Headrick, and Nicholas Maw. Mr. List has also studied privately with Richard Danielpour. Mr. List has received numerous commissions and performances from professional music ensembles and solo artists in the North and South America and Europe. A short list includes: The Boston Classical Orchestra, Zodiac Trio, Alea III, Esterhazy Quartet, Concordia String Trio, Interensemble, Kalistos Chamber Orchestra, North-South Consonance, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. Mr. List is the composer-in-residence at the Zodiac Music Academy and Festival, in the south of France where he presents a composition class each summer. He was the first prizewinner of the Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition, Charlotte New Music Festival Composition Competition, Portland Chamber Music Festival Composition Competition, Renegade Ensemble's Composition Competition and second prize winner of The American Prize Chamber Music Division for String Quartet no. 5 "Time Cycles." In 2011 he was selected as the MTNA commissioned composer and was a finalist in both the Alea III International Composition Competition and the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Recordings of his music include his Violin Concerto recorded by Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eva Szekely, violin soloist, released on the Albany, Noa Noa, A Gauguin Tableau, commissioned and recorded by MONTAGE Music Society released on MSR Classics and Visions of the Aboriginal Dreamtime and Klezmer Fantazye recorded by Zodiac Trio released on Blue Griffin and new Andrew List: Music for Viola to be released on Centaur in 2018

BabsonARTS presents visual and performing arts events and exhibitions at the Sorenson Center for the Arts and other venues on the campus of Babson College in Wellesley, MA. Program offerings include works produced by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Babson's theater-in-residence; visiting artists, performers, and speakers; and the activities of Babson's faculty-directed student groups. The mission of BabsonARTS is to serve the educational needs of students, to provide cultural avenues to the residents of communities surrounding the campus, and to explore the connections among entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity through the arts.

For more information call 781.239.5880 or visit www.babsonarts.org.