Listen: Georgia Stitt's New Album BELL TOWER Out Now

Concord Theatricals Recordings has released Georgia Stitt's Bell Tower, an album featuring twenty-six theatrical art songs performed by Broadway stars and recording artists including Kate Baldwin, Sierra Boggess, Tituss Burgess, Andrea Jones-Sojola, Marc Kudisch, Tony winner Ruthie Ann Miles, Tony winner Kelli O'Hara, two-time GRAMMY award winner Hila Plitmann, and the late Rebecca Luker.

The album takes its name from the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, set to music by Georgia Stitt for voice, piano, violin and vibraphone, here performed by soprano Hila Plitmann and nestled into the first of three collections Stitt has entitled Small Talk: A Very Short Song Cycle. Stitt collected poetry for three song cycles from sources spanning the New York City subway (Alicia Partnoy's poem “Communication,” featured in an MTA ad campaign), to poetry collections (where she found works by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Dorothy Parker, Connie Bensley, and Wendy Cope), to archival gems by Sara Teasdale, Margaret Funkhouser, Lorine Niedecker, and Georgia Douglas Johnson. Stitt commissioned additional poems from friends Faye Greenberg, Angelica Chéri, Mindi Dickstein, Anika Chapin, and Ta'Rea Campbell.  

The album also contains three songs performed and recorded by Stitt and Rebecca Luker before the celebrated soprano's passing in 2020, and a new work entitled “The Trumpet” written to merge the “trumpeting voice” of Tituss Burgess and the “actual trumpeting” of Liesl Whitaker, a Broadway musician who spent two decades playing lead trumpet for the US Army Band.  

TRACK LIST: 

1. WHAT LIPS MY LIPS HAVE KISSED (Poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay) — Rebecca Luker  

2. HUTCHINSON SONNET (Poem by Henry William Hutchinson) — Rebecca Luker  

3. WHEN I AM DEAD (Poem by Christina Rossetti) — Rebecca Luker  

4. THE TRUMPET (Poem by Edward Thomas) — Tituss Burgess  

SMALL TALK: A VERY SHORT SONG CYCLE (PART ONE) 

5. COMMUNICATION (Poem by Alicia Partnoy) — Kate Baldwin  

6. ALAN'S DEAD (Poem by Faye Greenberg) — Kate Baldwin 

7. THAT LOOK (Poem by Faye Greenberg) — Kate Baldwin  

8. WHY I AVOID EYE-CONTACT (Poem by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz) — Kate Baldwin  

9. EXTERMINATOR (Poem by Mindi Dickstein) — Kate Baldwin  

10. PERMISSIVE SOCIETY (Poem by Connie Bensley) — Kate Baldwin  

11. CENTRAL PARK AT DUSK (Poem by Sara Teasdale) — Kate Baldwin  

12. LET THIS DARKNESS BE A BELL TOWER (Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke) — Hila Plitmann  

13. LONDON (Poem by William Blake) — Marc Kudisch 

14. COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE (Poem by William Wordsworth) — Marc Kudisch 

SMALL TALK: A VERY SHORT SONG CYCLE (PART TWO) 

15. BLOODY MEN (Poem by Wendy Cope) — Ruthie Ann Miles 

16. THE TRUE NATURE OF EVIL (Poem by Anika Chapin) — Ruthie Ann Miles  

17. FROM HALCYON HALL— (Poem by Margaret Funkhouser) Ruthie Ann Miles  

18. A VERY SHORT SONG— (Poem by Dorothy Parker) Ruthie Ann Miles  

19. THE HEART OF A WOMAN— (Poem by Georgia Douglas Johnson) Ruthie Ann Miles 

20. BRIEF PASSAGE — (Poem by Sarah Ruhl) Kelli O'Hara  

21. RE-CREATION — (Poem by Jacqueline Suskin) Andrea Jones-Sojola  

SMALL TALK: A VERY SHORT SONG CYCLE (PART THREE) 

22. WHAT HORROR TO AWAKE AT NIGHT (Poem by Lorine Niedecker) — Sierra Boggess  

23. TECTONIC PLATES — (Poem by Angelica Chéri) Sierra Boggess  

24. MASKED BEHAVIOR — (Poem by Ta'Rea Campbell) Sierra Boggess  

25. SMALL TALK — (Poem by Mindi Dickstein) Sierra Boggess  

26. HOLD FAST YOUR DREAMS (Poem by Louise Driscoll) — Nikki Renée Daniels