Ricky Ian Gordon's GREEN SNEAKERS Plays Lincoln Center, 4/6

Ricky Ian Gordon: Green Sneakers, for Baritone, String Quartet, Empty Chair, and Piano (sung by Jesse Blumberg).

Ricky Ian Gordon is an American composer of songs, stage musicals and opera. His compositions have been presented twice before in American Songbook: Bright Eyed Joy in 2002 and the world premiere of Orpheus & Euridice in 2005, which won an OBIE Award. The New York Times defines Gordon's music by a single quality-"the bursting effervescence infusing songs that blithely blur the lines between art song and the high-end Broadway music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim." Among his many works are Sycamore Trees (a musical), The Grapes of Wrath (a full-scale opera), and Green Sneakers, a theatrical song cycle based on a series of poems that Gordon wrote after the death of his long-time partner. The music will be played by the acclaimed Voxare String Quartet, and it will feature baritone Jesse Blumberg, who previously worked with Gordon when he played Connie Rivers in The Grapes of Wrath. According to Opera Today, wherein Green Sneakers was called, a "Masterpiece," Gordon, who had noted Blumberg's artistry, charisma, honesty and simplicity as a performer, knew that Blumberg would be the perfect vocalist for Green Sneakers.

Tickets start at $25