By POSTPONED
Maria Ferrante & Ivan Gusev at the Stone Church
Friends of the Stone Church will present brilliant soprano Maria Ferrante and pianist Ivan Gusev in Americana – Songs We Love AT A LATER DATE at the Stone Church. New England audiences know Maria Ferrante’s live performances and recordings well and are deeply fond of her. Ivan Gusev, who will play the Stone Church’s ‘new’ 1907 Chickering, has won international awards for his sensitive and dynamic interpretations. They will collaborate with a number of up-and-coming young singers.
Admission is $15. Purchase tickets at the door with cash or credit card. Our traditional, opulent FOSC reception follows the concert.
Performers • Maria Ferrante, who cast this program to showcase and complement her fellow performers, is equally at home on opera and concert stages. She has been praised for her ‘combination of delicacy and intensity…her honesty, imagination, and investment” in her roles. She has recorded and performed with acclaimed conductors, orchestras, and instrumentalists, and with the Boston Ballet. Among her classic roles are Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, she has premiered many new works, and she has collaborated with former U.S. Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur. Rave reviews have greeted at least one of her albums, Sea Tides and Time. • Ivan Gusev has performed extensively in Russia, Europe, and the U.S. He is a winner of the 3rd Gershwin International Music Competition (2017), a prize winner at the Chopin International Piano Competition (2018), and has garnered several other competitive awards. He graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory with honors and completed his Master’s at Mannes School of Music, New York. • Joining Maria and Ivan are singers Jacob Connelly, Jan Hadland, Rosie Joubert, Isabella Montalvo, and Mikayla Philbin.
Program • The afternoon’s music will feature the resoundingly American output of pianist-composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869). Born in New Orleans and an outspoken foe of slavery, Gottschalk was the first American to achieve European recognition as a virtuoso pianist. He charged his wildly popular compositions with unmistakably Latin American and Creole melodies, harmonies, and rhythms. Mr. Gusev will play work by American composer Edward MacDowell, who established the MacDowell Colony for artists in Peterborough, NH. The program will also feature Broadway songs and Duke Ellington’s soulful vocal pieces performed by outstanding young singers.
Proceeds benefit the preservation and stabilization of this 1874 Victorian Gothic building. Since 2015, Friends of the Stone Church have secured four matching grants, three from the Massachusetts Historical Commission and one from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Friends of the Stone Church 