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Soprano-composer Patrice Michaels, “a formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker), joins Fifth House Ensemble in presenting Notorious RBG in Song, a dramatic concert saluting the life and work of legal pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg in celebration of her 26 years on the United States Supreme Court.

“THE LONG VIEW: A Portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Nine Songs,” composed by Michaels, forms the core of the show, transforming the language of lofty legal abstraction into music blending jazz, cabaret, and classical art song. Additional songs by Vivian Fung, Stacy Garrop, Lee Hoiby, Lori Laitman, and John Musto illuminate key aspects of Justice Ginsburg’s personal and professional life through letters, remembrances, conversations, and even Court opinions. Video projections and dramatic storytelling contribute to this deeply personal musical portrait of one of our most beloved judicial icons, forever "Notorious" for her courage and strength in championing equal rights for all.

Duration: 75 minutes (no intermission)

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Composer-Soprano Patrice Michaels is distinguished by her eclectic musical personality and her vocal virtuosity. Her live and recorded performances rank her as “a formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker), possessing “a voice that is light, rich and flexible” (Opera News).

The breadth of Michaels’ talents are fully expressed in her project, Notorious RBG in Song, a salute to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Michaels channels her skills as composer and singer, distilling the Justice’s legal opinions, letters and lectures with deft sensitivity, creating “an engrossing, episodic portrait of the legal thinker, wife, mother and feminist icon” (WQXR). The prismatic album of works premiered on Cedille Records has earned praise as “a remarkable tribute” (AllMusic) delivered in “an attractive, post-modern tonal idiom” (Classics Today).

In early 2019, Notorious RBG in Song premiered as a live dramatic concert at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles, and at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, sponsored and live streamed by the National Constitution Center of Philadelphia. Performances followed in Cleveland and Chicago, and are upcoming in Philadelphia, Washington DC and more.

Michaels’ singing has been featured on more than 25 albums, including the Decca, Neos, Albany and Amadis labels, and on 15 releases for Cedille Records. Her exceptional artistic range is expressed through recordings such as La vie est une parade (Cedille) featuring the music of Satie, Britten, and Tailleferre with the Czech National Symphony, in the works of contemporary composer Laurie Altman on Sonic Migrations (Neos) and On Course (Albany), and in her award-winning, historically informed recording, Divas of Mozart’s Day (Cedille).

Michaels’ compositions range from incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a one-act opera based on her own libretto of Euripides’ The Trojan Women, to a children’s introduction to the meaning of inspiration through opera, A Song for Harmonica. In July 2019, Refuge, on a poem by Sara Teasdale received its debut at the Kennedy Center as a commission from the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program for the Serenade! International Choral Festival, and members of the Glimmerglass Festival Young Artists Program presented a scene from her forthcoming opera, Lunch Encounters, based on the life and works of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. Michaels is also in the research phase for works about WWII phenomenon Tokyo Rose and Age of Enlightenment wax anatomist Anna Morandi Manzolini.

Michaels holds BAs in Music and Theater from Pomona College, an MFA in Voice from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and a certificate from the Music Theatre Studio Ensemble at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Formerly Professor of Music at Lawrence University’s Conservatory of Music, Michaels now serves as Director of Vocal Studies at the University of Chicago and on the voice faculty at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University.

For more information, please visit www.patricemichaels.com.

instrumentation

Soprano, clarinet, violin, cello, bass, piano, percussion

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