Andrew Garland, baritone
Let US sing
November 13, 2013You can add a name to the list of champions of American songs, a genre whose exploration was spearheaded by (among others) the PBS "American Songbook" series and the famed baritone Thomas Hampson's "Song of America" project.
The baritone Andrew Garland, aided by the exemplary collaborative pianist Donna Loewy, demonstrated Americana to a fare-thee-well on Nov. 11 at Laurel Heights United Methodist Church in an eloquent, masterfully rendered recital, sponsored by the Tuesday Musical Club Artist Series.
Mr. Garland's instrument is warm and mahogany-toned at its core, well-controlled and forward-focused throughout the registers and sufficiently metalic to (one presumes) soar easily over the thickest of orchestrations. His program was diverse enough to showcase an impressive, intelligently rendered palette of color and nuance, not to mention stagecraft. This young man has acting chops, too.
The recital's first half held sets by Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber and Charles Ives; post-intermission brought three groups by living composers, closing with a couple of Broadway show tunes.
Among many highlights were the long, perfectly gauged final crescendo in Copland's “Zion's Walls,” and the translucent delicacy of Barber's “Sure on this Shining Night.” We especially appreciated his confident navigation of the rhythmic and harmonic morasses in Ives's “At the River,” whose piano part seems way out of kilter.
For puckish fun, there was Mr. Garland as a gleeful yarn-spinner in Steven Mark Kohn's arrangement of the folk song “Hell in Texas. The narrator tells the tale of the Devil who put tarantulas and ants in the sand, snakes under rocks and hiked summer heat to “one hundred and ten.” For contrast, he became a frozen-faced, then irrepressibly jolly snowman for Jake Heggie's whimsical “What the Snowman Said.”
“Bring Him Home,” from the French-inspired and -created musical “Les Miserables,” seemed out of place in an American lineup, despite the program note's claim that it qualifies by virtue of its long run on Broadway. Curiously, this was the only song that was somewhat marred by a little too much vibrato.
Ah, but all was forgiven with Mr. Garland's fluent, utterly convincing portrayal of carnival barker Billy Bigelow as he ponders becoming a father in the wonderful “Soliloquy” from Rogers and Hammerstein's “Carousel.”
Diane Windeler
