Greenwood music lovers are invited to a unique program of song and piano performed by a trio of rising stars at the Episcopal Church of the Nativity on Sunday.
The concert, “American Portraits,” featuring tenor Tyrone Chambers, soprano Elana Gleason and pianist Jonathan Levin, is free and open to the public.
Sandwiched between performances in Natchez and New Orleans, Greenwood is one of only three cities the trio will visit on this brief tour.
“One of the great things a-bout Greenwood is we have this small but passionate arts scene, even though we’re a small community,” said the Rev. Peter Gray, rector at Nativity. “So when this spectacularly talented friend of mine, Tyrone Chambers, told me he was putting together a tour, I thought this was absolutely the kind of thing we want to see in Greenwood.”
Chambers and Gray be-came ac-quainted when both were affiliated with Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans, where Gray was associate rector and Chambers was a staff singer.
“It’s about connections. Isn’t that really what life is about?” Chambers said. “We wouldn’t be coming to Greenwood if not for Peter.”
The program touches on other connections as well, including the ties of these three solo artists, collaborating for the first time.
“‘American Portraits’ is about our relationship to each other and our relationship to our various cultures and where they cross,” Chambers said. “It represents a cross-section of our experiences through music.”
All three artists have performed extensively in Natchez at the summer Natchez Festival of Music over the last decade, but they never performed together there. Chambers and Levin — who are from New Orleans and North Carolina, respectively — now live in New York. Gleason, a New York native, now lives in New Orleans.
Together the three have taken a musical repertoire initially drawn up by Levin as a piano program and crafted it to include voices.
“‘American Portraits’ is about our experience as Americans, particularly Southern Americans, seen from different angles,” Chambers said.
The repertoire includes selections from George Gershwin, including “Porgy and Bess” and “Rhapsody in Blue”; pieces by Mississippi native William Grant Still; American show tunes; American folk song and spiritual arrangements; and original piano arrangements by Levin of famous numbers from the Great American Songbook.
Chambers, who has sung in New Orleans’ premier operatic ensemble, Opera Creole, most recently returned from a tour in Germany, where he sang the role of Sportin’ Life in “Porgy and Bess” at the Hamburg State Opera.
Gleason has sung lead roles in a number of classic operas including Micaela in Bizet’s “Carmen” and Cio Cio San in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” She recently made her debut with the New Orleans Opera in Verdi’s “Macbeth.”
Levin has played American music at the Kremlin Palace in Moscow and last year played Carnegie Hall in New York.
“The music (we will perform) touches on areas of national pride, racial struggles, conflicts of war and reconciliation, with the overarching theme of peace and unity,” Chambers said in a press release. “I feel that this spirit of unity is so important, especially in the current times.”
A brief reception catered by Taylor Bowen Ricketts, chef at Fan & Johnny’s and a Nativity member, will follow the concert. The church nursery will be open to children 3 and under.
Gray said the doors of Nativity are open to anyone in Greenwood who wants to enjoy “some really world-class music for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.”
• Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
