Hampson is an internationally-renowned opera lead and recitalist, artist in residence with the New York Philharmonic and one of the most respected soloists of his era. Born in Indiana and raised in Spokane, the mission of this Leonard Bernstein protégé is to archive the history of American vocal art. Here his “clarion power” (LA Times) is turned to a suite of historic American works arranged with the Library of Congress, celebrating the 250th anniversary of the first-ever American song. Craig Rutenberg will accompany Hampson on piano.

PROGRAM:
SONG OF AMERICA

I.
Francis Hopkinson — My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free (Thomas Parnell)
Stephen C. Foster — Open Thy Lattice, Love (Stephen Foster)
Aaron Copland — The Dodger (trad.)
Charles Ives — Circus Band (Charles Ives)
Edward MacDowell — The Sea (W. D. Howells after Goethe)
Aaron Copland — The Golden Willow Tree (trad.)

II.
Charles Ives — In Flanders Fields (Col. McCrae)
Charles Naginski — Look Down Fair Moon (Walt Whitman)
Arthur Farwell — Song of the Deathless Voice (Omaha Indian)
Michael Dauerghty — Letter to Mrs. Bixby (Abraham Lincoln)
Elinor Remick Warren — God Be In My Heart (anon. 16th century)
Virgil Thomson — Tiger Tiger (William Blake)

       —Intermission—

III.
Charles Griffes — An Old Song Re-Sung (John Masefield)
Amy Beach — Twilight, Op. 2, No. 1 (Dr. H. H. Beach)
Vittorio Giannini — Tell Me, Oh Blue, Blue Sky (Karl Flaster)
Jean Berger — Lonely People (Langston Hughes)
Paul Bowles — BLUE MOUNTAIN BALLADS (Tennessee Williams)
1. Heavenly Grass
2. Lonesome Man
3. Cabin
4. Sugar in the Cane

IV.
John Duke — Richard Cory (E. A. Robinson)
Charles Ives — Charlie Rutlage (Charles Ives)
Sidney Homer — General William Booth (Vachel Lindsay)
Walter Damrosch — Danny Deever (Rudyard Kipling)

“America’s foremost baritone…Thomas Hampson might well be called the ambassador of the American song to the world.”
—International Herald Tribune

Hampson’s recital is part of both the Duke Artists series and the Travelers series.