Hungarian Folk Songs: Ágról Ágra Concert at Mettabee, Hillsdale, NY

Ágról Ágra

Hungarian Folk Songs

Saturday April 20th
7:30pm

Adults $15 – $30 Suggested
Kids $8 – $30 Suggested

Ágról Ágra: from Branch to Branch is a unique and dynamic a cappella program of Hungarian folk songs presented in their traditional forms and as arrangements by contemporary composers Song Yi Jeon, Guillermo Klein, and Libero Canto’s own Marisa Michelson, and Sara Serpa, alongside original songs by Béla Bartók, one of Hungary’s most revered composers and folk song collectors.

Ágról Ágra is a project of the Libero Canto School of Singing. Libero Canto™ is a holistic, process-oriented approach to vocal pedagogy originally developed in Hungary in the 1930’s by Lajos Szamosi. It’s name comes from “la via al libero canto” (the path to free singing).  The Libero Canto Approach helps people to release excess tension and effort, so that they can make music through singing with freedom, honesty, and joy.  For more information, please visit liberocanto.org.

Libero Canto is a fiscally sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Agrol Agra Webpage: https://liberocanto.org/agrol-agra/
Libero Canto Webpage: https://liberocanto.org/

KINGA CSERJÉSI is the associate artistic director of the Libero Canto School of
Singing in New York City. She has a master’s degree from the Liszt Ferenc
Academy of Music in Budapest, and a postgraduate degree from the Brabants
Conservatory in the Netherlands. Kinga studied singing with Heent Prins and
Edvin Szamosi. She has sung internationally as a soloist and as a member of
various choruses and vocal ensembles, including Gächinger Kantorei, Ensemble
Organum, Ensemble Kantika, L.E.O., La Compagnia Amarilli, Constellation Chor
at Lincoln Center in 2018, The River Voices at Carnegie Hall in 2019. She is a
founding member of the Hungarian vocal ensemble Bartók’s Roses. From 2013 –
2015, she taught with Deborah Carmichael at the Il Cuore Canta workshops in
Upstate New York.

DEBORAH CARMICHAEL is the Artistic Director of the Libero Canto School
of Singing. She studied singing with her teacher and mentor, Edvin Szamosi, and
received a diploma in piano from the Mannes College of Music Extension
Division. Since 2007, she has sung with Kinga Cserjési in New York City and the
greater New York area, and in Europe, including concerts in Vienna, Budapest,
Pisa, and Florence. Deborah has been teaching singing since 1994, and in 2012
founded the Il Cuore Canta workshop series for young opera singers. Deborah is
the executive producer of the feature documentary film Libero Canto, Voice is
Breath by award-winning director Andrea Simon. Deborah holds a B.A. in
Comparative Religion from Princeton University.

MARISA MICHELSON is a singer, improviser, educator, and composer of Musicals, Choral Works, and Music-Theatre. With her ensemble, Constellation Chor || an immersion in voice, movement and spirit, which she founded and directed, she has collaborated with Lincoln Center, Spectrum, The Kitchen, National Sawdust, Pioneer Works, Claire Chase, the New York Philharmonic, Harvard Art Lab, Maria Popova, and Paola Prestini. Her off-Broadway musicals and oratorios include Tamar of the River (two Drama Desk Nominations), One Thousand Nights and One Day and Naamah’s Ark, an oratorio for five choirs. Awards, grants & residencies include: Jonathan Larson Award, National Endowment for the Arts, New Dramatists, Eric Salzman Award for Music-Theater, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, National Sawdust, MacDowell, Ucross, Modern Accord Depot, New Dramatists. Marisa is also an active somatic voice practitioner with many students on Broadway and pursuing other careers in the healing arts. www.marisamichelson.com

MARGOT BASSETT SILVER (she/her) is a vocalist, songwriter, and performance-maker based in Minneapolis. She has toured internationally with Emily Johnson/Catalyst in addition to performing Off-Broadway and in Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension at BAM. She holds an MFA in Contemporary Performance from Naropa University, a BA in Dance from Wesleyan University, and has studied at the Juilliard School and the European American Musical Alliance in Paris. Margot makes and records music as Silversmith; she released her first album, soft skills, in 2022. Her voice can be heard on the theme song of the new podcast, Feminist Files, which traces the origins of Title IX.