Simple Gifts includes classics and Pete Seeger
Ballet Arts Studio announces its spring 2015 concert, “Simple Gifts: A Treasury of American Music,” Saturday, May 30, at the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie, with performances at 2 and 6:30 p.m. The concert will feature both American composers and American musicians and vocalists who interpret international compositions.
Many are familiar with the Russian and European ballet composers, as well as American classical composers such as Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, both of whom will be featured in the performance. Ballet Arts Studio is also taking the opportunity, however, to explore and put to dance some works by composers such as Louis Moreau Gottschalk, William Grant Still, Amy Beach and Steve Reich.
“We are excited to be exposing our audience to some of these less broadly recognized, but no less deserving, American classical composers,” said Alex Bloomstein, artistic director of Ballet Arts Studio. And no survey of American music would be complete without Pete Seeger, who is not only an American treasure, but a Hudson Valley local hero. Ballet Arts will be using Pete Seeger’s rendition of the Woody Guthrie classic “This Land Is Your Land” to accompany the studio’s youngest modern dancers.
Tickets are $15, $12 students and seniors and $10 for groups of 10 or more. Tickets are general admission and are available at Ballet Arts Studio, 845-831-1870, the Bardavon Box Office, 845-473-2072 and via ticketmaster.com.
