Audra McDonald, Samara Joy part of spotlight on women at Caramoor’s summer music fest
The Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts”™ summer festival in Katonah (Saturday, June 17, through Aug. 18) marks the return of a legend and the debut of one in the making.
Multiple Tony, Grammy and Emmy award-winning singer-actress Audra McDonald will once again grace the stage of the Venetian Theater, accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke”™s and conductor Andy Einhorn, for an opening night concert of selections from the Great American Songbook ”“ as the canon of early 20th-century jazz and pop standards is known. Then on Aug. 4, the festival and Jazz at Lincoln Center present a Concert on the Lawn, Friends Field, with Samara Joy, winner of this year”™s Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Vocal Jazz Album (“Linger Awhile,” Verve Records) and ArtsWestchester”™s first Emerging Artist Award.
For Croton-on-Hudson resident McDonald, returning to Caramoor ”“ she headlined the 2018 gala ”“ is another opportunity to broaden a repertoire that has embraced everything from Broadway to opera, recordings, film and TV. As she told Westfair then:
“I try to let myself have a wide berth in terms of singing songs of the roles that I might not get the chance to play or roles that I”™ve always wanted to play. More of it is just from the incredible songbook of the great American musical theater. But mainly it”™s as if I could play any role that I wanted”¦. A lot of the songs (are) songs that were written for men and male characters.”
For the Bronx-born Joy, Caramoor offers a further chance to connect with the Westchester community, among the places where she has honed her craft. As she said in accepting her ArtsWestchester award:
“I’m really grateful to ArtsWestchester and the entire organization for giving us opportunity not only to perform but to see music and to see artists come through the neighborhood and the community and really foster that love for the arts and for music.”
Both singers come from musical backgrounds, attended high schools that have a focus on the arts and graduated from conservatories.
The Berlin-born McDonald grew up in Fresno, California, where she attended Theodore Roosevelt High School, participating in its School of the Arts program. She studied voice at Juilliard with Ellen Faull, who also taught at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers. It was the springboard for a career that has seen McDonald earn a record-breaking six performance Tonys for diverse roles in “Carousel,” “Master Class,” “Ragtime,” “A Raisin in the Sun,” “The Gershwins”™ Porgy and Bess” and “Lady Day at Emerson”™s Bar and Grill.” She is the first person to win Tonys in all acting categories.
With roots in Philadelphia gospel music, Joy began singing in church and then with the jazz band at Fordham High School for the Arts, where she won Best Vocalist in the Jazz at Lincoln Center”™s Essentially Ellington competition. That led her to jazz studies at Purchase College”™s Conservatory of Music and appearances at JazzFest White Plains and the Monterrey and Newport jazz festivals, among others. Her Grammy Awards”™ acceptance speeches have been viewed more than 12 million times.
The “incomparable” McDonald and Joy, an “ascendant superstar jazz artist,” are among many notable women taking part in this year”™s festival, suggested Caramoor President and CEO Edward J. Lewis III: “Building on the success of our 2022 season, this year we”™re proud to offer an exciting and diverse mix of live performances, from female-fronted Ukrainian folk-punk quartet DakhaBrakha (July 14) to the legendary Malian vocalist Oumou Sangaré (July 15)”¦.”
H̩l̬ne Grimaud, founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, takes to the keyboard July 16 for Maurice RavelӪs Piano Concerto in G major, an effervescent, poignant blend of jazz and classical music. Singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter and her band bring her mix of folk and country to the Venetian Theater Aug. 5, a presentation thatӪs a collaboration with City Winery.
Amid the notable women are notable firsts by women. The Boston Early Music Festival offers its production of Francesca Caccini”™s “Alcina,” the first known opera composed by a woman, June 25, while Brooklyn singer-composer Arooj Aftab, the first Pakistani woman to win a Grammy, presents her new “Love in Exile” project July 29.”¯
But the sounds of the season are already pervading the arts center, also home to an eclectic Mediterranean-style house museum in an 80-acre landscaped setting that serves as a backdrop for picnics and afternoon teas, sound art and sculptures, butterflies and shutterbugs.”¯
Added Lewis: “True to the vision of our founders, (Walter T. and Lucie Bigelow Dodge Rosen) Caramoor is the place where you can be transformed by the convergence of an exciting and diverse mix of remarkable live music performances, stunning gardens and grounds and the beauty of an art-filled historic home.”¯The Caramoor experience leaves both the artist and audience refreshed and renewed and compels all to return again and again.””¯
For a complete schedule of events,”¯click here.”¯