Stephanie Blythe to headline “The Real World: The French Cabaret” at the Bard College Conservatory of Music

Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Graduate Vocal Arts program will present “The Real World: The French Cabaret” on November 6, 2021.

The concert, which will feature mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, pianist Kayo Iwama, will benefit the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Scholarship Fund. The program will also feature numerous members of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program and the Conservatory Collaborative Piano Fellowship, including Michael AM Aoun, Bat-Erdene Batbileg, Diana Borscheva, Kirby Burgess, Neilson Chen, Abagael Cheng, Elisa Dagher, Melanie Dubil, Joanne Evas, Maria Giovanetti, Micah Gleason, Sungyeun Kim, Teryn Kuzma, Jonathan Lawlor, Katherine Lerner Lee, Francesca Lionetta, Zihao Liu, Chewon Park, Samantha Martin, Sarah Rauch, Alexis Seminario, Gwyyon Sin, Montana Smith and Sadie Spivey.

Audiences will hear a wide range of French cabaret songs from composers such as Jean-Baptise Clément, Michel Legrand and Charles Baudelaire, among others.

“One of the most important missions of the Bard Conservatory’s vocal arts graduate program is to teach the art of communication and collaboration. It is therefore perfectly logical that following a global pandemic which took us all out of the public world and threw us into very private and often solitary settings, we emerge through the world of French song ”, Blythe, who is also the artistic director of the program, said in an official press release. “These extraordinarily popular songs began in the 1880s with the appearance of realistic song – truthful shameless statements about life on the streets of Paris and all the elements that defined those lives – the poverty of the working class, debauchery, sex, crime, and much more. Seen through the lens of romantic, smoky cafes and rain-drenched cobblestone streets. Here was a good dose of nostalgia, enamelled with wit and charming, as well as a deep sadness and longing, and not a small accordion. These songs are an ideal way to initiate an intimate dialogue with an audience, a dialogue which we have developed even more vividly after such a long forced separation from with all of you. Through the art of song we see what it means to be fully human, something that we have all examined closely over the past year and a half. “