A musical wild ride of the imagination awaits children from 4 to 18 at the Children and Families Concert with New Canaan Chamber Music on May 5 at 3 pm at the New Canaan Library. This is the second annual concert of its kind, following the success of last May’s concert for children and families. Children are admitted free with a ticket-holding adult. Tickets are available at www.newcanaanchambermusic.org.
Artistic Director Andrew Armstrong, himself the father of a 6-year-old and two teenagers, knows how to enchant even the youngest audience with the emotional joy and power of music. Armstrong, a virtuoso pianist, will draw on the enormous and broad range of talents of two other world class musicians.
International trumpeter and jazz vocalist Belgian Jeroen Berwaerts returns to New Canaan Chamber Music to delight children and families alike with his musical expertise and his charming wit and comical antics. Indra Thomas, a soprano who is the first singer to perform with New Canaan Chamber Music is sought after around the world. She makes meeting an opera star fascinating and fun for children of all ages.
“Taking examples from different centuries, countries, styles, and narratives, we will watch Jeroen and Indra transform themselves through music as they jump from piece to piece,” says Armstrong who will join them for this one-of-a-kind experience. Children will be encouraged to interact with the musicians, asking questions, telling stories, and says Armstrong, “If you feel like dancing, get up and dance!”
Andrew Armstrong, founder and artistic director of New Canaan Chamber Music, is a virtuoso pianist. Praised by critics for his passionate expression and dazzling technique, Armstrong has delighted audiences across Asia, Europe, Latin America, Canada, and the United States, including performances at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, and Warsaw’s National Philharmonic. In February, his most recent piano solo album “In Blue” was released on the 100th anniversary of George Gershwin’s “Rhapody in Blue.” The recording includes three of Gershwin’s Preludes, plus “I Got Rhythm,” and his most popular work, “Rhapsody in Blue” arranged for solo piano by Gershwin himself.
International trumpeter and jazz vocalist Belgian Jeroen Berwaerts is a musical force to be reckoned with, whose all-embracing love of music knows no boundaries. Praised for his outstanding technical capabilities and sensitive musicality, his repertoire encompasses every epoch, from baroque to contemporary music and jazz. He has appeared as a soloist with leading orchestras including the NHK Symphony, Vienna Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, NDR Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmoniques of Strasbourg and Luxembourg, under conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Yakov Kreizberg, Jun Märkl, and Matthias Pintscher. He is a regular guest of internationally renowned music festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Niedersächsische Musiktage, the Takefu International Music Festival in Japan, Ars Musica in Belgium, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the Rheingau Musik Festival.
Internationally recognized soprano Indra Thomas has performed in world class opera houses and venues around the world including the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and New York’s Carnegie Hall. She has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, the London Symphony, and Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, as well as with leading orchestras in Paris, Spain, Brazil, the Netherlands, Japan, Finland, South Korea, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, Boston, Cleveland, and Detroit.
While in her teens, she first came to wide-spread attention when she sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” in the funeral scene of the Academy Award-winning film “Driving Miss Daisy”. She was Emmy nominated for her performance of the “Porgy and Bess Suite” on the New Year’s Eve Broadcast Live from Lincoln Center, and also was Grammy nominated for her recording of Michael Tippett’s “A Child Of Our Time” with the London Symphony Orchestra.
The Children and Families Concert is part of a growing and inclusive program of outreach that brings great music to seniors, youth orchestras, and local schools in New Canaan, Stamford, Norwalk and Westport with plans to expand to more towns.
To purchase tickets and register with your children, visit www.newcanaanchambermusic.org. NCCM is a 501c3 non-profit organization.
