April 21 —  April 27

 

Joyce DiDonato’s Master Classes 

Ms. DiDonato described her three master classes (April 21, April 22, April 23), given before the public, as a playground and as a three day arc. For two hours on three afternoons a packed house in Carnegie Hall’s Resnick Education Wing watched and listened as the maestra took four singers through their paces. In addition, they had worked with Ms. Donato each morning. Francesca Chiejina, soprano, Ané Pretorius,

Joyce DiDonato and Germán Enrique Alcántara
Joyce DiDonato and  Ané Pretorius
Francesca Chiejina
Francesca Chiejina and Germán Enrique Alcántara
Joyce DiDonato and  Ané Pretorius
Jose Simerilla Romero and Joyce DiDonato blowing through straws
Joyce DiDonato

mezzo-soprano, Jose Simerilla Romero, tenor and  Germán Enrique Alcántara, baritone were accompanied by two accomplished pianists, Justina Lee and Shannon McGinnis.  It was glorious. Ms. Donato’s knowledge of music and people coupled with her teaching genius made the sessions a delicious respite from our contentious world. She had a singer blowing through a straw, two other singers dancing, and another singer sitting on a stack of three chairs. Why not? The master classes were streamed live online.

 

 

 

 

Generation Women shared secrets on April 25. It was  story telling by women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. Each participant had seven minutes  to tell her secret and the fun began at 7 pm. It was at the Caveat Theatre, a  New York speakeasy, on 21 A Clinton Street. The April 25 event was sold out but please come to the May event. 

 

Graphic Lessons: Recent thirty-five-year-old widow Millie Fitzgerald applies for a private school teaching job, faints on a stabbed and dying man in the school kitchen, deals with the only witness to the stabbing – a troubled nine-year-old, develops a crush on a NYPD detective and her dog dies.

Graphic Lessons: Nine-year-old Dana is the only witness who overhears a person fighting with George Lopez, the soon to be stabbed Windsor School kitchen worker. Who can she tell? Her mother who never listens or accuses her of lying? Her father who’s started a new family in Singapore? She tells Millie. 

Graphic Lessons: Something’s eating at NYPD Detective Steve Kulchek: a stabbed partner? surviving a car bomb? his girlfriend marrying his corrupt boss? screwing up an important case?  It doesn’t matter because he’s relentless.