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SONGS FROM EAGLE POND

world premiere concert

OCTOBER 29, 2022 7pm

PROCTOR ACADEMY (Andover, NH)

The Poets

Jane Kenyon was a poet and translator who was named New Hampshire's Poet Laureate in 1995. Donald Hall was a poet, writer, & editor, authoring over 50 books in a variety of genres. In 2006, he was named the 14th Poet Laureate of the United States. After meeting and falling in love at the University of Michigan, Jane Kenyon and Donald Hall moved to spend their lives together at his family’s farmhouse in Wilmot, NH. In this rustic setting they wrote poetry and gardened and cherished the history and people of this small town. Jane's poetry details the gorgeous rural landscapes, their life together, and also her life long battle with depression. She also translated many of the poems of Anna Akhmatova. Don was 19 years older than Jane, so when she died from leukemia at age 47 in 1995, the tragedy echoed for many years. His poetry and prose covers baseball, nature, his family's history, Jane's battle with leukemia — many of his later works detail his grief over her death.

The Musicians

For nearly a decade, composer Graham Sobelman has been setting the poetry of Jane Kenyon and Donald Hall to music. In 2021, Graham and his musical partner Maggie Hollinbeck were the first artists-in-residence to spend time at Eagle Pond Farm (where Jane and Don lived) after the Don passed in 2018. At the end of their residency, they performed a small concert at the First Congregational Church of Wilmot. On October 28, 2022, Graham and Maggie will return to New Hampshire with vocalist Omari Tau, to perform more of this material — at the Proctor Academy, a short distance from the Proctor Graveyard where both Jane and Don are buried. Graham is developing a theatrical presentation of this music — hoping to preserve their words, their romance and most of all, honoring the way they explored life as artists, embracing the beauty of the nature that surrounded them.

Songs From Eagle Pond

These art songs, with text by Jane Kenyon and Donald Hall, tell a story of place. Of love. The power of words. The rippling of nature through the art that it inspires. You'll hear the story of Jane & Don, but also hear about Gus (their dog), Eagle Pond, Mt. Kearsarge, their friends, their struggles, the history of the town, happiness, depression. Their poems, while preserving moments of their life, were much more expansive than telling just one solitary story. They preserved history. They honored the past. And continue to impact the present & future.

Graham Sobelman (composer/pianist): Graham was the Musical Director for both Forbidden Broadway and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change for Broadway Sacramento, where he also served as musical director for the Junior Companies of Joseph, The Music Man, The Wizard of Oz, Bye, Bye Birdie & The King and I at the Sacramento Music Circus. Other regional MD credits: Tell Me On A Sunday (Ensemble Theatre Company); The Last Five Years (International City Theatre); 35mm,Passion, Little Fish, Celebration, It’s Only Life, tick, tick…BOOM!, They’re Playing Our Song, & [title of show] (New Helvetia Theatre); Ruthless (Sacramento Theatre Company); The Behavior of Broadus (Capital Stage); The Who’s Tommy (UC Davis), The Next Big Thing (Edinburgh Fringe); From Foster Care to Fabulous (NY International Fringe Festival) . Graham also conducted Gregg Coffin’s rightnexttome at B Street Theatre and created the local cabaret series Graham-A-Rama. As a composer, he has written the song-cycle Love Is Eternal, film score for Lily, numerous art songs and choral pieces, and is about to release and album of Shakespeare Sonnets recorded by vocalist Omari Tau. Recordings: Maggie Hollinbeck & Graham Sobelman — Another Shade of Blue, Jane Kenyon Sessions: Vols. 1-4; Ain’t Betty — This Is Ain’t Betty. www.grahamsobelman.com

Maggie Hollinbeck (vocalist): Maggie is an actress and musician based in New York City where she’s becoming a fixture in the Actor/Musician genre, playing roles in musicals such as Once (1st national tour, PCLO and GEVA); Red Roses, Green Gold (Off-Broadway); Woody Sez (Ivoryton Playhouse); Ebeneezer Scrooge's Big Playhouse Christmas Show (Bucks County Playhouse); and others. Her favorite place to make music, though, is in collaboration with Graham. Together they’ve recorded five albums: Another Shade of Blue (covering all of Joni Mitchell’s 1971 Blue album) and Jane Kenyon Sessions Vol. One-Four. Maggie is also a veteran psychotherapist and coach, maintaining a full private telehealth practice that travels with her wherever she plays. Performing: www.maggiehollinbeck.com; grahamsobelman.bandcamp.com. Coaching: www.tendingthesoul.net.

Omari Tau (vocalist): A performer of styles ranging from Classical, Jazz, and Musical Theatre to Pop and R&B, Omari's art intersects across broad spectrums, including singing, narration, composition, theatrical performance, conducting, and both musical and stage direction. Tau studied Music Education at Michigan State University and received his Master of Music in Vocal Performance at the University of Houston, Moores School of Music where he explored the voice with mezzo-soprano, Katherine Ciesinski. As an actor, Mr. Tau toured with Disney’s The Lion King for nearly nine years, performing the role of Banzai with both the Cheetah and Gazelle companies, which traveled internationally. Other credits include roles at the Tony Award-winning Alley Theatre, the Tony Award-Winning TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Sacramento’s Broadway at Music Circus, the St. Louis MUNY, and Theater Under The Stars in Houston. Tau appears on Albany Records in Roger Nelson’s operatic adaptation of A Room With A View as well as Disney’s A Lion King Christmas recordings. He is Co-Founding Artistic Director of Rogue Music Project, a consortium of Sacramento-based singers and musicians. He’s also a member of the band Solabel, and is Professor of Vocal Music at Cosumnes River College. www.omaritau.com www.roguemusicproject.com www.solabelmusic.com

Mindy Cooper (director): Mindy Cooper has Performed on Broadway in Chicago (Original Revival), Titanic (Original Cast), Song and Dance, and Beauty and the Beast. Her Broadway and off-Broadway Directing and Choreography credits include Dracula — The Musical, Being Seen, The Eternal Space, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, Live!, 50 Shades — The Musical Parody, Soul Doctor, Wrong Mountain, and Five Course Love, as well as TV’s Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Her passion for new works has led to directing Hoi Polloi (World Premiere), American Monkey (American Premiere), Ranked, A Musical (C3T), Mojave! The Musical (UC Davis), Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play (UC Davis), The Thing About Time (CapitolRep), The Gospel According To Tammy Faye, Mars/Venus Live (National Tour), Still Will Be Heard (Finalist: Women in the Arts and Media Collaboration Award), Deployed (NYMF), Mothers by Anna Moench for the National New Play Network (NNPN), and at Town Hall NYC: Music In The Night — A Tribute To Jerome Kern, Broadway By The Year 1937, Broadway By The Year 1972 and Broadway By The Year Musicals of 1916-1940. She is Co-Founder/ Co-Director of Catalyst: a Theatre Think Tank (C3T), on the campus of UC Davis. Her extensive regional work as a Director — including such shows as Me and My Girl, Musical of Musicals, On the Town and Cabaret — has won 11 Bay Area Theater Critics Awards. www.mindycooper.com

Master Class Opportunities

Graham and Maggie have collaborated on many musical projects for more than a decade. They love to combine performance with education and have begun offering master classes in a variety of topics (musical theatre coaching, songwriting, etc) but often focusing on the aspect of collaboration. With SONGS FROM EAGLE POND as a backdrop, they discuss their experience of creating new music from pre-existing poetry, and how that lead them on a journey of turning that music into a theatrical piece. Composing, creating, writing, reinventing — journeying with a partner allows you to expand and grow and also stay true to the work. Human guard rails. Contact us about meeting with your poetry, songwriting, theatre classes, with or without combining that with a live performance of original music.