KU News Release

Song cycle commissioned for KU voice professor featured on benefit CD

Joyce Castle

LAWRENCE — Joyce Castle, professor of voice at the University of Kansas, is featured on the new release “Flesh & Stone: Songs of Jake Heggie,” a recording of Heggie’s works that includes “Statuesque,” the song cycle commissioned by KU for Castle.

Castle premiered “Statuesque” in December 2005 at KU with Heggie at piano. This is the first time the song cycle has been available on a recording. “Statuesque” was written by Heggie, an acclaimed composer and pianist who has penned such operas as “Dead Man Walking” (2000) and “The End of the Affair” (2004). “Statuesque” includes five works about sculptures of women and features an ensemble of seven instruments: flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, violin, cello, bass and piano.

The CD launched Oct. 15 in New York City. A celebration of the release also will be held there featuring performances by Heggie, Castle and other artists from the release, including Vince Gnojek, KU professor of saxophone, who appears on the “Statuesque” recording. All proceeds from the CD will go to Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS, a nonprofit organization that engages the performing arts community to raise funds for AIDS-related services across the United States and is a fundraising program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

“Flesh & Stone: Songs of Jake Heggie” will soon be available for purchase online by visiting the classical section of the Web store on the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Web site, www.broadwaycares.org, or by contacting Americus Records at (202) 237-2722.

Castle is currently at the New York City Opera rehearsing Massenet’s “Cinderella” (Cendrillon), which opens Oct. 27 and will be dedicated to the late opera singer Beverly Sills. Castle was chosen to moderate the memorial reception that follows the opening night performance.

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