AMY BURTON, soprano, SongFest faculty &
JOHN MUSTO, pianist, composer, SongFest faculty
As artists and administrators - audience members and teachers, we wait for those moments, when one can sit in a hall and know that we are listening to something that will carry our art forward. John Musto is one of those artists and an important successor when considering how the torch is passed from composer to composer. SongFest will be forever grateful to this torch-bearer for his music and for his generosity. As if that weren’t enough of a gift - the duet of intentional, thoughtful, insightful artistry between two people who know each other to the core is a magical thing, and soprano Amy Burton is just such an artist to be paired with John. Thank you Amy for your gifts, and thank you to the two of you for everything you continue to do for our community of poetry lovers.
What will the Legacy of the 21st Century be for Art Song?
Composer and pianist John Musto is that all too rare exemplar, the classical composer whose work is both critically acclaimed and widely performed, who has also distinguished himself as an instrumental soloist and chamber musician. His activities encompass virtually every genre: orchestral and operatic, solo, chamber and vocal music, concerti, and music for film and television. His music embraces many strains of contemporary American concert music, enriched by sophisticated inspirations from jazz, ragtime and the blues.
Mr. Musto was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his orchestral song cycle Dove Sta Amore, and is a recipient of two Emmy awards, two CINE Awards, a Rockefeller Fellowship at Bellagio, an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and a Distinguished Alumnus award from the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently on the piano faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center in New York, where he also serves as Co-ordinator of the D.M.A. Program in Music Performance
Watch and listen to John Musto’s beautiful quartet “Take Hands” dedicated to Rosemary Ritter and performed at SongFest 2019.
“If there is a finer composer of song with piano alive and working today, I would very much like to know his or her name.”
With a voice the New York Times has called, “luminous” and “lustrous,” versatile soprano Amy Burton has sung with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, at the White House, and with major opera companies and orchestras throughout the US, Europe, UK, Japan and Israel, as well as on recital and cabaret stages from New York to Barcelona. A frequent interpreter of 20th and 21st-Century music, she has premiered pieces by John Musto, Paul Moravec, Lee Hoiby, John Harbison, Richard Festinger, and Richard Danielpour, to name a few. Also specializing in French vocal music of the 1920s and 30s, Ms. Burton has performed both mélodies and chansons populaires throughout the US and Europe, and recorded a critically acclaimed CD with conductor Yves Abel, Souvenir de Printemps.
A sought-after teacher, Ms. Burton joined the Vocal Arts faculty at the Juilliard School in the Fall of 2019. Also on the voice faculties of the Mannes College of Music (The New School), the CUNY Graduate Center (DMA program), and SongFest at Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles, she has previously taught French Vocal Literature at Manhattan School of Music, and maintains an active private voice studio in New York City. She has given master classes and residencies throughout the United States and in
Paris.
Longtime SongFest faculty members Burton/Musto bring a wealth of experience and innovative programming for our students and are actively touring as a performing duo. The two are regulars at the Neue Galerie’s Café Sabarsky, and appear frequently in New York. They have been heard on Lincoln Center’s Great Performer Series, at the Kennedy Center, The National Arts Club, Washington Museum for Women in the Arts, Joe’s Pub, Barcelona’s Liceu, the Glimmerglass Festival’s Meet Me at the Pavillion series, and throughout the United States with Late Night with Leonard Bernstein. They are to thank for the SongFest-classic final concert “American Songbook,” the music for which is arranged by John and then staged by Amy. It is a fan-favorite event!
Click here to view Echos of Musto, a 2008 program designed by pianist and faculty member Graham Johnson.
