Andreotta Recital, Feb. 19

Newtown resident and professionally trained soprano Mary Andreotta will offer a free recital at Newtown Congregational Church on Saturday, February 19. The performance is called “20th Century American Composers.” It will feature works by Bernstein, Copland, Musto, Kurt Weill, John Jacob Miles, among others, and will begin at 7 pm.

The concert will also include the debut performance of “Root Cellar,” which was written by the congregational church’s organist, Phil Crevier, specifically for Ms Andreotta. Mr Crevier’s song for soprano and piano is based on the text of a poem by Theodore Roethke by the same name.

“It’s really descriptive text,” Ms Andreotta said this week. “The music really conveys the mysteriousness and scariness of the poem.”

Ms Andreotta is director of Newtown Congregational Church Choir and Newtown Choral Society. She is also a private vocal teacher.

She will be accompanied Saturday evening by Susan Anthony Klein, a faculty member at Western CT State University. Ms Klein is music director at Salem Covenant Church in Washington (CT), and a regular accompanist for the Heritage Village Chorus in Southbury.

Ms Klein has performed at Carnegie Hall with the St Cecelia Chorus, and has toured with The Robert DeCormier Singers and The Norman Luboff Chorus. She is a resident of Roxbury.

Thanks to funding in part by Connecticut Opera Alliance, admission to the concert is free.

“I wanted to perform because I think it’s nice to have things going on in town,” Ms Andreotta said. “Also, a lot of people haven’t heard all of these songs. The Sondheim and the Weill may be familiar, or at least their style will be familiar. The other songs may be unfamiliar, but they are all interesting in their own way.”

Newtown Congregational Church is at 14 West Street in Newtown, off Main Street at the flagpole.