SPRING CONCERT May 6, 2017, 7PM

Ms. Baker and Mr. Horne will serve as guest musicians in worship on Sunday, May 7 at 10AM.  This service will weave stories of our faith through energizing music and word.  All are welcome!

MCC is proud to welcome internationally-famed mezzo-soprano Andrea Baker, along with pianist Albert Horne, on her US tour of Sing Sistah Sing!  This event will be a joyous mixture of storytelling, jazz, blues, opera, art song, gospel and rollicking piano virtuosity, depicting the voice of the African-American woman through song.  Ms. Baker, known for her distinctive voice, intense artistry, and passion, will be joined by MCC’s Spring Festival Chorus in spirituals arranged by the great Moses Hogan and opera choruses of Verdi, Bizet and Gershwin.  Suggested Donation: $20, $15 students/seniors.  A reception and opportunity to meet the performers will follow the concert.  This event is not to be missed!

For more information, please visit:

Albert Horne: www.alberthorne.com

Andrea Baker: www.andreabaker.org

Sing Sistah Sing! facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SingSistahSing/

Sing Sistah Sing! excerpts: https://vimeo.com/211636678

Sing Sistah Sing! introduction: https://vimeo.com/192131248

Sing Sistah Sing! a european rehearsal: https://vimeo.com/192179969

Sing Sistah Sing! at Edinburgh: https://soundcloud.com/andrea-baker-mezzo/sing-sista-sing-live-edinburgh-festival-2015

Sing Sistah Sing! is the first work conceived and written by internationally renowned Mezzo Soprano Andrea Baker. This show is both a celebration of the sound and extraordinary breadth of the African American female voice, and a heartfelt retelling of some of their most incredible life stories. Sing Sistah Sing! brilliantly weaves together these women’s brave struggles both in the civil rights movement and in their fight for artistic freedom both at home and abroad. Some have chosen opera, jazz, or blues to express their inner truth, but at the heart of the Sing Sistah Sing! story is that all of us, as African American women, carry in our souls and in our voices the sounds of our ancestors’ songs of the plantation. A phenomenon described in the recently discovered essay, The Negro Melodies written by the Reverend Dr. Thomas Nelson Baker, the artist’s great grandfather, published in 1908.

Some of the women celebrated in Sing Sistah Sing! include Leontyne Price, Marian Anderson, Donna Summer, Nina Simone and the great Billie Holiday.  Andrea Baker, herself an artistic trailblazer, is the first African American to sing Fricka, Waltraute, Erda and 2nd Norn in Wagner’s great Ring Cycle in the Chinese premiere of the work at the Beijing Arts Festival, the first African American Carmen in Australia at the Sydney Opera House and the first African American to sing the role of Ortrud in the South Korean premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Daegu Opera Festival. With Sing Sistah Sing! Andrea Baker tells her own deeply personal story and pays joyful, soulful and varied musical homage to many of the women who courageously paved the way. After making her debut with the San Francisco opera in Die Walküre, international engagements soon followed, and with it a life lived on the road. The voices and stories of the women celebrated in Sing Sistah Sing! were always with her, gently guiding and carrying her along the path which they so daringly laid. In creating this piece, she began to discover that their stories were also her story and that she too would continue to lay the path for the next generation. Sing Sistah Sing! is her personal song to her elders, a form of acknowledgement, sending her voice and soul to the sky in honour and thanks.

Sing Sistah Sing! a joyous mixture of storytelling, jazz, blues, opera, art song, gospel and rollicking piano virtuosity. An event not to be missed!

Throughout her career Andrea Baker has been celebrated as a performer of great integrity, intensity, and vocal ability. Her career has taken her to a number of the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls: National Theatre Munich; Opera Bastille, Paris; Teatro alla Scala, Milan; Opera Australia, Sydney; Royal Opera Covent Garden, London; Berlin Philharmonic; Royal Albert Hall, London; Orchestra Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome; Konzerthaus, Berlin; The Barbican, London and Tokyo Opera City to name but a few. Her collaborations with conductors include, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Donald Runnicles, Richard Hickox, Antonio Pappano, Philippe Auguin, Valery Gergiev, Marin Alsop, Adam Fischer, and Sir Charles Mackerras.

Andrea is joined by Albert Horne on piano Born in South Africa, Maestro Horne studied conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London under Maestra Sian Edwards, where he was awarded a Masters Degree with distinction in 2007. From 2007-2014 he worked as Chorus Master and Conductor for Cape Town Opera in South Africa, and under his leadership their chorus was voted “Best Opera Chorus of the Year” by an international panel of judges at the 2013 International Opera Awards in London. In 2012 he was Chorus Master for concert performances of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Philharmonie in Berlin, with Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

In addition to working with all of South Africa’s leading orchestras, he has also undertaken frequent international tours, where he guest conducted, amongst others, the Münchner Symphoniker, Orchestre Pasdeloup in Paris, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Orchestra Victoria in Melbourne, as well as the Malmö Opera Orchestra, the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon Tel Aviv, the Welsh National Opera Orchestra in Cardiff and the Hessian State Orchestra in Wiesbaden.