Rising star soprano Margot Rood performs at Longy to honor long-time Longy educator at 22nd Annual Gessner Schocken concert

Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall│October 28, 2016 8 p.m.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Acclaimed soprano Margot Rood and pianist Damien Francoeur-Krzyzek will perform at the 22nd annual Gessner-Schocken concert at Longy School of Music of Bard College, to honor long-time Longy educator Ruth Gessner-Schocken on October 28 at 8 p.m. The program will feature 21st century vocal chamber music written by Libby Larsen, Ricky Ian Gordon, Philip Rice, Steve Rouse, Timothy Sullivan, and Longy alumna, Heather Gilligan. The concert is generously funded by the family of Ruth Gessner-Schocken and is just one of over 180 free performances that Longy presents over the course of each year.

The concert honors the legacy of Ruth Gessner-Schocken, a musician, educator, philanthropist and long-time supporter and faculty member at Longy. Along with her husband, she established the Gessner-Schocken concert series in 1994 to “bring young artists of the highest calibre” to perform at Longy and share their talents with the music community in Cambridge and Greater Boston. Admission to the concert is free, but ticket reservations are recommended and available at longy.edu/events.

About Margot Rood: Margot Rood, hailed for her “luminosity and grace” by The New York Times, performs a wide range of repertoire across American stages. Following her solo debut at Boston’s Symphony Hall in 2011, she has been a frequent soloist with Handel and Haydn Society and has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Seraphic Fire, A Far Cry, Kent Singers, Bay Chorale, Brookline Symphony and various concerts with acclaimed renaissance ensemble Blue Heron. Rood was named a 2015-2016 Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow at Emmanuel Music, where she is often featured on Emmanuel's nationally-known Bach cantata series.

In addition to opera and oratorio, Rood has performed as soloist with some of the United States’ premiere new music ensembles, and was a 2015 recipient of the St. Botolph Club Foundation's Emerging Artist Award for her work in new music. Ms. Rood is a core member of Boston’s Lorelei Ensemble, and a founding member of the Michigan Recital Project. Her new recording with composer and Longy alumna Heather Gilligan, “Living in Light,” will be released in 2017.

About Ruth Gessner-Schocken: A pillar of the Longy community, Gessner-Schocken’s association with Longy began when she was hired to teach German Diction in 1978. She was a staunch advocate of education and learning, and a passionate supporter of students. “With Ruth, age was meaningless,” said Dean Wayman Chin. “She was ever young in spirit and young at heart. She loved young people and over the years, many of our students were her beneficiaries – enjoying opportunities to perform at her home, to share her love of song literature and, above all, to experience her passion for music.”

About Longy School of Music of Bard College

Longy School of Music of Bard College is a conservatory with a mission to prepare musicians to make a difference in the world. World-class faculty and innovative curriculum give students the skills they need to succeed while encouraging them to push their artistic presentation beyond the proscenium model. Longy promotes profound musical understanding and technical mastery, inspires growth of imagination, and fosters an attitude of inquiry about the musician’s role in the world. Longy serves graduate and undergraduate students from over 35 states and 16 countries between its Cambridge campus, and its campus in Los Angeles, which houses the El Sistema-inspired Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree program.

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Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall
27 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138
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