Search - Various Classical, Catherine Hammond :: Intimations

Contralto Catherine Hammond sings 27 art and folk songs by Bach, Gluck, Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Grieg, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky, and two original songs.She is accompanied on the piano by Robert Gartside, William Merrill, and Tatyana Shrago. Contributing artists are cellist Frank Hammond, flutist Stephanie Stathos, and guitarist Gerry Putnam. Catherine Hammond studied voice with Ruth Streeter in Boston, Bernard Diamant in Montreal, Roy Henderson in London, and Robert Gartside in Lexington, Massachusetts. She holds degrees in music from Columbia University (B.A.) and Boston University (M.A.). While at Columbia, she performed solos with the Columbia University Chorus and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. In Boston she has been a member of The Cantata Singers, the Handel and Haydn Society, and the Bowdoin Street Consort. Appearing frequently in recitals of art songs in several languages, she has also been a regular church soloist in the Boston area over the last ten years. She recently recorded Brahms? Two Songs for Contralto, Cello, and Piano, with her brother, cellist Frank Hammond, and pianist Thomas Hightower, and a CD of hymns for vocal quartet and piano for Longyear Museum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Catherine Hammond has also written numerous songs and instrumental pieces, a multi-media work based on Dostoyevsky?s "Dream of a Ridiculous Man," and a short musical for children called "Mask-erade." Two of her most recent compositions, "Alleluia!" based on Psalms 92 and 93, and a setting of "Mother ?s Evening Prayer" by Mary Baker Eddy, are included on this CD. The name of this album, "Intimations," derives from the word "intimate," which has as one of its meanings " belonging to or characterizing the inmost true self : indicative of one?s deepest nature" (Webster?s 3rd New International Dictionary). On hearing these songs, the listener will undoubtedly agree on the appropriateness of the title.