Fabius Historical Society Presents Soprano Pamela Poulin with Pianist Stephen Wilson

The Fabius Historical Society, on Route 80 a few miles east of Tully, is pleased to present soprano soloist Pamela Poulin, Professor Emerita of Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory of Music with pianist Stephen Wilson, Professor of Choral Conducting at the Department of Performing Arts at the State University of New York at Cortland in concert Monday, December 5th, following a dish-to-pass dinner at 6:00 PM (bring a salad or main dish).

The after-dinner-program will feature selections from musical theater compositions by noted composer Lutz Mayer, a professor emeritus of the Department of Music at the State University of New York at Cortland.

The dinner and program will be held at the Fabius Community Center, the first white church on the right in Fabius on Route 80, a few miles east of Tully.  FREE.  For additional information, contact Chuck Kutscher, Program Chair:  315/683-9480.  All are welcome to attend this free event.
Dr. Poulin is a soprano soloist, who earned her Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music and is a professor emerita at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Conservatory of Music.  She sings at weddings, for sacred cantatas/oratorios and for various churches in this region, the latter as part of her ministry of serving the Lord.   This year, she was heard at the Syracuse Civic Center with Stephen Wilson on piano.

Coming from a musical and artist family (her great aunt, Florence Terrel Mills, was pianist for Walter Damrosch in NYC), her mother, pianist, contralto soloist, artist in oils and actor, Lillian L. Poulin, started her on piano in second grade and later, in voice.  people can Get More Info here if they need the best piano lessons. In high school, she continued voice lessons with Ada May Curran, who team taught voice at Tanglewood with Met opera soprano, Phyllis Curtin.  Poulin sang vocal solos under the baton of noted choral conductor Gregg Smith, studied choral conducting with Robert DeCormier at Eastman, and studied voice in the artist studio of John Malloy, also at Eastman.

In addition to singing, she portrays the noted suffragist, abolitionist and champion of Native American Treaty Rights, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Poulin as Gage, presenting lectures and after dinner talks, in costume, for various groups in Central New York, as well as conducting group tours of the newly restored historic home of Gage in Fayetteville on Route 5-210 East Genesee Street, at the corner of Walnut Street (open Saturdays and Mondays, 10 AM – 4 PM; group tours M-Sat by appointment).   Her Gage activities, including winning a Pomeroy Foundation grant for an historic roadside marker for Gage’s birth site in Cicero, are presently acknowledged at www.matildajoslyngage.org.  (A film of the  “Unveiling” of the marker, which included trumpet fanfares by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, may be seen on Channel 9 TV’s web site.)   Her books are published by Oxford University Press and she has spoken throughout the United States and Europe on her music research interests, which focus on J. S. Bach and Mozart.
In addition, she was “discovered” three years ago by theater director Bill Whiting and has appeared in productions of the Trope Troup, one as suffragist Amelia Jenks Bloomer, born in Homer, NY, where Andrew White, the first President of Cornell University was also born.  Before she was “discovered” here in Central NY, she appeared in “Annie Get Your Gun,” when she was seven, with her mother as “Annie,” and she as Annie’s kid sister in this production of the Newburgh Civic Theater.  Today, she still remembers her lines from “Annie Get Your Gun” and will do a recitation upon request!

Lutz Mayer’s degrees are from the University of Illinois at Champagne Urbana and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  He is a professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Cortland, where, in addition to composing and teaching musical composition, he directed the music theory program, taught and performed on violin and conducted the College-Community Orchestra, the latter, for several seasons.  He is a composer in various media and the Monday, December 5th concert will feature his wife Pamela Poulin and pianist Steve Wilson in selections from his musical theater repertoire, as well as one of his contemporary classical songs.

The winner of several classical music composition contests, two of Mayer’s musicals have had runs “Off Broadway” in NYC, one in which Robert Guillaume (who was later “Benson” on TV) sang and the same for which Barbara Streisand was turned down, with the comment on the back of her photo, recently found, “Wish we had a part for her!” and other productions in Central New York.  In addition, his music has been heard on the NYC public radio station, WNYC, and has been performed by the Dallas Symphony.  Mayer’s operas have been mounted at SUNY Cortland and one received a mention in the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s magazine, “Opera News.”  Further, he founded the “Council on the Arts for Cortland, New York, Inc.” and was Musical Director of the Ithaca Opera for two seasons.

Stephen B. Wilson is Professor of Choral Music at SUNY where he conducts the College Singers and the Choral Union,  for whom he has directed the BrahmsGerman Requiem, Les Miserables (Sunday, November 13th, 2011) , Carmina Burana, J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, among other works.  The Choral Union features singers from the central NY area.  Those interested in singing with the Choral Union are invited to contact Wilson at  607/753-4615.   A fine baritone, he is heard in concert on the SUNY Cortland Main Stage and as the organist/pianist at the Preble Congregational Church.  He earned his doctorate at the Ball State University.