Operatic soprano Adrienne Danrich (2011 Emmy Winner) and cabaret singer Katie McGrath (2018 Bistro Award) are inviting the public to join them in a special, interactive and free online community table on Thanksgiving Eve, Wednesday, November 25th at 3 PM ET, to kick off the inaugural offering of “The Gratitude Project.”
Inspired by Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” which is celebrating its 50th Anniversary, the duo recently recorded their own version of the song at the National Opera Center in New York City, with Paul Greenwood at the piano (while socially distant and with no audience in attendance). Additionally, the singers were moved to launch a Call to Action and create “The Gratitude Project.”
Following a brief, open discussion about the song’s historical relevance and parallels to events of today, participants will be invited to share things for which they are thankful and ways to reach out to others by turning gratitude into action for the greater good of community.
Simon wrote “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in the spring of 1969 as the world was in turmoil around him: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated; racial unrest erupted in the streets; and a difficult national election had ended with Richard M. Nixon becoming the President of the United States. All the while war in Vietnam raged on.
As Danrich and McGrath discussed the meaning of the song, it dawned on them how much the national situation in 1970—50 years ago—is repeated in these times. The deadly global pandemic and non-stop political and racial strife have, for some, added tremendous weight to the burdens they were already carrying.
To participate in this first Gratitude Project experience, register for the Zoom link on Eventbrite at https://tinyurl.com/TheGratitudeProject-Bridge.
Soprano Adrienne Danrich has performed, covered workshopped leading roles with Lyric Opera Chicago, San Francisco Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Pacific, Sarasota Opera, Dayton Opera, Kentucky Opera, Annapolis Opera, Opera Delaware, Baltimore Concert Opera and Fort Worth Opera. She has also performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall. Danrich also appeared in the NBC broadcast of “The Sound of Music, Live!” In addition to singing operas, concerts and recitals around the country, Danrich performs her one-woman show, This Little Light of Mine: The Stories of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price, which was nominated for an EMMY®.
St. Louis native Katie McGrath moved to Manhattan in 2016 to continue her music education after completing a successful career in advertising. Her first solo show, Significant Others, won the Bistro Award for best debut. In 2019, McGrath founded a non-profit 501©3 organization, Immigrant Song, to answer the spike in race- and religion-based hate crime with a concert series featuring a deliberately diverse group of performers that celebrate our cultural differences. https://www.immigrantsong.org
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