Patrice Michaels
Patrice Michaels | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Patrice Joyce Doub |
| Born | September 11, 1956 |
| Origin | Pasadena, California |
| Genres | Contemporary classical |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, Singer, Professor |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Website | www |
Patrice Michaels (AKA Patrice Michaels Bedi) is an American classical music composer and singer based in Chicago. She teaches voice at Northwestern University,[1] where she is on the faculty of the Voice/Opera Program at the Bienen School of Music.[2][3]
As a composer she is best known for choral works and song cycles, especially Notorious RBG in Song, a dramatic concert and album of songs written for and about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The project centers on the nine-part song cycle THE LONG VIEW, a biography of Ginsburg in music composed by Michaels. The album features the composer as the soprano soloist.[4][5]
As a singer Michaels is known for roles and features with many opera companies and orchestras, and for a sequence of 15 albums on Cedille Records beginning in 2004[6] and releases on Albany, Amadis, Decca, Neos,[6] Acis,[7] and London Records.[8]
Education and early career
Michaels began serious vocal studies as a senior in college[9] and went on to earn BAs in Music and Theater from Pomona College, an MFA in Voice from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and a certificate from the Banff Centre's Music Theatre Studio Ensemble after a post-graduate residency there.
Her voice teachers included Roy Schuessler,[10] Thomas Wikman[9] and Shirlee Emmons,[11] and she studied composition at the University of Minnesota with Dominick Argento.[12]
Teaching posts
From 1994-2011 she was a Professor of Music and Opera Theater at Lawrence University’s Conservatory of Music.[3] She was Director of Vocal Studies at the University of Chicago from 2010 to 2020, and has been Lecturer in Voice and Opera at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University from 2019 to the present.
Recording and performing career
Michaels performed with choruses and ensembles such as Music of the Baroque in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, and made her operatic debut in 1990-91 as Marzelline in Fidelio with the Cleveland Opera.[9] In a review of a 1992 album that featured Argento's Six Elizabethan Songs, the Chicago Tribune wrote that the piece's "bittersweet lyricism finds grateful expression in the vibrant soprano of Patrice Michaels Bedi."[13] In 1993 she appeared as Eurydice in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo.[14]
In 1994 Cedille Records released her first recital CD, Songs of the Romantic Age. The same year she made her recital debut in New York, and her debut with the Chicago Lyric Opera in Hal Prince's remount of Candide.[9]
Michaels' recordings include recital albums such as Divas of Mozart's Day (2002),[15] a BBC and Fanfare featured pick, the first CD release of Gian Carlo Menotti's opera The Medium (1997),[16][17] American Songs (2006),[18], and the first recording of Edward Joseph Collins' songs and instrumental duos.[19] Since 1992 she has appeared on more than 20 other albums of baroque, classical, and contemporary chamber, orchestral, and operatic music released by Cedille Records and other labels.[20]
Michaels has appeared as a soloist on stage with the Florentine Opera,[21] Lyric Opera of Chicago,[9] Chicago Opera Theater, Tacoma Opera, and and other opera companies, and in concert or on recordings with many U.S. and other symphony orchestras including the Czech National Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, and Milwaukee, Atlanta, and St. Louis Symphonies.
Composing career
Michaels has composed numerous works, notably vocal and choral works, beginning in 2014 with the Cedille Records album Intersection: Jazz Meets Classical Song[22], which included Michael's poetry and piano playing as well as singing. Her most prominent work is a song cycle that appeared on the 2018 album Notorious RBG in Song, a tribute to her mother-in-law,[23] Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Michaels has also composed incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a one-act opera on Euripides’ The Trojan Women, and a children’s show called A Song for Harmonica.[2]
In July 2019 her choral work "Refuge" was premiered at the Kennedy Center.[24]
Another song cycle, RESOLVED: Songs of Women's Suffrage and the 19th Amendment, premiered in 2020.[25] The work was commissioned by The National Constitution Center, Lyric Fest of Philadelphia, and Musicians Club of Women,[26] and aired on NBC/Peacock with J'Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano and Laura Ward, piano.[27]
Notorious RBG in Song
In 2018 the Chicago-based Cedille Records label, run by Michaels' husband James Ginsburg,[28] released Notorious RBG in Song, a dramatic concert and album of songs written for and about Ginsburg's mother and Michaels' mother-in-law Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It includes the nine-part song cycle THE LONG VIEW, a biography of Ginsburg in music composed by Michaels. Michaels is also the soprano soloist on the THE LONG VIEW on the 2018 album Notorious RBG in Song.[29][30] The lyrics are taken from letters, remembrances, conversations, and Ginsburg's Supreme Court opinions.[31] WQXR named the album one of the Best New Classical Releases of July 2018[32]
THE LONG VIEW was subsequently performed at events including a celebration of the Justice's 85th birthday at the National Museum of Women in the Arts with mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges and soprano Susanna Phillips, and “Live With Carnegie Hall: Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg” on November 19, 2020 at Carnegie Hall, with Michaels, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Denyce Graves and others.[31] It forms the foundation of the stage show "Notorious RBG in Song."
Publications and other positions
Michaels served as a music editor and compiler for the 2019 and 2025 editions of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s anthologies Resonance: A Comprehensive Voice Series.[33]
Her choral work "Refuge" is published by GIA Publications Inc. on the Global Encounters for Young Choirs series.[34]
Michaels is on the Advisory Board of SOS Children's Villages[3] and is co-founder with James Ginsburg of the RBG for SOS Endowment.[35]
Selected discography
| Title | Artist(s) | Composer(s) | Year | Label | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mozart: Mass in C minor[36] | Chicago's Music of the Baroque Chorus and Orchestra, Patrice Michaels Bedi, Karen Brunssen, William Watson, Myron Myers | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | 1990 | Music of the Baroque | Richard Mintel, Judith Mintel |
| A Vivaldi Concert[37] | Chicago Baroque Ensemble, Patrice Michaels | Antonio Vivaldi | 1995 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| The World of Lully[38] | Chicago Baroque Ensemble, Patrice Michaels | Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Féry Rebel | 1999 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| Songs of the Classical Age[39] | Patrice Michaels Bedi, David Schrader | Various | 1999 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| The Divas of Mozart's Day[40] | Patrice Michaels, Classical Arts Orchestra | Mozart, Salieri, Righini, Soler | 2002 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| Menotti: The Medium[17] | Chicago Opera Theatre, Patrice Michaels Bedi, Joyce Castle, Diane Ragains, Peter Van De Graaff, Barbara Landis, Joanna Lind | Gian Carlo Menotti | 2002 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| La vie est une parade[41] | Patrice Michaels, Chicago Chamber Musicians, Paul Freeman, Czech National Symphony Orchestra | Various | 2003 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| Music of Edward Joseph Collins[19] | Patrice Michaels et al. | Edward Joseph Collins | 2004 | Albany Records | Judith Sherman |
| American Songs[42] | Patrice Michaels, Elizabeth Buccheri | Various | 2006 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| Intersection: Jazz Meets Classical Song[22] | Patrice Michaels | Various | 2014 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
| Sonic Migrations: Music of Laurie Altman[43] | Patrice Michaels, Manhattan String Quartet, et al. | Laurie Altman | 2017 | Neos | Judith Sherman |
| Notorious RBG in Song (featuring The Long View: A Portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Nine Songs[44] | Patrice Michaels et al. | Patrice Michaels, Lori Laitman, Vivian Fung, Stacy Garrop, Derrick Wang | 2018 | Cedille Records | James Ginsburg |
External links
References
- ↑ Kyle MacMillan (16 November 2020). "RBG virtual tribute concert a Chicago family, friends affair". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Recordings". patricemichaels.com. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Patrice Michaels: Voice and Opera". sos-usa.org. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ Anne Midgette (22 June 2018). "'Notorious RBG' wanted to be a singer. Now, a CD celebrates her life". Washington Post. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ Nina Totenberg (18 July 2018). "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life Immortalized In Song". NPR. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Patrice Michaels". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
- ↑ "Fresh patterns". music.apple.com. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
- ↑ "Musings from the Rosenthal Archives of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association". CSO archives. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Ted Shen (23 December 1999). "On a High Note". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ↑ "Portfolio '22" (PDF). music.northwestern.edu. 8 June 2022. Retrieved 10 December 2025.
- ↑ "Teaching". sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ Ted Shen (13 February 1997). "Patrice Michaels Bedi". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ John von Rhein (22 November 1992). "Twentieth Century Baroque: Works by Falla, Carter,…". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ "17th Century Monteverdi Opera an Impressive Work". Chicago Tribune. 21 February 1993. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ "The Divas of Mozart's Day". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ "Gian Carlo Menotti: The Medium". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Menotti: The Medium". Classics Today. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "American Songs". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Music of Edward Joseph Collins". Albany Records. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "Recordings". patricemichaels.com. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ "20 photos of historic performances by the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 17 April 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Intersection: Jazz Meets Classical Song". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ Howard Reich (9 November 2020). "Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in song, with help from her Chicago family". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ "Patrice Michaels & Friends" (PDF). music.northwestern.edu. 28 February 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ↑ "RESOLVED: Songs of Women's Suffrage and the 19th Amendment". National Constitution Center. 26 August 2020. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ "Commission Spotlight: Resolved". lyricfest.org. Retrieved 20 November 2025.
- ↑ National Constitution Center. "Resolved: Songs of Women's Suffrage and the 19th Amendment". YouTube. Retrieved 8 December 2025.
- ↑ Alex Ross (14 May 2012). "My Favorite Records: Ruth Bader Ginsburg". The New Yorker. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ Anne Midgette (22 June 2018). "'Notorious RBG' wanted to be a singer. Now, a CD celebrates her life". Washington Post. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ Nina Totenberg (18 July 2018). "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Life Immortalized In Song". NPR. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 "Patrice Michaels to Appear in Carnegie Hall Tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg". Northwestern. 28 October 2020. Retrieved 6 November 2025.
- ↑ Zev Kane (26 July 2018). "The Best New Classical Releases of July 2018". WQXR. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ "Patrice Michaels: Voice and Opera Lecturer". music.northwestern.edu. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
- ↑ "Refuge". GIA. Retrieved 10 December 2025.
- ↑ "RBG for SOS: Patrice's story". sos-usa.org. 5 March 2024. Retrieved 5 December 2025.
- ↑ John von Rhein (28 October 1990). "Mozart: Mass in C minor, K.427, "Great";…". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "A Vivaldi Concert". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "The World of Lully". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "Songs of the Classical Age". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "The Divas of Mozart's Day". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "La vie est une parade". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 5 December 2025.
- ↑ "American Songs". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "Sonic Migrations: Music Of Laurie Altman". prestomusic.com. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ↑ "Notorious RBG in Song". cedillerecords.org. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
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