Concert Season Concludes with Golden Motors March 8 & 9

The last concerts of the 2012–13 Edward T. Cone Concert season at the Institute for Advanced Study will feature songs from Golden Motors, a collaboration in musical theater centering on a family’s struggle to improve their lives in the shadow of a fictional Detroit auto plant during the early 1980s. The music by Derek Bermel, Artist-in-Residence at the Institute, draws on gospel, art-song, Motown, country, and Broadway. The book and lyrics are by poet Wendy S. Walters, author of the forthcoming Troy, Michigan and Longer I Wait, More You Love Me (2009). Directing these staged readings will be director Johanna McKeon (American Idiot; Grey Gardens). Scheduled performers include Broadway veteran Chuck Cooper (Caroline, or Change; 1996 Tony Winner for The Life), soprano Dan’yelle Williamson (Memphis; Scandalous), Lawrence Clayton (Bells Are Ringing; Dreamgirls), Aisha de Haas (Caroline, or Change; Rent), and Okieriete Onaodowan (Cyrano de Bergerac; American Idiot). The musical director and pianist will be John DiPinto (Trav’lin; Footloose). Golden Motors has been presented in New York at Symphony Space and at the Flea Theater.

A concert talk moderated by Steve Smith, Music Editor for Time Out New York and regular contributor to the New York Times, will precede the Saturday performance, beginning at 6:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall.

The concerts will be the last public concerts organized by Bermel during his four-year term as Artist-in-Residence.

Tickets are required for the concerts and are available free-of-charge. For more information and to register, visit www.ias.edu/air/music#golden.