Product Description
Letters From Cohoes was originally conceived for Baritone, flute,
harp and string Quartet. The first movement is set in Eva Tanguays voice and
works well dramatically for mezzo-soprano.
Eva Tanguay (1879-1947) was
born in Canada and billed herself as "the girl who made vaudeville famous". She
was known for her suggestive songs and extravagant costumes. She has been
likened to Madonna or Lady Gaga. Her one recording was "I Dont Care" in 1922.
Her parents moved to
Holyoke, Massachusetts in the 1880s and she began her career as a teenager at
the Cohoes Music Hall. At the age of nineteen she made her debut in New York
City.
Tanguay was the highest
paid woman of her day but was said to have lost more than two million dollars
in the Wall Street crash of 1929. Tanguay had a reputation for outlandish
behavior and was once fined $50 in Louisville, Kentucky for throwing a
stagehand down a flight of stairs. She died, blind and nearly destitute, at the
age of 68 in Hollywood. In 1953 Mitzi Gaynor portrayed Eva Tanguay in a fictionalized
version of her life in the motion picture, The
I Dont Care Girl. Her ghost is said to still haunt Cohoes Music Hall in
upstate New York.
Letters from Cohoes is a highly fictionalized, musical portrayal of
Eva Tanguays ghost. In its original form it was scored for flute (doubling on
alto flute, contrabass flute and piccolo), harp, string quartet and solo
baritone. It is in four movements, taking the form of letters.
Letter 3. June 1974, Cohoes (duration 2:15)
Wish List Fundraising
The
new stage manager writes a letter to the producers asking for funds to equip
the shop.
All
I need is some money for a hammer and nails, some duct tape, and a circular
saw. That's all I need, and a C clamp, maybe two.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.