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December 11th, 2007 | 7:30 pm Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall The CUNY Graduate Center 365 5th Avenue, NYC Hoppe hoppe rider & All fall down | Karen Siegel Karen Siegel, soprano Sheryl Lee, piano These songs are part of a work-in-progress, a collection of short songs. These two incorporate children's nursery rhymes. The first, Hoppe hoppe reiter, is a traditional German rhyme about a horse rider, and is usually sung to a child while bouncing him or her on your lap. Like the better-known Grimm's fairy tales, the intended audience of children does not necessitate a happy story; the rider falls, breaks his leg, and is eaten by ravens. The second song includes nursery rhymes popular in America, Ring around the rosie and Eeny meeney miney moe. Although the association of Ring around the rosie with the black death is considered by most contemporary scholars to lack historic basis, that popular idea still taints my hearing of the traditional song and this re-composition of it. Karen Siegel holds a MA in music composition from NYU's Steinhardt School, where she studied with Marc Antonio Consoli, and a BA in Psychology from Yale University. Currently, she studies with Tania León at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her works have been performed by Trio Eos and the choral collective C4 and commissioned by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble. As a soprano, Karen specializes in new music and frequently performs her own works. Upcoming performances include a new work for horn and SATB choir to be premiered by C4 on Feb. 23rd, 2008, and an instrumental work commissioned by the Matrix Music Collaborators and created in collaboration with the poet Erica Wright, to be premiered on March 6th, 2008. return to PAST CONCERTS