with Brahm Goldhammer, piano


MIT A NAR 
(With a Fool)
Yiddish poem by Malka Heifetz Tussman

Culture - 
What does a fool do with culture?
What does a cultured fool do?
With culture, he can destroy the world.
And strange - I can’t be clever with a fool.
With a fool, I become more foolish than he is.
I dread a fool,
and I don’t know how
this fool latched on to me.

Helen Medwedeff Greenberg, Mit a Nar (With a Fool), Froyen Stimme #2

Italian text translated by R. Ascoli from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "The Sunset."

Recorded live on 13 February 2003 in Mazzoleni Hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto.

Ramona Carmelly, mezzo soprano
Catherine Cosbey, violin
Senja Hawken, violin
Katya Woloshyn, viola
Elizabeth McLellan, cello

The applause, at the start and end of this track, is for my wonderful colleagues, Catherine, Senja, Katya, and Liza, who generously lent me their time and talents to make this performance possible. I leave it here out of gratitude and appreciation for them.



Ottorino Respighi, Il Tramonto (lyric poem for mezzo soprano voice & string quartet)

Stephanie Sadownik- mezzo-soprano
Olga Kim-piano

"To Nachuma" was commissioned by the Arizona Women's Collaborative  for their "Voices for the Voiceless" Concert held in March 2019.
Author Kalani Pickhart wrote poetry based on a letter written by mezzo-soprano Stephanie Sadownik in response to unearthed letters from her Great Grandmother, Nachuma Lewkowitz who was killed in The Holocaust. Composer Erica Glenn set the poetry, here are her wonderful program notes:
“To Nachuma” began with Stephanie Sadownik’s family history journey in Poland[ the summer of 2018] at a time when Kalani Pickhart and I also happened to be in Eastern Europe.  Back at ASU, Stephanie showed us a stack of letters penned by her great-grandmother during the most turbulent years of the 20th century, and the three of us began tracing common threads (ranging from the poetic to the quotidian).  We asked Stephanie if she would be willing to write a letter back to her great-grandmother.  If given the opportunity, what would she tell this woman who fought to preserve her family and their shared sense of identity across wars and oceans?  If given a voice that would reach the past, what would she say? 

The resulting letter was deeply personal, conveying the sense of something irrevocably lost but somehow also regained. From this, Kalani crafted a free-verse poem, which I set to music. The key centers “C” and “D” relate roughly to the past while “F” and “G” represent the present. “E” is the chasm between the two, which becomes the song’s final resting place. My motivic units are inspired by klezmer tunes of the era, the Israeli National Anthem, and a traditional setting of the “mayim” text. Water (“mayim”) as a symbol of cleansing and renewal pervades both the text and music, as does the concept of “dayenu.” Instead of lamenting the suffering and separation that plagues their history, observant Jews at Passover express gratitude for God's miracles during the very worst of times. Just one blessing would have been enough, they say.  Dayenu.  

We each embark on a lifelong journey to discover our own identity, to connect with those in our present, and to understand those who laid the foundations in our past. We do so haltingly, awkwardly, imperfectly. But, ultimately, it is enough. Gratitude fills the empty spaces, smooths the rough edges, and heals the broken places.  It is enough.  Dayenu.

To Nachuma (from your Great-Granddaughter, Shifra)

Recorded live on March 26th, 2015 at the High Society Orchestra's show at Scullers Jazz Club - in an original arrangement by Dan Gabel for myself and the High Society Orchestra.
Song by Lenox and Sutton, written in 1905, performed by Judy Garland in the 1949 movie In "The Good Old Summertime".

I Don't Care

Chantelle Grant mezzo soprano
Alla Milchtein piano

Ah, Tanya, Tanya - Eugene Onegin Tchaikovsky

Ramona Carmelly, mezzo soprano (Emily Carr)
Victoria Ellis Hathaway, oboe
John Brownell, percussion
Joseph Ferretti, piano
Recorded live in November 2011 at the Heliconian Club in Toronto.

EMILY, THE WAY YOU ARE, is a new lyrical portrait of the boldly nonconformist visionary Canadian artist and writer Emily Carr, composed by Ontario composer and painter Jana Skarecky, with libretto by Manitoba poet and essayist Di Brandt. The one-woman chamber opera, premiered on Sunday April 20, 2008, at the McMichael Gallery Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario, featuring mezzo soprano Ramona Carmelly in the title role, with The Talisker Players Chamber Ensemble under the baton of maestro Gary Kulesha through the auspices of the Canadian Music Centre New Music in New Places program. (An excerpt of that performance is featured on the Canadian Music Centre website, at http://musiccentre.ca/node/37429/showcase; an excerpt of the libretto and score can be found at www.ecclectical.ca/issues/2009/1.) Emily has since been performed in several professional and university venues, cantata-style with minimal staging.

Emily ob-perc 2011 (Ramona Carmelly)

Raven - Emily, the Way You Are (scene V)

Ramona Joy Carmelly has captivated audiences in opera, music theatre, concert and cabaret, in roles from the sublime to the ridiculous, with critical praise:

 “Ramona Carmelly was every inch the diva princess as Amneris, in a thoughtful performance that held nothing back, especially in her big scene in Act IV. This is a voice that could develop in several directions, as she has the top and low notes, and sang a huge role in a bluesy style a few months ago in the premiere of David Warrack’s Abraham.” -- Leslie Barcza, Barczablog

“Ramona Carmelly as the Spoken Voice and the Angel really surprised me. I'm already a fan of her full-throated Wagnerian mezzo, but I got to hear a different kind of singing from her. A more contemporary musical theatre sound with - wait for it - some DAMN FINE BELTING!” -- Gregory Finney, Schmopera 

“As Madame de la Haltiere, Ramona Carmelly had the right comic flair and rich tone.” -- Joseph So, La Scena Musicale

“special mention for Ramona Carmelly … Her performance was a lesson in how deft acting can overcome the limitations of opera on the concert stage.” -- Wayne Gooding, OPERA CANADA magazine

“Ramona Carmelly, with her plush mezzo, was outstanding as the jealously domineering Mrs. McLean” -- David Lasker, The GLOBE & MAIL (Toronto)

“... Alora, played marvelously by Ramona Joy Carmelly” -- Peter Bevan-Baker - The Recorder & Times

“It is not often a composer finds a performer who will prepare a work with such care and excellent musicianship... a top-notch performance.” -- Mary Gardiner, composer 

“The gifted mezzo soprano … [gave] a soaring, gorgeous interpretation of Jewish-Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick's Time Cycle, a jewel from his much admired Yiddish Suite No. 2” -- Jordana Divon, The Canadian Jewish News

Whenever I meet people and I'm asked what I do, I tell people I'm a singer. The very next thing I almost always hear them say is something like "Oh, I can't sing." Well, I call B.S! My manifesto is that everyone can sing. Very few people are physiologically impaired in such a way as to interfere with the healthy function of their voice. There is a very good reason for the metaphor of ‘your true voice in the world.’ Singing and speaking your truth, finding your voice, is your birthright as a human being. We are all born doing it: slap, breath, wail. That was your very first song, your own intuitive healing voice. And considering how many people in this world have that right stolen, silenced, or suppressed, it seems a great shame to waste yours. Now, stop caring so much what other people might think, and go sing something!

Helen Medwedeff Greenberg, Mit a Nar (With a Fool), Froyen Stimme #2

Ramona Joy Carmelly

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