By Aspen Matis

Columbia University psychiatry professor Galina Mindlin, MD, PhD, studies neuron connections and how such brain links can be strengthened by listening to the right music. Her new book, Your Playlist Can Change Your Life (co-authored by Joseph Cardillo and Don DuRousseau), distills her brain-training findings into playlists for the mood you want to be in. West Side Spirit spoke with Mindlin about music’s potential to alter mood, productivity and happiness, the existence of side-effect-free medicine and the North Pole’s hold on her mind.

West Side Spirit: We’ve all resolved to be better versions of ourselves in 2012. What role can music play in that resolution?
Galina Mindlin: Positive stimuli affect the brain in a positive way. You can use music as positive stimuli to improve your mood or relieve stress. First, you choose the piece you like and you think of the mind-state you desire. For instance: Do you want to relax, study, get motivated, focus—think first about what you want. Second, you really need to practice, play and play the piece, so your brain will remember it. Your brain is like a muscle.

What if I get sick of the song?
Then you have to leave it for a while, find something else. Stop playing it. Start gently replacing it with something else. Encourage your brain to withdraw from it.

What’s the value of playing the same song again and again?
To train the brain, help the cells forge more connections. But then you do have to update your playlist. Our brains respond to variation.

If you really want to train your mind, you have to stimulate your brain in unpredictable ways—unpredictable frequencies. You want to check the beats per minute—you want to synchronize your brain waves with those of the music, the beats per minute. You become your own boss with this prescription. We can practice personalized medicine.

Do you think the use of music as medicine will grow popular?
All New Yorkers go for the quick fix. A pill. Want to fall asleep faster? Benzo. These things have side effects. Instead: Push the button. You can be your own doctor.

How did you first become interested in music’s effect on the brain?
I went to music school. Now, I record brain waves and translate them into musical frequencies, so your brain plays the music. I give you a CD with your brain’s music.

And what happens when someone listens to her own brain music? What’s the effect?
It’s like listening to your mom’s voice, your daughter’s voice.

How does someone determine the frequency of music that is best for what he is trying to do?
If you’re very nervous and you want to calm yourself down, you want to listen to something of a lower frequency. To get motivated or excited—to stimulate your brain—listen to something of higher frequency, generally.

If you want to determine the ideal frequency for you and what you’re trying to do—something more accurate than just “I like this”—buy the book.

What is your song? What do you listen to to train your brain?
I was born in the North Pole, I moved to Moscow when I was 5. You’re a little kid, and everything is white—whiteness and white noise. I’d get confused; kids would sometimes wander outside in the night, because it was always light. I and the other kids would play with a little white fox and a baby polar bear.

For me, to focus, I have to go back to my childhood, into that white-noise space. Silence. Complete silence. And then I can go into my playlist.

By Paulette Safdieh

“Why do people love music? That’s an age-old question,” said Richard Russell, the associate director of the Mannes College the New School for Music Extension Division. “It speaks to something in the soul. People have a calling for it.”

The extension division at Mannes, located on West 85th Street, is a continuing education program for adults looking to strum strings, play keys, blow horns and sing. Russell himself is a composer who has worked for the department since 1999. Throughout the years, he has seen New Yorkers from all backgrounds come through the doors of Mannes with the hope of learning a new instrument—the most popular classes they offer are acoustic guitar and jazz piano for beginners.

Piano classes in Manhattan.

“This is not the best program in the world if you want to learn ‘Mozart wrote this and Beethoven wrote that’,” said Russell. “It’s about doing. We’re a very hands-on division.”

The interactive group classes at Mannes have no more than 10 students per class, with some beginner courses even capping off at five. “Teachers will give you their home phone number,” said Russell on the personal attention offered to each aspiring musician. Russell works personally with prospective students, eager to put them on the road to instrumental success. “People who fit in best are those who used to play, fell out and are looking to start up again,” he said.

Igal Kesselman, director of the Lucy Moses School at the Kaufman Center on West 67th Street, finds the same is true in his music department. “We have people from all walks of life and all levels, but the majority are adults who used to play when they were kids,” said Kesselman. “They think, ‘Now I have the time! Now I know it’s exciting!’” Lucy Moses is the largest community arts school in the city, with students ranging in age from 18 to 90. Despite the growing number of students—approximately 300 join the program each year—class and workshop sizes rarely exceed 12.

While guitar and piano classes are the biggest hits at these institutions, each offers one-on-one instruction for other instruments as well. Once students grasp the basics, they can move up to ensemble classes like Mannes’s flute ensemble, where 60 people play collectively. The schools make sure that, once in a larger setting, students are placed with others on the same level. “We don’t want anybody to be frustrated,” said Russell. “We do our best to accommodate everyone’s needs.”

The most exciting time for the schools is performance season, when students can showcase their talents. “We have great resources for performing opportunities,” Kesselman said of the Lucy Moses recital halls. Each semester is wrapped up with a much-anticipated concert on campus.

For those whose work schedules and other time constraints make signing up for a semester a difficult commitment, schools like Encore School of Music and Turtle Bay Music School can offer similar instruction and chances to perform for an audience.

Located on East 52nd Street, Turtle Bay offers 5-week introductory courses in the instrument of your choice, along with monthly performance nights. Encore has locations in Brooklyn and Queens as well as the Upper East Side and offers lessons in saxophone, bass, clarinet and others. Students looking to brush up on old skills or take their talent to a new level can choose the style of their instruction—from blues guitar to rock ‘n’ roll drums.

“It’s about people dipping their toes in the water, stepping out of their comfort zone,” said Russell. “It’s the joy of playing music and challenge of trying something new that keeps the programs running each year.”

Manhattan music classes:

Turtle Bay Music School 244 E. 52nd St., 212-753-8811; 5-week introductory course, $245. Begins October.

Mannes College the New School for Music Extension Division 150 W. 85th St., 212-580-0210; 15-week semester, $450.

Lucy Moses School at Kaufman Center 129 E. 67th St., 212-501-3300; 12-week semester, $335.

Encore School of Music 315 Madison Ave., 800-417-4620; Prices vary by location.

It’s being billed as The Ecstatic Music Festival, but it might be more apt to call it a euphoric marathon. Running Jan. 16-March 28 at Merkin Concert Hall at the Kaufman Center and featuring 150 composers, songwriters and performers working together, this celebration of the area between classical and popular music is nothing if not sprawling.

According to festival curator Judd Greenstein, co-director of New Amsterdam Records and managing director of NOW Ensemble, there’s no better way to make a splash.

“People don’t know what to expect from this kind of show,” Greenstein explains. “My hope is that as we move along, people will realize that these are shows that are vital and bringing something completely new to the already flooded New York music scene, the later shows will benefit from the success of the earlier ones.”

The line-up is impressive the entire way through, from the seven-hour concert Jan. 17 featuring Brooklyn’s own Buke & Gass and the American premiere of a new work by John Matthias, Adrian Corker and Andrew Prior, to a March 9 collaboration between Nadia Sirota, Thomas “Doveman” Bartlett and Owen Pallett.

It’s Greenstein’s commitment to new partnerships and attention to the intersections of different types of music that made him a strong candidate to run what promises to becoming a pillar of The Kaufman Center’s programming.

“The focus of the festival should not just be on music in that border area between genres but should center on collaborations between people working in slightly different spheres,” he explains. “It was a matter of finding people who wanted to do things that they weren’t being given an opportunity to do. What’s interesting for me as a curator is to provide a forum for something authentically new to happen… to find a way to give them that opportunity.”

By Sharon Elizabeth Samuel

For jazz enthusiasts and fine diners, Thursday nights at Bistro Ten 18 are a treat for the senses. Located near Columbia University at 1018 Amsterdam Ave., the French restaurant is surrounded by rowdy student hotspots, yet the atmosphere of the Bistro is low-key and elegant; not only with its sophisticated cuisine but also with its addition of weekly live music. Since September, guests have enjoyed the soothing tunes of the Morningside Jazz Collective every Thursday from 9:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m.

Saxophonist Zac Vancanti. Photo by Hai Zhang

Since its conception by lead guitarist Lee Welch, the Jazz Collective has been an Upper West Side fixture in its own right. Welch describes its beginning as “a classic New York kind of story.”

Welch had been taking jazz guitar lessons near Columbia when he and his teacher, Joe Giglio, began practicing in the garden next to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Together they sought out other musicians, including lead guitarists Kenny Wessel and Carl Baser, bass guitarists Christian Konopka and Joe Fitzgerald, drummers Joe Izzo and Lou Grassi and saxophonist Zac Vancanti.

Jam sessions with their ever-growing pool led to gigs around Morningside, where they would often play as a quintet. Band members would also attend each others’ concerts at other venues, supporting one another if someone got a new gig. The group became a jazz community in which musicians were free to become core members, contribute as visiting performers or leave to pursue other projects.

The Collective represents a wide range of professional backgrounds. Some members, such as Welch and Baser, work in non-musical fields, while others, like Giglio, devote themselves to full-time music education. Still others, like Konopka, are professional musicians who regularly arrange and record pieces and tour with other artists. The Collective has also featured individuals who play in Broadway pit orchestras.

When Welch met Craig Skiptunis, owner of Bistro Ten 18, it became clear that the Morningside Jazz Collective could add to the restaurant’s warm ambiance. Skiptunis had highlighted musicians in the past, and was looking to resurrect the weekly live music scene. Welch likes having the structure of a weekly show. “For us, the Bistro is the rare commodity called the ‘regular gig,’” he said. “The consistency helps us improve.”

A typical Thursday night performance at Bistro Ten 18 consists of three 45-minute sets, with selections of standard jazz, bebop, blues, funk and some contemporary pieces. Regardless of the style or tempo of the songs, the volume and tone are subdued and serve to enhance the dining experience. “What’s nice about Bistro is that it’s not like a club, where you pay a cover and you’re there to listen,” said Welch. “Our music sounds good but it doesn’t overpower you. You can have a conversation, listen to music, talk a bit more, eat and have drinks while the music just massages you. It’s a cool energy. It’s like walking into Paris on the corner of 110th and Amsterdam.”

Some players get a small stipend for contributing to the band, but most are motivated solely by their love of jazz. “A jazz musician will often teach music as a way of starting out, or play corporate gigs and weddings,” said Welch, who made a living playing bluegrass on street corners after coming to New York City in 1976. “That’s the way full-time jazz musicians get started—they get a day job or teach music. But in the end we’re all full-time students and lovers of jazz.”

Regardless of their professional experience, band members are constantly composing music and envisioning making records together. For Welch, the most exciting thing about the group is its constant evolution—both in the improvisational quality of their music, and in the structure of the band itself. As old members leave and new ones join, the face of the group changes. Currently, the band members’ ages range from mid-twenties to sixties.

“That’s what jazz is all about,” said Welch. “There’s no age restriction. If you can play, you just come and play. We have an eclectic mix of people—much like the mix of people who come to the Bistro. There are the older folks who know all the songs and the few tables of college students who don’t know much about jazz. With rock music you need to fit a certain image, but jazz transcends age and time.”

The “Baroque Celebration” will feature soloist David Chan, concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and winner of the Tchaikovsky Internal Competition in Moscow. He will perform Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and then the Florilegium Chamber Choir and vocal soloists will join the orchestra for Vivaldi’s Gloria. The concert will culminate in a combined performance with the orchestra, choir and soloists, as they lead a sing-along of traditional holiday tunes. Hot cider and other seasonal refreshments will be served afterwards.

David Bernard, music director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, has been with the group since its founding in 1999, and is proud of the Symphony’s many contributions to the city, which include outreach programs, community music classes and conservatory preparatory schools.

“It’s part serious concert with a world-class soloist, playing very well-known works: the Four Seasons of Vivaldi and Gloria. Vivaldi music is so festive, and anyone who comes to this concert will have a wonderful time—they’ll get great music by great artists, and then a sing-along,” Bernard said.

As a pianist and harpsichord/continuo player, Bernard will lead the Four Seasons from the keyboard.

The Symphony will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets cost $20 ($10 for students and seniors), and are available at the door or online through SmartTix. For more information, please call 212-868-4444, or visit www.chambersymphony.com.

Celebrate Brooklyn!
Prospect Park proves it’s more than just a pretty space by housing one of the best summer concert series in the city. Slather on some sunscreen and go see Sonic Youth and Talk Normal July 31, The Roots July 11 or Kid Koala June 25, as well as an opening night kick-off concert by Norah Jones June 9.
June 9 through Aug. 8, Prospect Park Bandshell, ener park at 9th St. & Prospect Park West, Brooklyn, 718-855-7882; Free.

A summer tradition: the Philharmonic in the park.

Madison Square Music
When you’re not in Madison Square Park filling up on burgers, try catching one of its free concerts. Offer to bring a blanket and let your friend stand in line for snacks before seeing soul singer Ruthie Foster, who opens up the park’s Oval Lawn Series June 16, or the David Bromberg Quartet July 14.
June 16 through Aug. 4, Madison Square Park, enter park at Madison Ave. & E. 26th St., www.madisonsquarepark.org; Free.

River To River Festival
From the must-see rock shows at Pier 17 to the early evening concert series at Rockefeller Park, a July 4 concert in Battery Park and the Bang On A Can Marathon, River to River is an exhaustive behemoth of Downtown summer music. Check the website for a full schedule.
June 22 through Aug. 11, various locations, 212-732-7678, www.rivertorivernyc.com; Free.

RiverRocks
See more than the swells break at Pier 54 during Hudson River Park’s annual music series featuring indie rockers like series headliners Phosphorescent & Dawes July 8, The Antlers July 22 and Real Estate Aug. 12.
July 8 through Aug. 12, Hudson River Park, Perry & West Streets, 212-627-2020, www.riverrocksnyc.com; Free.

New York Philharmonic in the Parks
Starting July 13, city parks will be great places for something other than staring at sunbathers; something more classy like a free orchestra concert, including pieces from Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, Bernstein and Mozart, in Central, Cunningham and Prospect parks.
July 13 through 16, various locations, 212-875-5656, www.nyphil.org; Free.

Lincoln Center Out of Doors
It’s not officially summer until Lincoln Center Out of Doors opens, because this annual festival of live music is the touchstone telling us now it’s time to bust out the short shorts, sunglasses and zinc. Make sure to see, on July 31, “The Detroit Breakdown,” featuring The Gories, Dennis Coffey, Melvin Davis, Spyder Turner and more.
July 28 through Aug. 15, various locations, www.lincolncenter.org; Free.

Charlie Parker Jazz Festival
Head to Tompkins Square Park in the East Village and Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem to hear some of jazz’s biggest musicians perform for this two-day celebration of the music Parker held so close to his heart. The Frank Wess Quintet and Cedar Walton Quartet headline.
Aug. 29 & 30, Marcus Garvey Park, enter park at E. 120th St. & Madison Ave. and Tompkins Square Park, enter park at E. 8th St. & Ave. A; 3, Free.

Symphony Space is known for presenting music marathons that are unforgettable for any culture vulture. May 15, the 12-hour “Wall to Wall Behind the Wall” will include world and U.S. premieres, along with rare works by world-renowned and emerging composers from the Soviet Union and Communist-era Eastern Europe. It’s the brainchild of Symphony Space’s associate artistic director Laura Kaminsky, who will become the institutions’ director July 1. We caught up with Kaminsky, who grew up on West 79th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, to find out why Russia, why now.

Q: You’re known for tackling big, scary political themes. Do you think Symphony Space patrons are ready for that?
A: The way I think about this is that we chose to do “Wall to Wall Behind the Wall” to celebrate a great body of music. It’s not so much a political analysis as a cultural journey, and I think people are totally ready.

Q: Who do you think should be going to this? What kind of people will find this music appealing?
A: I think everybody will. There’s symphonic music, chamber music, solo music, there’s jazz music, there’s folk music. It’s a pretty broad spectrum and it’s all great stuff, so I think people who are curious and culture-loving are going to have a great time.

Q: Why Russia? Why Berlin? Why this now?
A: I was looking at histories of Wall to Walls. Most are by composer, but some are thematic. Last year we did “Wall to Wall Broadway.” It’s got to be something that I’m passionate about. I though about doing Shostakovich, but that’s not as interesting as his entire context, where he lived. I lived in Eastern Europe. “Wall to Wall Behind the Wall” stuck in my head. I thought I could make a great program out of this. I really had a sense of the wealth and richness of all of this music. I thought of all the music that I wanted New Yorkers to hear. It would be a 100-hour festival if we did all the pieces I want to play. It was my passion for the music and my desire for Symphony Space to look broadly at cultural differences—I thought this was a great way to do that.

Q: Why a marathon? Do you think it’s trying to take arts to a “competitive level,” or is it just less intimidating for people so they can come in and out and not feel strapped down?
A: I guess the history of Symphony Space is that we were founded with a Wall to Wall marathon. We’ve been doing this for 32 years. It’s absolutely not competitive. It’s a warm embrace of our community. It’s absolutely about community and the joy of sharing good music. Yes, I hope it is less intimidating.

Q: There’s a U.S. premiere of Shostakovich war songs included in the program. Can you explain why these haven’t made it here before?
A: One of my many finds last summer, as I was doing research, was an original manuscript written by Shostakovich in his original hand, in lavender ink. It was 20 songs that he had arranged for the soldiers on the front line. They were for voice, violin and cello, because they’re all portable. I asked for a copy and asked if it had been disseminated. I think this is the only score that exists in this county.

Q: What do you have in store for us next? Is there a new direction for Symphony Space that we should expect?
A: A commitment to new work, nurturing emerging artists, commissioning work—giving people the opportunity to express themselves. We want to make music and contemporary work in all disciplines—make all this new stuff accessible. We have pre-concert conversations, which are really great, and make the audience more familiar with the music.

Q: Are you hoping to make Symphony Space more of a destination with provocative programming, as other high-profile institutions have done recently?
A: Our program’s been thought of as being fairly provocative and current. I would like to be thought of as a place that inspires people’s curiosity. Yes, I want to invite people to participate and be part of an exciting cultural hub here.

Q: Jennifer Higdon won the Pulitzer for composition. It seems like a big, important year for female composers. As one yourself, do you have any advice for people starting down that path?
A: I was happy for Jennifer, we had a nice email exchange. [My advice would be] write regularly. Write honestly. Be open. Hone your craft. Engage with ideas and engage with other musicians.

Q: I have a perception that classical music is very much an old-boys club. Is that true?
A: I’m not even sure how to answer that. I mean, the Vienna Philharmonic still doesn’t really have women in the orchestra. That was a big legal issue about 10 years ago because they barred women. But because they received state funding, they were told they had to have equal opportunity hiring. I think it’s less and less true, at least in this country. When you look at the larger classical music institutions, I think you see a much larger mix of personnel, both of men and women, and also an international array of artists.

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a composer? Was that something you always thought of growing up?
A: I guess I started making up music in a formal, thoughtful way as about a 10- or 11-year-old. I didn’t know that I would do it as my primary passionate life endeavor until later. I wasn’t a music major in college, but I did go to graduate school for music. I went to the Music and Arts High School, which was one of the public schools, not LaGuardia. At that time, I was fortunate to be able to be exposed to some of those talented young musicians, most of whom I still know and work with. But I was writing music pretty furiously then.

Q: What was your major in college?
A: Psychology.

Q: Does that ever come into play in your work at all?
A: Every day.

Transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. With additional reporting by Charlotte Eichna.

But drift back to the Jazz Loft, a bohemian hangout in the flower district from the mid-1950s to the mid-’60s, where eccentric geniuses, slumming celebrities, the contentiously brilliant and attractive hangers-on rubbed shoulders, crossed genres and created sparks.

This Jazz Loft is the topic of a traveling exhibition at the NYC Public Library for the Performing Arts through May 22, curated by researcher Sam Stephenson under the auspices of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Stephenson, who directs the multi-dimensional The Jazz Loft Project, was drawn to its story through the photography of W. Eugene Smith, the Loft’s initially discontented, eventually speed-fueled host. He has edited an award-nominated book combining Smith’s gritty black-and-white images with transcriptions from his voluminous archive of audiotapes capturing jams and rap sessions. The exhibit has spun off a fascinating panel discussion, the premiere screening of a film tangentially connected to the Loft and a 10-part radio series by producer Sara Fishko.

A scene from In My Mind.

All this media does a fine job of depicting the Loft’s decade-long underground party. The illegal live-work space—off any beaten path and completely non-commercial—drew artists, actors, choreographers, writers and philanthropists, but musicians were its mainstay: jazzniks such as Thelonious Monk, Zoot Sims, Charles Mingus and Bill Evans, as well as figures of contemporary classicism like David Amram, Dennis Russell Davies, Ben Johnston, Joel Krosnick and Alvin Singleton.

One of the reasons they all showed up was that besides Smith—a Life magazine star who quit in a huff over a photo-essay layout, left his wife and four children in Croton-on-Hudson and moved to the city—also residing in the five-story walkup were painter David X. Young, musician Dick Cary and composer-arranger Hall Overton. Today, Overton is remembered mostly for his smart, spare arrangements of pianist Monk’s eternally individualistic songs for a 10-piece ensemble that he led in a single 1959 concert at Town Hall. But Steve Reich, Carman Moore and Joel Sachs, who spoke April 14, described Overton as their indefatigable, independent “hands-on, realistic” composition instructor.

As they put it, Overton didn’t pledge allegiance to the 12-tone serial style demanded by the day’s elite conservatories. Instead, he believed in composing “intuitively, what one heard in one’s head,” and furthered the era’s budding cross-pollenization of genres.

“We were all jazz listeners then,” Reich explained. “It was a form of rebellion.” The obverse was true, too, according to Moore: “Jazz musicians were fascinated by the new classical music.” Overton positioned himself in both realms, composing an opera based on Huckleberry Finn and gigging on piano at Bradley’s, the Village musicians’ nightclub, weeks prior to his death in 1972.

At the end of the ’50s there were several efforts to mix jazz energies and contemporary compositional thought. Gunther Schuller’s “Third Stream,” advanced at the Lenox School of Jazz in the Berkshires, is most famous; George Russell and Gil Evans were active in the initiative, too. Aficionados today take the results for granted. But the loving repertory treatment pianist Jason Moran gave Monk’s Overton-arranged 1959 concert by revisiting it on its 50th anniversary—beautifully captured in the film In My Mind, shown at the Library on April 19—couldn’t have happened otherwise. The Jazz Loft was the anti-establishment venue where such ideas could germinate and blossom.

—
The Jazz Loft Project, through May 22. NYPL for the Performing Arts, at Amsterdam Ave. & West 55th St., 212-870-1630.

The animated and whimsical 36-year-old blond is dressed in paint-spotted jeans and a black, low-cut top as she takes drink orders. While running to the bar to pick them up, she smears on the lip-gloss she always keeps handy, checks her BlackBerry (protected in a hot pink case) and juggles a microphone so she can provide some harmony to the tunes being sung at the piano.

Steele feels at home at Don’t Tell Mama, the Times Square piano bar that has been an institution in cabaret for the past 25 years and boasts a

Singer Anne Steele, who was planning on graduate school, threw her GRE book into the trash and decided to audition for Tennessee’s Opryland instead.

professional singing wait-staff. When it comes time for Steele to take the stage this Sunday, she leaves the serving duties to someone else and, after a few opening chords, the crowd erupts with applause. They know what’s coming. Steele announces that it’s a sing-a-long, but lays down one rule: “Don’t sing my part!”

With a deep breath, the Upper West Sider begins a ruthless and stirring rendition of the power ballad “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” It’s obvious why Steele won Best Piano Bar Entertainer at this year’s New York Nightlife Awards and most recently received the Bistro Award for Best Female Vocalist. On the 13th anniversary of her arrival in New York City—a number Steele considers anything but unlucky—she finally feels like she’s giving it her all to become a successful entertainer. And she’s nothing like the title of her upcoming CD, Strings Attached.

“I don’t want to be 50 years old and think, ‘What could I have been if I had only tried?’” she said.

After studying psychology and political science at Indiana’s Ball State University, Steele had every intention of taking the GRE and applying to graduate school. Then one afternoon, she threw her GRE book into the trash and decided to audition for Opryland in Tennessee. She got the job, moved to Nashville and had no regrets.

While in Nashville, Steele knew she had to find her way to New York. She moved to the city in 1997 and spent the first few months naively imagining she’d be discovered walking down the street. She soon came to her senses and realized she’d have to work hard for any success. That’s what led her to Don’t Tell Mama. And working there, in an environment where an audience could sometimes not care less what she is singing, has helped her develop her confidence, while keeping her ego in check.

At 3 a.m., an exhausted Steele heads home to her apartment on West 96th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues.

“There’s nothing like getting up here. I live a block away from both of the parks. The streets are open. It’s just neighborhoody with great restaurants and bars.”

It’s a long way from Shelbyville, Ind., where she grew up listening to Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston. Her hometown has a population of about 25,000, and according to her, her upbringing keeps her focused on the simpler pleasures in life—like cake decorating. In November, Steele baked her first cake: a wedding cake with three tiers, three layers and full-on decorations.

“I don’t know why I thought I could bake cakes, but it was sort of like this visualization thing where I imagined that I could do it,” she says with a laugh.

Steele recently began cake-decorating classes, a Valentine’s Day gift from Angie, her girlfriend of two years with whom she lives. Steele also credits Angie with teaching her about love.

“It’s really about treating someone the way you want to be treated and respecting the person you are with,” Steele said. “I’ve been in a lot of relationships in my life, and I can honestly say that this one has really showed me a way to be in a relationship beyond just the physical.”

Even though she’s participated in Rosie O’Donnell’s “R Family Vacation Cruises” for the past few years and has won several awards—including honors from the Manhattan Association for Cabaret and the MetroStar Talent Challenge—she’s still reaching for the dream of appearing on Broadway. She concedes, however, that she’s no longer searching for fame; she just wants to be able to make a living as a singer without having to wait tables. As for children, that’s not part of the equation, but marriage is an option. In truth, though, she admits that it may be just to make another cake.

–
Anne Steele performs at Don’t Tell Mama Wednesdays and Sundays. Visit www.annesteele.com for more information.

“When I first started conducting, I did a Rossini opera at BAM in the early ’90s, and Caramoor asked me to develop opera productions in their Music Room,” said Crutchfield, an Upper West Sider. “We did that for a few years, then brought a good production to the Caramoor Festival in 1996: Rossini’s La Cenerentola with mezzo-soprano Viveca Genaux. It got a great response and the following year we made ‘Bel Canto at Caramoor’ official—we’ve been going strong ever since.”

Conductor Will Crutchfield leads the Bel Canto at Caramoor series, featuring revivals of 19th-century Italian operas by Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini.

That strength is especially evident in this summer’s opera events: Donizetti’s popular comedy The Elixir of Love was performed July 18, and Rossini’s dramatic—and rarely performed—Semiramide is scheduled for July 31. Since opera singers’ schedules are planned years in advance, operas at Caramoor are performed whenever Crutchfield’s ideal casts are assembled.

“One example is this year,” he said. “We wanted tenor Lawrence Brownlee, but his schedule is very full and getting fuller. He could finally sing for us this summer, and we gave him a role he has not done before: Nemorino in Elixir of Love. He’s in such demand for other roles that he has not sung this one. So he was the starting point for that opera, and the starting point for Semiramide was soprano Angela Meade, whom I first heard two years ago, and wanted to sing the title role, which would be a real showcase for her.”

Rounding out the Semiramide cast is Viveca Genaux, who is coming back to play Arsace, and Brownlee, who will return to sing Idreno.

“So we have the world’s three best Rossini singers in one Rossini opera!” the conductor said.

Crutchfield doesn’t see any disadvantages to performing operas at the festival’s outdoor Venetian Theater.

“The atmosphere is great, of course, and it also has good natural acoustics,” he said. “We use no amplification at all, and the sound is fresh and pleasant—we can perform as if we’re inside a concert hall with good acoustics. Happily, we are able to avoid the frustration of many outdoor spaces.”

This October, Caramoor plans to hold its first Fall Festival, a weekend of concerts that begins with the New York Philharmonic and culminates with a solo recital by soprano Sumi Jo, whom Crutchfield is accompanying on piano. He hopes that opera will also become a part of future Fall Festivals.

“We may do some small-scale operas in the fall, perhaps even returning to The Music Room,” he said.

His Caramoor conducting career would then come full circle.

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Bel Canto at Caramoor, on July 31, is part of the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, N.Y., which runs through
Aug. 5. For information about round-trip bus service from Manhattan, call 914-232-5035 or visit caramoor.org.