Russell Ryan

A new CD recording from Albany Records, titled "Occident Meets Orient" and featuring ASU School of Music faculty members Carole FitzPatrick and Russell Ryan, was released on Jan. 1, 2015. The recording explores societal attitudes and misconceptions about life in Eastern cultures through Western classical and popular music of the 19th and 20th centuries. Fascinated by the East, Western composers of opera, operetta, musical theater, art song and popular dance-inspired tunes were influenced by a trend now known as Orientalism: the construction of a mythic Eastern stereotype through music, visual art, poetry and other cultural texts.

Carole FitzPatrick (soprano), Robert Barefield (baritone and faculty member at The Hartt School at the University of Connecticut) and Russell Ryan (pianist) have collaborated in discovering, performing and now recording these songs that reflect Western society's fascination with, ambivalence toward and misconceptions of the East.This program was presented in the ASU Concerts at the Center series at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts on Feb. 9, 2015, at 7:30 p.m.

The State Press published a review of the concert.