King of Prussia, PA – Theodore Presser Company proudly announces a new work from Ricky Ian Gordon: Rappahannock County: A Theatrical Song Cycle about the Civil War (411-41131 - Piano-Vocal Score - $40.00), with lyrics by Mark Campbell. Co-commissioned by the Virginia Arts Festival, Virginia Opera, the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, and Texas Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, Rapahannock County pairs the outstanding and celebrated talents of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Mark Campbell. This theatrical song cycle that captures key emotional, sociological, and historical moments in the Civil War. Much of the text was inspired by actual events and drawn from diaries, letters, and other accounts. The narrative follows the lines of history, from secession in 1861 to defeat in 1865, and is in five parts. Although the story is centered geographically in Virginia, its themes are universal to the Civil War. It is described as such by Wes Blomster of Opera Today: “The piece has the sense of a lens closing in on a spectrum of individuals and their feelings around slavery and morality in a profound and poignant way...’ The acclaim accorded Rappahannock County by the 2,200 people who packed Norfolk’s Harrison Opera House for the premiere made clear that Gordon and Campbell had achieved their goal.”

Ricky Ian Gordon was born on May 15, 1956 in Oceanside, NY and raised on Long Island. In love with poetry and fascinated, from an early age, by all forms of opera and musical theater, he attended Carnegie Mellon University as a piano major, but soon realized that his true vocation was as a composer. After college he settled in New York City and quickly emerged as one of the most successful writers of a kind of vocal music that straddles the world of theater and art song. His unusual ability to find the musical core of a poem or lyric and express that essence in an appropriate musical style, has given his songs great appeal to singers of all styles and persuasions. Mr. Gordon’s songs have been performed and or recorded by such internationally renowned singers as Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Audra MacDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Andrea Marcovici, Melanie Helton, Harolyn Blackwell, Betty Buckley, Margaret Lattimore, Stephanie Novacek and Mary Philips, among many others. For more information, visit our Composer Gallery or the composer's website, www.rickyiangordon.com.

Offering music by today’s greatest composers and teachers, Theodore Presser Company is the leader in publishing educational and recital music. Theodore Presser Company is a full-range music publisher and distributes the music of over 30 publishers from around the globe, with a combined sales catalog that features over 60,000 available works. For more information about new publications from Theodore Presser Company or to locate a dealer near you, log on to www.presser.com or e-mail us at sales@presser.com. For review copies of the publication listed in this release, please contact Heidi Vanderlee at (212) 777-0900, ext. 230 or send an e-mail to hvanderlee@presser.com.