Patricia O'Callaghan

with Robert Kortgaard, piano and Andrew Downing, bass

Take This Waltz
www.patricia-ocallaghan.com
Historic Logging Museum

"Patricia O'Callaghan's interpretation of songs by Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman and Pearl Jam, to say nothing of Bob Dylan's classic "Like a Rolling Stone," have all the charm of a completely new love at first sight." Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

At age seventeen Patricia O'Callaghan decided she should become an opera singer (she previously couldn't decide whether to become a rock star or a nun). Today, she is your ideal introduction to the world of cabaret—a world that Billboard Magazine, reviewing one of her discs, called "serious but satirical, seamy yet sophisticated, an intimate setting for the archly cerebral and the utterly sincere; a stray, turn-of-the-century form of chanson that wandered in off the street, slipped through the interludes of Europe's music hall heyday, and found refuge in the wine cellar of the adjacent cafe."

O'Callaghan has certainly covered a lot of ground, with four solo releases plus ambitious collaborations with the Gryphon Trio (Christos Hatzis's Constantinople and the newly recorded Broken Hearts and Madmen; songs and tangos of the Americas). The Vancouver Opera, Edmonton Opera, Soulpepper Theatre Company and Tapestry New Opera Works have all featured O’Callaghan in principal roles to critical acclaim. Not many opera singers get reviewed in Playboy too, but the magazine writes: "What a concept: a gorgeous voice and a gorgeous melody. Even if you're not yet a cabaret fan, O'Callaghan will break (or steal) your heart in those late-night moments." Ah, yes, those late-night moments. As Leonard Cohen intones:

   Oh my love, Oh my love
   Take this waltz, take this waltz
   It’s yours now. It’s all that there is.