GREEN GOLLY & HER GOLDEN FLUTE Offer Free Shows at Chelsea Market

The duo of Flute Sweet & Tickletoon (Barbara Siesel and Keith Torgan) will perform Green Golly & Her Golden Flute, for ages 4 - 10, on four Sundays in May: May 9, 16, 23, and 30 at 11:00 a.m. at the T Salon in Chelsea Market, 459 W. 15th St., NYC. Green Golly & Her Golden Flute introduces children to the magic of classical music via a humorous and lighthearted embellishment of the traditional tale of Rapunzel. These shows also celebrate the May 11 release of the newly remastered version of Flute Sweet & Tickletoon's Green Golly & Her Golden Flute CD.

Rapunzel may have suffered isolation and distress during her days trapped in that big old tower, but her alter ego, Green Golly, has a wonderful golden flute to express her deepest feelings and a large stack of music by the world's greatest composers to explore. A keen observer of all that whizzes by her window, Green Golly is inclined to rely on her musical abilities to help her unravel the mysteries of life in this funny, engaging tale of romance and rescue, interwoven with works of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Gossec, Elgar, Bizet, Chopin, and Copland.

Juilliard trained flutist Barbara Siesel makes music by some of the greatest composers of the 19th and 20th centuries come alive in Green Golly & Her Golden Flute. Storyteller Keith Torgan fairly dances through the voices of the new characters he's created to grace the beloved old tale, from Vlotek the Gypsy to Mousey Tongue. Green Golly & Her Golden Flute is a wonderful female adventure story, in which the heroine, Green Golly, overcomes many difficulties and uses music and the power of learning to become a great artist and make friends.

Barbara Siesel's multi-faceted career includes performing, teaching and producing. Audiences around the world have heard her in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Great Hall in St. Petersburg, and Central Conservatory in Beijing, in addition to concert halls in Japan, Korea, Spain and Taiwan. Some of her upcoming activities include curating and co-producing the Diversi T Series in NYC and creating the book version of Green Golly and Her Golden Flute with writer Keith Torgan and illustrator SuzAnne Langelier-Lebeda. An active educator for all ages, Barbara Siesel's academic positions have included The New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida (high school and college), Colby College in Waterville, Maine, SUNY New Paltz in New York, and The University of Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1999 she created the Storm King Music Festival, devoted to exploring the intersection of new technology and acoustic performance of new music. She was also named artistic director of Art, Culture & Technology, a company that works with performing arts groups to help them manage and integrate new media into their work. Barbara Siesel presents concert recitals combining multi-disciplinary presentations with traditional repertoire. She received a Bachelor's and a Master's degree from The Juilliard School, where she studied with Samuel Baron. Additionally, she studied with Julius Baker, Thomas Nyfenger and Gerardo Levy and attended Master Classes with Jean Pierre Rampal and James Galway.

Keith Torgan, singer, songwriter, guitarist, actor and storyteller, is a multi-talented artist with more than twenty years of experience in children's music who has appeared at hundreds of theaters, cabarets, universities, museums, schools, and libraries throughout the United States. Torgan was composer at the Williamstown Theater Festival, founder and songwriter for "Morgan, Torgan & Teri," guest performer and writer for BMG's "Early Ears" series, and composer and lyricist for the Simply Elementary flagship program, There's Always a Dragon To Slay. He has written a multitude of songs and is the creator of all the Flute Sweet & Tickletoon stories and songs. He received his training at Circle in the Square Theatre School, The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and State University of New York at Albany.

As Flute Sweet & Tickletoon, Barbara Siesel and Keith Torgan present more than two hundred performances of music and story-theatre each year in schools, libraries, theaters and other concert venues across the country. Their company, Tugboat Music, was founded because of a concern that children were not experiencing live performance, classical music, and theatre in their daily lives.

Photos by Bruce Shippee