The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York presents
The Planets & Poems of Ecstasy
The Planets & Poems of Ecstasy
One performance only:
Sunday, November 11, 2012
3:30 p.m.
Florence Gould Hall (debut performance)
55 East 59th Street
Between Park and Madison Avenues
Manhattan
Sunday, November 11, 2012
3:30 p.m.
Florence Gould Hall (debut performance)
55 East 59th Street
Between Park and Madison Avenues
Manhattan
Soprano Sonya Headlam is excited to join
One World Symphony for the 2012–2013 Season. She has performed with One
World Symphony on numerous occasions since 2006, including the
critically-acclaimed Nordic Lights, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Été, Creation vs. Evolution and Moonlight
programs. Ms. Headlam has been a featured artist with various groups
locally, across the country, and internationally such as the Cuban
Philharmonic, the Greenwich Choral Society, Bronx Orchestra, the Master
Singers of Milwaukee, and DCINY with whom she made her Carnegie Hall
debut in 2010.
Equally comfortable on the operatic stage, she has worked
with regional opera companies such as the Bronx Opera, Delphi Opera,
and Fargo-Morehead Opera. An avid recitalist, she was recently featured
on the Trinity Church’s Concerts at One series, which was webcast live
from downtown Manhattan. In early 2012, she began to teach herself how
to play the ukulele. She has since had several exciting opportunities to
perform international folk music with her uke on stages in New York
City as well as all over Japan. Ms. Headlam is currently working on
recording her debut album of art songs, to be released in 2013.
Can you please tell us about the composers and
the compositions that you are performing? What makes each work special
and what are you looking forward to the most when you will be performing
it?
I will be performing two songs, one by American
composer Amy Beach, and the other by French composer Henri Duparc.
There are many things that draw me to this music, not just as standalone
compositions, but also in the context of this One World Symphony
program featuring compositions that embody the fleeting and intense
human emotion, ecstasy. Both Beach and Duparc wrote in the romantic
style and set poems of ecstasy to music for voice and piano within
twenty years of each other. Their personal compositional styles and
representations of ecstasy provide a unique juxtaposition. Beach’s song
has a soaring melody, and refined lyricism. The text, which she also
wrote, captures feelings of deep commitment, trust, and perhaps a love
that surpasses death. Harmonically, Duparc’s song begins ambiguously.
It is earthy, and strikingly sensuous, from which the vocal line
emerges, vulnerable, yet tranquil, “Sur un lys pâle mon coeur dort d’un sommeil doux comme la mort
— On a pale lily my heart sleeps in a slumber sweet like death.” I look
forward to performing these songs because I love them! I also think
both of them are particularly well suited for orchestration, and
performing them in this context will provide an opportunity to explore
new and exciting colors and nuances.
Why would you recommend our public to attend One
World Symphony’s Ecstasy program on November 11, 2012 at 3:30 p.m. at
Florence Gould Hall?
The rhapsodic music of Scriabin, Björk, Clara Schumann, Beach, Duparc, Sung Jin Hong’s world premiere of his work, The Architect, and Holst’s Jupiter and Mars! I
recommend this concert for the unique programming alone, but also for
the opportunity to experience a diverse group of musicians that are 100%
committed to making intimate and inspired music.
No comments:
Post a Comment