Sonya Headlam in Songs of Amy Beach and Henri Duparc, in One World Symphony Concert 'The Planets & Poems of Ecstasy' 3:30 PM Nov. 11, 2012

The Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York presents
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

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.