composer

Join soprano Emily Brown Gibson, composer Jake Landau, and more for a recital in the historic Holywell Music Room, the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Europe.

The recital's program celebrates a quality unique to classical music among all artforms: the need to perform a work in order for it to be communicated to an audience. A painting by Van Gogh is deliverable to an audience on its own, ready to be viewed and felt, but a symphony by Beethoven exists only as ink on the page until performers bring it to life in sound. This idea of having to "realize" older, written work is the feature of this program, explored through the following:

• translation (Landau's English-language version of Renaissance composer Claudio Monteverdi's "Lamento della ninfa")
• original composition resetting lyrics from the Elizabethan lutesong tradition
• continuo realization on both harpsichord and piano

and more. The recital will also feature a performance of "Fragment 96: Atthis", a monodrama on poet Emily Garber's translation of "Fragment 96", by Sappho.

This event is supported by the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford.

This summer The New Voice Festival is held in New York City, featuring a concert of new works including artsongs by Landau and excerpts from his operas (& Aeterna and Pietà) and musical Rosie.

Tickets

For their debut album "In This Short Life", mezzo Devony Smith and pianist Danny Zelibor have commissioned Jake Landau for two artsongs. "Sew My True Love (Jubilee)" and "The Sake Of You" set text collected by Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie and are scored for mezzo, drone, and piano.

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Release party and concert:

Join us as we celebrate the release of "In This Short Life," the debut album by Devony Smith and Danny Zelibor, featuring Michael Nicolas on cello with a concert celebrating this veritable bouquet of pre-eminent American composers of artsong, commissioned and curated to form this fresh and beautiful new album by these rising chamber music stars!

The concert presents the chance to hear live many of the album's world and studio premieres by composers Mark Adamo, Grammy Award-winner Jennifer Higdon, David Lang, Eve Beglarian, B.E. Boykin, Jake Landau, Will Liverman, and Benjamin Perry Wenzelberg. This collection of American compositions and texts features commissions from Will Liverman and Jake Landau, incorporating the poetry of Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer and folk texts collected by Jean Ritchie.

The songs are joyful, introspective, soulful, heartfelt, and deeply personal, reflecting the collaborative relationships between the performers and composers. They explore the many facets of American sound through the lens of classical art song, drawing inspiration from folk music, movie music, gospel, jazz, and musical theater.

We will have our usual reception after the concert, this time at the Blue Building in Midtown.