Calendar of Events
Premieres, Concerts and LecturesThursday Musical Artist Series
The Legacy of Dominick Argento
Come and listen to some of Minnesota’s finest classical musicians perform music by composers from the past and present in our exciting Thursday Musical Artist Series!
This program will recognize the achievement and influence of Dominick Argento, the distinguished composer and Minneapolis resident who died one year ago on February 20, 2019.
Mimi Tung (pictured) will play DET’s Soft Summer Airs, Freddy’s Giant Leap and Landscape of Shadow & Light. Performances also by Young Eun Lee, soprano and OboeBass! (Carrie Vecchione, oboe; Rolf Erdahl, bass).
In an intimate recital setting, programs are currently being held at 10:30 am in the acoustically impressive Antonello Hall at MacPhail Center for Music. Arrive early to this concert series and enjoy free coffee and donuts in the lobby starting at 10:00 am.
View on Facebook.
Tickets $15, $10 (groups of 8+), $6 students, sold at the door, general seating
Dunbar and Bilyeu: Mad Men
Baritone Alan Dunbar collaborates with U of M School of Music alumnus and Source Song Festival cofounder Mark Bilyeu on a program featuring songs from Purcell to Ravel and Larsen. The recita,l Mad Men, includes Heard in a Violent Ward, a song cycle based on poems and letters of English pastoral poet John Clare, by David Evan Thomas.
Kantorei: Sing to Me
The name Kantorei means “singers.” 2020 spring concerts take their name from a poem by Edna Wheeler Wilcox, “Sing to Me,” that provided the text for David Evan Thomas’ piece that Kantorei premiered at our Audience Appreciation Concert in October on the day before the 100th anniversary of her death. The evocative text is matched by David’s beautiful setting. We will also perform David’s Confirmatum est cor eus.
Edwin Fissinger was born 100 years ago. Kantorei has performed several of his pieces in the past and will observe this anniversary by presenting several of his pieces including Set Me As A Seal, The Morning Trumpet, Sweet-and-Twenty and Dakota Dawn. Join us in exploring this seldom heard composer from North Dakota.
Jonathan Posthuma, a tenor with Kantorei, is also an accomplished composer. Hear the premiere of his Two Dickinson Songs based on poems by Emily Dickinson: In this short life and Look back on time. We have enjoyed performing Jonathan’s pieces in the past and look forward to sharing the music of this emerging Minnesota composer.
Kantorei: Sing to Me
The name Kantorei means “singers.” 2020 spring concerts take their name from a poem by Edna Wheeler Wilcox, “Sing to Me,” that provided the text for David Evan Thomas’s piece that Kantorei premiered at an Audience Appreciation Concert in October on the day before the 100th anniversary of her death. The evocative text is matched by David’s beautiful setting. We will also perform David’s Confirmatum est cor eus.
Edwin Fissinger was born 100 years ago. Kantorei has performed several of his pieces in the past and will observe this anniversary by presenting several of his pieces including Set Me As A Seal, The Morning Trumpet, Sweet-and-Twenty and Dakota Dawn. Join us in exploring this seldom heard composer from North Dakota.
Jonathan Posthuma, a tenor with Kantorei, is also an accomplished composer. Hear the premiere of his Two Dickinson Songs based on poems by Emily Dickinson: In this short life and Look back on time. We have enjoyed performing Jonathan’s pieces in the past and look forward to sharing the music of this emerging Minnesota composer.
Ladyslipper: Give Her the River
Ladyslipper Ensemble will be joined by guest artists from the Twin Cities to present a concert of mostly-21st-century music including a premiere by Barbara Holm, a commission from Robert Strobel and Ravel’s Chansons madécasses. David Evan Thomas’s Give Her the River, a setting of a children’s book by Michael Dennis Browne, will be performed by Sahar Hassan, Jennifer Kennard, Teresa Richardson and Mimi Tung, who will also played DET’s Night Echoes and Landscape of Shadow and Light.
Tenor Gregory Wiest sings Lermontov
Cycle of poems by the Russian poet, Mikhail Lermontov, translated by Anatoly Liberman
Tenor Gregory Wiest has been a crusader for American art song, even as he continues to reside in Germany. Every year he presents a recital of American songs, He sang DET’s Blessings in 2015, and in 2020 he will present a cycle of five poems by the Russian poet, Mikhail Lermontov,
In May 2018, I collaborated with soprano Maria Jette in a performance of songs by Carl Nielsen. Nielsen’s gentle lyricism and simple accompaniments charmed us both. At Maria’s urging, I had attended Anatoly Liberman’s reading of his translations of Russian lyrics on the day before Valentine’s Day three months before. Lermontov was but one of the poets heard on that occasion. Eager to write something in the Nielsen vein for Ms. Jette, I found many attractive lyrics in Mr. Liberman’s Mikhail Lermontov, Major Poetical Works (University of Minnesota Press, 1983) and chose five for a compact song cycle.
The protagonist of these Lyrics is drawn to the beloved in the first two songs, her voice, her face, her movements: “all is inimitable grace.” But like a cloud that drifts off a cliff, love floats away. Her music is remembered as the song of an angel who carries a soul “for miser destined and dole” on earth.
The cycle is dedicated to Ms. Jette.
Get In Touch
Leave your name and email below, with what you are looking for in the message box. Or call me at 612-870-3747.
Get In Touch
Leave your name and email below, with what you are looking for in the message box. Or call me at 612-870-3747.
Thursday Musical Artist Series
The Legacy of Dominick Argento
Come and listen to some of Minnesota’s finest classical musicians perform music by composers from the past and present in our exciting Thursday Musical Artist Series!
This program will recognize the achievement and influence of Dominick Argento, the distinguished composer and Minneapolis resident who died one year ago on February 20, 2019.
Mimi Tung (pictured) will play DET’s Soft Summer Airs, Freddy’s Giant Leap and Landscape of Shadow & Light. Performances also by Young Eun Lee, soprano and OboeBass! (Carrie Vecchione, oboe; Rolf Erdahl, bass).
In an intimate recital setting, programs are currently being held at 10:30 am in the acoustically impressive Antonello Hall at MacPhail Center for Music. Arrive early to this concert series and enjoy free coffee and donuts in the lobby starting at 10:00 am.
View on Facebook.
Tickets $15, $10 (groups of 8+), $6 students, sold at the door, general seating
Dunbar and Bilyeu: Mad Men
Baritone Alan Dunbar collaborates with U of M School of Music alumnus and Source Song Festival cofounder Mark Bilyeu on a program featuring songs from Purcell to Ravel and Larsen. The recita,l Mad Men, includes Heard in a Violent Ward, a song cycle based on poems and letters of English pastoral poet John Clare, by David Evan Thomas.
Kantorei: Sing to Me
The name Kantorei means “singers.” 2020 spring concerts take their name from a poem by Edna Wheeler Wilcox, “Sing to Me,” that provided the text for David Evan Thomas’ piece that Kantorei premiered at our Audience Appreciation Concert in October on the day before the 100th anniversary of her death. The evocative text is matched by David’s beautiful setting. We will also perform David’s Confirmatum est cor eus.
Edwin Fissinger was born 100 years ago. Kantorei has performed several of his pieces in the past and will observe this anniversary by presenting several of his pieces including Set Me As A Seal, The Morning Trumpet, Sweet-and-Twenty and Dakota Dawn. Join us in exploring this seldom heard composer from North Dakota.
Jonathan Posthuma, a tenor with Kantorei, is also an accomplished composer. Hear the premiere of his Two Dickinson Songs based on poems by Emily Dickinson: In this short life and Look back on time. We have enjoyed performing Jonathan’s pieces in the past and look forward to sharing the music of this emerging Minnesota composer.
Kantorei: Sing to Me
The name Kantorei means “singers.” 2020 spring concerts take their name from a poem by Edna Wheeler Wilcox, “Sing to Me,” that provided the text for David Evan Thomas’s piece that Kantorei premiered at an Audience Appreciation Concert in October on the day before the 100th anniversary of her death. The evocative text is matched by David’s beautiful setting. We will also perform David’s Confirmatum est cor eus.
Edwin Fissinger was born 100 years ago. Kantorei has performed several of his pieces in the past and will observe this anniversary by presenting several of his pieces including Set Me As A Seal, The Morning Trumpet, Sweet-and-Twenty and Dakota Dawn. Join us in exploring this seldom heard composer from North Dakota.
Jonathan Posthuma, a tenor with Kantorei, is also an accomplished composer. Hear the premiere of his Two Dickinson Songs based on poems by Emily Dickinson: In this short life and Look back on time. We have enjoyed performing Jonathan’s pieces in the past and look forward to sharing the music of this emerging Minnesota composer.
Ladyslipper: Give Her the River
Ladyslipper Ensemble will be joined by guest artists from the Twin Cities to present a concert of mostly-21st-century music including a premiere by Barbara Holm, a commission from Robert Strobel and Ravel’s Chansons madécasses. David Evan Thomas’s Give Her the River, a setting of a children’s book by Michael Dennis Browne, will be performed by Sahar Hassan, Jennifer Kennard, Teresa Richardson and Mimi Tung, who will also played DET’s Night Echoes and Landscape of Shadow and Light.
Tenor Gregory Wiest sings Lermontov
Cycle of poems by the Russian poet, Mikhail Lermontov, translated by Anatoly Liberman
Tenor Gregory Wiest has been a crusader for American art song, even as he continues to reside in Germany. Every year he presents a recital of American songs, He sang DET’s Blessings in 2015, and in 2020 he will present a cycle of five poems by the Russian poet, Mikhail Lermontov,
In May 2018, I collaborated with soprano Maria Jette in a performance of songs by Carl Nielsen. Nielsen’s gentle lyricism and simple accompaniments charmed us both. At Maria’s urging, I had attended Anatoly Liberman’s reading of his translations of Russian lyrics on the day before Valentine’s Day three months before. Lermontov was but one of the poets heard on that occasion. Eager to write something in the Nielsen vein for Ms. Jette, I found many attractive lyrics in Mr. Liberman’s Mikhail Lermontov, Major Poetical Works (University of Minnesota Press, 1983) and chose five for a compact song cycle.
The protagonist of these Lyrics is drawn to the beloved in the first two songs, her voice, her face, her movements: “all is inimitable grace.” But like a cloud that drifts off a cliff, love floats away. Her music is remembered as the song of an angel who carries a soul “for miser destined and dole” on earth.
The cycle is dedicated to Ms. Jette.