a 501 (c) 3 not for profit organization
Paul Sperry, Music Director
The 2012 Edward Cone Composers' Concert
Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 6 p.m.
A Tribute to Lee HoibyBruno Walter Auditorium, New York City
Click here to view the program
Soprano Katharine Dain has been praised by the New York Times for her "rich tone," "deep emotion," and "lovely, passionate" performances, and is becoming particularly known as an advocate of 20th and 21st century music. Career highlights include performances with the Ravinia Festival, Songfest Mark Morris Dance Group, New York City Ballet, Joy in Singing, and the New York Festival of Song in venues including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She has co-founded two critically acclaimed chamber groups in New York: Callisto Ascending, a period-instrument ensemble, and Lunatics at Large, a contemporary chamber group lauded as “young, energetic and highly polished” by senior Times critic Allan Kozinn. Katharine holds degrees from Harvard University, the Guildhall School Music and Drama, and Mannes College of Music.
Sarah
Miller appeared as Sarah/Sari in Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet
directed by Michael Gieleta and conducted by James Bagwell at Bard
SummerScape 2011. Other recent engagements include Olga in
Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin,the title role in Carmen both at
Whitman Hall in Brooklyn with Maestro Richard Barrett, and Lady
Verena in Center for Contemporary Opera’s world premiere production
of The Secret Agent by Michael Dellaira, conducted by Sara Jobin and
directed by Sam Helfrich. Upcoming engagements include Aunt Sadie in
William Mayer’s A Death in the Family with the Center for
Contemporary Opera. Ms. Miller holds a M.M. in Music Performance from
Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and a B.A. in Art History from
Columbia College, Columbia University.
American baritone Leon Williams is a rare singer as well-versed in classical operatic and song literature as he is in "Pops" programs of spirituals, Holiday and popular standards and showtunes. Passionately devoted to the art of the song, notable song performances include appearances with Sarah Rothenberg and the Da Camera Society of Houston, an “Art of the Spiritual” program at San Francisco’s Herbst Theater; an all-American program at Japan’s Tochigi Music Festival, and Maine’s Arcady Music Festival. He has given recitals in Hartford, Pittsburgh, Princeton and throughout his native New York City, including Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, and the 92nd Street Y. Mr. Williams has won top prizes in the Naumburg, Joy in Singing, and Lola Wilson Hayes Competitions.
Lee Hoiby
(1926-2011)
Reminiscences
by Paul Sperry,
Joy in Singing Artistic Director
Lee Hoiby stands very tall among American composers who wrote for the voice. With his five operas, three monologues, and seventy or so songs he has given singers everywhere a rich repertoire from which to choose. Personally, I found him to be mild mannered, and always a gentleman. When I had an occasion to program “The Serpent”, I was puzzled by the cadenza, because all the sopranos I heard made it sound beautiful. According to the text it seemed to me that the serpent ought to sound awful. So I called Lee, and asked if I could do it that way. He said he hadn't thought of it (I guess because Leontyne Price, for whom it was written, never sounded awful), but if I wanted to I should go ahead and do it that way. I had a ball making as many different horrible sounds as I could. I particularly enjoyed singing a straight tone on the long F natural and flatting it as I held it. I don't think he ever heard me do it, but I hope he would have laughed.
Every topic that interested a good poet seemed to attract Hoiby. His songs range convincingly from the brevity of “The Doe” to the extended setting of Martin Luther King, Junior’s great “I Have a Dream;” from the sadness of Whitman’s “O Captain, My Captain!” to the broad humor of Roethke’s “The Serpent;” from the sublime, Whitman’s “A Clear Midnight,” to the ridiculous, “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll. He remained a “conservative” (i.e. tonal) composer during the whole of the 12 tone and serial movement and poured out melodies that singers love and piano parts that reveal what an exceptional pianist he must have been - as indeed he was. We all miss him.
Winner of the Pianist’s Prize at the 2011 Wigmore Hall International Song Competition,American pianist Jonathan Ware is in demand as a chamber musician and Lied accompanist, having appeared recently in venues including Alice Tully Hall, Wigmore Hall and Carnegie’s Weill Hall. Grand Prize winner of the 2005 Kingsville International Young Performer's Competition, Jonathan has been heard on radio stations across the world including WQXR (New York), WFMT (Chicago) and Bavarian Radio, as well as on U.S. public television in the documentary Speaking with Music. Recent and upcoming engagements include song recitals in La Roche, Switzerland and at the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie, a début at the 2012 Rheingau Musik Festival, and the completion of a third residency on the accompanying staff of The Steans Institute at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival.
