Rosa Ponselle Exhibit at Friedheim Library
The Arthur Friedheim Library has launched an exhibit and digital collection about Rosa Ponselle featuring memorabilia from her career on the Metropolitan Opera stage and her opulent Villa Pace estate in Baltimore, where she spent her retirement years. After starting on the vaudeville circuit with her sister Carmela, Rosa Ponselle captured the attention of Enrico Caruso, who secured her an audition at the Metropolitan Opera and performed beside her in her debut in
La Forza del Destino in 1918. The collection was donated to the Peabody Institute in 2014 by the Lester Dequaine/Frank Chiarenza Foundation, which had operated a museum dedicated to Ponselle in her Connecticut hometown. The Ponselle exhibit room in the library is open seven days a week. To schedule a tour of the exhibit or an event in the room, please contact the
library's archives. More information about the collection and exhibit is available
online.
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FROM THE DEAN
Among a number of important changes that have come this year with the launch of the Breakthrough Curriculum - Peabody's full throated commitment to integrating 21st century skills into professional training - reimagining the ensembles experiences represents another critical opportunity to prepare our students for successful careers. Those experiences - now being stewarded by Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Artistic Director of Ensembles Joseph Young, in his first year at Peabody - include performances across a wide range of ensembles, from chamber orchestra to modern orchestra, to full orchestra, to our newest ensemble, the Peabody Studio Orchestra, which had only its second performance recently. Students performed arrangements of Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, and Michael Jackson tunes in an ensemble that melded a classically-based strings and winds cohort with a jazz rhythm section and soloists. Classical students even ventured into taking some solos testing their improvisation skills, something we hope to do more of in the new curriculum. This was an exciting concert not just because the music was fabulous, but also because it was so inspiring to see our students venturing into a musical vernacular that stretches them in new ways. That's what this is really about - creating not just outstanding performers and soloists that are experts in their instruments and specific genres, but that also have a broad and eclectic appreciation for a wide range of musical styles, making them more flexible than they ever might have imagined. It was a great evening.
Fred Bronstein, Dean |
ON STAGE / OFF CAMPUS
Friday, March 16, 7:30 pm
Faculty artists Miles Brown, jazz, and Courtney Orlando, artistic director of Now Hear This, will be performing at
Carnegie Hall with their ensemble Alarm Will Sound, featuring the music of György Ligeti. Alarm Will Sound tells Ligeti's incredible story through a blend of music and recorded sounds in a concert that resembles a live podcast, co-hosted by Preparatory alumna Nadia Sirota.
The New York Times previewed this concert in an article titled, "How Do You Teach People to Love Difficult Music?"
Saturday, March 17, 7:00 pm
A work by Daniel Sabzghabaei (
MM '17, Composition) was chosen to be showcased in the
Beth Morrison Projects: Next Generation concert at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, N.Y. Emerging composers of musical theatre and opera theatre submitted their work to be considered for a program that ultimately will commission one composer for a full evening-length operatic work to be premiered by Beth Morrison Projects. This concert features 10 composers who will be considered for the next level, which awards two composers a commission for a 30-minute vocal work, from which the ultimate award will be given.
Sunday, March 18, 2:00 pm
Music director Michael Repper, a current conducting DMA candidate, will lead the
New York Youth Symphony Orchestra in its McCrindle Concert at Carnegie Hall. Flutist Demarre McGill will perform the New York premiere of composition faculty artist Kevin Puts' Flute Concerto. The program also includes Dvorák's Symphony No. 8, Rimsky-Korsakov's
Capriccio Espagnol, and features the world premiere of
go and by Thomas Kotcheff (
BM '10, Piano), the First Music commission winner.
Wednesday, March 23, 7:30 pm
Faculty artist Benjamin Pasternack, piano, will be featured on
PostClassical Ensemble's concert, "Secret Music Skirmishes of the Cold War: The Shostakovich Case" at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington D.C. Pasternack will play Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 2 and Preludes and Fugues, with Ashley Smith in the role of President John F. Kennedy and commentary by a former US Ambassador to Russia and former CIA staff historian.
Amy Beth Kirsten (
DMA '10, Composition) will be premiering
Savior, a new work about Joan of Arc. The premiere will take place at the
Harris Theater in Chicago, Ill., as part of the 20th anniversary of the MusicNOW series. It's a collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and HOWL ensemble.
Peabody Events highlights select off-campus or live-streamed performances featuring Peabody performers. For other events, please visit our Peabody Institute Concerts Facebook page. For the complete weekly list of concerts at Peabody, subscribe to Events at Peabody at peabody.jhu.edu/news.
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ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS
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Matthew Bengtson (MM '97, DMA '01, Piano) is co-author of The Alexander Scriabin Companion, published last summer by Rowman and Littlefield Press. He also released his three-CD recording of violin/piano duo and solo piano music of Karol Szymanowski, with violinist Blanka Bednarz, on the Musica Omnia label. In December, he released another recording project, the complete cello/piano music of Roberto Sierra, with cellist John Haines-Eitzen, on Albany Records.
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Stephen Mulligan (
MM '13, Conducting) was recently appointed music director of the
Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, succeeding Joseph Young, Peabody's Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Artistic Director of Ensembles. He also serves as assistant conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, understudying Robert Spano. Mulligan will lead the Youth Orchestra in a concert of works of Rossini, Sibelius, and Scott Lee on March 18.
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Georgine Resick (
AD '75, Voice) published the book
French Vocal Literature: Repertoire in Context, which treats a wide range of French song literature in historical/social/artistic context. Resick says she "carried a torch for French song literature" since studying with Flore Wend at Peabody. The book is dedicated to Wend.
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Liberal arts faculty member Hollis Robbins released a new book,
The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers. The book was ranked number one on Amazon under New Releases in Classic American Literature, and it was also featured in NPR's list of 2017's Great Reads. Robbins also published an article in
Inside Higher Ed called "'Black Panther,' History and the Future."
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John Scherch (
MM '17, Voice/Pedagogy) is the new host and announcer on Maryland's Classical Music Station WBJC. He hosts the evening show as well as the Listener's Choice program. Jonathan Palevsky (
MM '86, Guitar) is the station's program manager.
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RECENT RECORDINGS
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Ex Mus Ensemble - with Jolene Masone (
MM '10, Bassoon), percussionist Colton Lytle, and guitarist Chaz Underriner - released their first album, Album No. 1, on the Sedimental Records Label.
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Preparatory alumnus Bill Warfield released a new CD,
For Lew. The album is in tribute to Warfield's inspiration, mentor, and friend, Lew Soloff. The Bill Warfield Big Band will be performing two sets on March 24, at 7:00 pm and 8:30 pm, at the
Zinc Bar in Greenwich Village, New York City, to celebrate the release of
For Lew.
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Peter Dayton (
MM '16, Composition) released a new CD of chamber music,
Notes to Loved Ones, Music for Strings and Piano. The album features a variety of styles, moods, and forms, including sonatas and short pieces for strings and piano and two string quartets. Alumni Lavena Johanson (
MM '13, Cello), Michael Sheppard (
BM '98, MM '00, GPD '03, Piano), Marika Suzuki (
BM '17, Violin), and master's student Sarah-Jane Thomas perform on the album.
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The Poulenc Trio - Bryan Young (
BM '96, Bassoon); Preparatory faculty artist Irina Kaplan Lande, piano; and Liang Wang, oboe - released
Trains of Thought. The album features music by Poulenc and Jean Françaix, arrangements of music by Shostakovich and Rossini, and a world premiere recording of
Trains of Thought by Viet Cuong (
BM '11, MM '12, Composition).
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