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KIRSTEN ASHLEY WIESTOCT 13, 4PM
Music Style: Classical
Coloratura soprano, Kirsten Ashley Wiest, brings a program rich with classical and contemporary vocal music to the Boston Court stage including pieces by Debussy, Richard Strauss, and Clara and Robert Schumann, as well as innovative duets by Kaija Saariaho and an out-of-this-world aria by György Ligeti. The evening also features a world premiere of songs by Dana Kaufman, Tom Flaherty, and Emma Tucker on texts by poet Dorothy Parker.
THE PROGRAM
Alberto Ginastera: Chacarera
Manuel de Falla: Nana
Alberto Ginastera: Triste
Joaquín Rodrigo: ¿De dónde venís, amore?
Robert Schumann: Widmung
Clara Schumann: Sie liebten sich beide
Anton Webern: Wie bin ich froh!
Richard Strauss: Amor
Isabelle Aboulker: Je t'aime
Claude Debussy: Nuits d'étoiles
W. A. Mozart: Oiseaux, si tous les ans
Reynaldo Hahn: Mai
with Todd Moellenberg, piano
Léo Delibes: Flower Duet from Lakmé
with Susan Narucki, soprano and Todd Moellenberg, piano
Kaija Saariaho: selections from From the Grammar of Dreams
with Susan Narucki, soprano
Emma Tucker: Through Daylight - world premiere
Tom Flaherty: The Thin Edge - world premiere
Dana Kaufman: Symptom Recital - world premiere
György Ligeti: Mysteries of the Macabre
with Todd Moellenberg, piano
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Kirsten Ashley Wiest, soprano
Susan Narucki, soprano
Todd Moellenberg, piano
Coloratura soprano, Kirsten Ashley Wiest, sings the classical music of today. Her unique voice has captivated composers worldwide, resulting in over 80 premiere performances. She has sung with the GRAMMY-winning Partch ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, for film scores including The Unholy and the Conjuring series, and recordings on Centaur Records and Sony Classical, among others. Kirsten holds a DMA from UC San Diego and MFA from California Institute of the Arts. She teaches voice at San Bernardino Valley College and UC Riverside, and serves on the Board of Directors for Arrowhead Arts Association and the Southern California Philharmonic.
With luminous tone and distinctive artistry, American soprano Susan Narucki has earned international acclaim for over two decades. She has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Netherlands Opera, San Francisco Symphony, MET Chamber Ensemble, on the Great Performers Series at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall with conductors such as Boulez, Levine, Salonen, Tilson Thomas, de Leeuw and Knussen. She has appeared as soloist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, at the Aspen, Ojai ,Norfolk and Yellow Barn Festivals, and with contemporary music groups across the globe, including ASKO/Schoenberg, ICE, Speculum Musicae, BCMG, Ensemble Modern among many others. A dedicated advocate of the music of our time, Ms. Narucki has given over one hundred world premieres, and has enjoyed close collaborations with composers including Andriessen, Kurtág, Carter, Dusapin and Crumb. Her extensive discography includes both a Grammy Award and Grammy Nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance. Narucki serves as Distinguished Professor of Music at UC San Diego.
Todd Moellenberg is a pianist, performance artist, and poet based in Los Angeles. Notable performances include the work of Julius Eastman with Monday Evening Concerts, Ligeti’s Piano Concerto with the Palimpsest Ensemble, Grisey’s Vortex Temporum with the What’s Next? Ensemble, and Claude Vivier’s Shiraz at the Darmstadt Courses for New Music. His performance of Stockhausen’s Kontakte with People Inside Electronics was praised by the Los Angeles Times for its “striking virtuosity and theatricality.” A founding member of the performance artist collective The Family Room, Todd’s creative work encompasses durational performance, public intervention, lyric poetry, and automatic text. He holds an MA and DMA in contemporary piano performance from UC San Diego.
A California native, Emma Tucker (b. 2001) is a composer and oboist whose music can be described as a multi-sensory experience, combining spectral harmony with a synesthetic relationship between color and sound. Her musical influences range from Renaissance music and French impressionism to 21st century microtonal landscapes and just intonation. Her music is also aesthetically inspired by visual art and natural science, and is formally constructed primarily by creating shifts in harmony and timbre. Emma is currently pursuing a DMA in music composition at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
The work of Los Angeles-based composer-librettist Dana Kaufman centers disruptive opera and vocal music, accessible and inclusive stages, and the intersection of pop culture and classical music. Hailed as “whirlwind” (Gramophone), “ingeniously derived” (Sequenza21), and “dramatic…and powerfully funny” (Observer), Kaufman’s music has been heard in North America, Europe, and Asia. A Fulbright Research Fellow in Estonia, National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient, winner of an OPERA America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers: Discovery Grant (supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation), and four-time American Prize honoree, Kaufman has given lectures at the LA Opera, Women Composers Festival of Hartford, Leuphana Universität Lüneberg, Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, and the Music by Women Festival as a frequent speaker on gender diversity in composition and composing for trans voice. Kaufman received her Bachelor of Arts in Music and Russian (magna cum laude) from Amherst College, her Master of Music in Composition from New England Conservatory, and her Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition from University of Miami Frost School of Music as the first Frost student to be a Dean’s Fellow. She is Associate Professor in Music Composition at University of California, Riverside.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Boston Court Pasadena, 70 N Mentor Ave, Pasadena, CA 91106-1745, United States,Pasadena, California
