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Lane, Neiwirth to perform Bach, Copland and Mahler

January 25, 2008
ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø Marketing and Communications

Mezzo-soprano Kathleen A. Lane of the ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø Music Department will present a recital of songs by J. S. Bach, Aaron Copland and Gustav Mahler Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the Jensen Grand Concert Hall, Stephens Performing Arts Center. General admission is $5, $3 for ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø faculty and staff, and free to ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø students showing a current Bengal Card.

Prof. Lane will be accompanied by well-known performer Mark Neiwirth of the ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø piano faculty in Gustav Mahler’s “Rueckert Lieder,â€� and in both sets of Aaron Copland’s popular “Old American Songs.â€� Prof. Erika Schulte will join Lane and Neiwirth on the violin in the beloved aria  “Erbarme Dichâ€� from J. S. Bach’s 1729 “St. Matthew Passion.â€�

“I’ve performed and taught most of ‘Old American Songs’ over the years,� Lane says, “but I’ve never sung all 10 on the same program.� The two collections run the gamut from spirituals to minstrel songs, from lullabies to parlor ballads.

Popularly associated with musical Americana, Copland was the Paris-trained son of Russian Jewish immigrants, a lifelong New Yorker — as American as Ellis Island. Lane delights in the paradox: “In 1950, the first ‘Old American Songs’ premiered in England, with tenor Peter Pears, and composer Benjamin Britten at the piano,� she points out. “These songs might play at being homespun, but they’re the settings of a highly sophisticated international artist – completely cosmopolitan.�

If Copland represents Old World sophistication reborn in the New, Viennese Gustav Mahler embodies the Old World at its pre-war height. “These 1901-02 settings of poetry by Friedrich Rueckert epitomize late German Romanticism at its most intensely expressive,� Lane says. “Mahler pushes chromatic complexity to the brink – it’s a spiritual outcry.�

Prof. Lane joined the ºÚ°µ±¬ÁÏÍø voice faculty in 1993, after teaching voice for five years at the Yale University School of Drama. Since arriving in Idaho, she has promoted the great song-cycles, including Dominick Argento’s “From the Diary of Virginia Woolfâ€�; Aaron Copland’s “Old American Songsâ€� and “Twelve Songs by Emily Dickinsonâ€�; Hector Berlioz’s “Les nuits d’eteâ€�; Gustav Mahler’s “Kindertotenliederâ€� and “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellenâ€�; Robert Schumann’s “Frauenlieben und –lebenâ€�; and Richard Wagner’s “Wesendonck Lieder.â€�

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Kathleen A. Lane 282-2423, or lanekath@isu.edu.


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