I had such a great time the last two days narrating/lecturing/gabbing at the Lyric Fest concerts, centering on Lieder, centering on Vienna. And what singing! Erica Miller, Suzanne DuPlantis, and Gabriel Preisser, wow to all, singing Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, Marx, Strauss, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern—I think I got all of them, and in kind of chronological order. Laura Ward accompanied… I always leave shaking my head over her all-encompassing artistry.
As Lyric Fest’s first-ever Composer in Residence, my job this weekend was just to talk here and there on what I thought was up with art song, Vienna, Schubert, and all that. I navigated to Romanticism, Little Women, and floor buffing machines somehow, I recall.
So that was the talking; the music will come later. I’m finishing up a trio on a Shakespeare text for the next concert in November, then a song cycle and an audience-participation piece are due later in the season.
We’re off to a great start, and I’m fortunate just to be in the same room to hear the wonderful artists of Lyric Fest!