Faces of Eve: life, love, longing

March 10, 2010, 8 pm
Renee Weiler Concert Hall,
Greenwich House Music School
46 Barrow Street, New York City, New York 10014
212.242.4770
Ticket: $15 General Admission; $10 Students/Seniors

The March 10, 2010 Women’s Work presentation Faces of Eve showcases Mary Au, Arietha Lockhart, Berkeley A. Price, Hester Taylor, and Jordan James in a recital that features works by contemporary and groundbreaking American women composers. All aspects of life, love, and longing will be explored. This recital is a celebration of the human condition as well as the leading women composers who, through their music, have exposed the very core of their hearts, minds and souls to the world. The program is conceived to be a banquet of Women's Works for the feasting of our soul!

Program:

Of Being by Mary Lynn Place Badarak for soprano and piano (World Premiere)
The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich by Mary Lynn Place Badarak for soprano and piano
Imaginings (of Joseph and Lear) by Adrienne Albert for voice and piano (World Premiere)
Maternity by Mary M. Boyle for soprano, violin and piano (World Premiere)
Lament by Carol Worthey, a vocalise for high soprano and piano (World Premiere)
Bright Moonlight by Chen Yi for soprano and piano
Songs of No Return by Lera Auerbach for soprano and piano (American Premiere)
Yellow Jade Banquet by Deon Nielsen Price, Duo for clarinet and piano (New York Premiere)
Love Ritual by Sharon J. Willis for soprano and piano (World Premiere)
Adagio by Mary M. Boyle for clarinet and piano (World Premiere)
Moon Lilies by Lydia Busler-Blais for horn and piano (New York City Premiere)
Slave from the Harriet Tubman section of "Three Women" by Thea Musgrave for soprano, narrator and piano (reduction) (New York premiere)
Three Dream Portraits by Margaret Bonds for soprano and piano
He’s Got the Whole World In His Hand arranged by Margaret Bonds for soprano and piano

To view the complete program in a new window, click here.

Descriptions:

Of Being by Mary Lynn Place Badarak, with text by Denise Levertov from the cycle "Believers", centers on the nature of our being in relationship to God and our recognition that happiness is provisional. We need to dance and kneel in the presence of a higher being, "the mystery".

The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich, also from Mary Badarak's cycle "Believers" with text by Levertov, is an affirmation that "all that is made" regardless of size, are "held safe in God's pierced palm".

Yet human existence is not all song and dance and the Faces of Eve (women) come in many sizes, shapes and forms.

Imaginings (of Joseph and Lear) by Adrienne Albert is a sprightly, playful cycle about love and fantasy, seen through the eyes of an observer of a Bag Lady, the marriage of the Owl and the Pussycat, and a woman who is madly in love. The texts are by Jenny Joseph and Edward Lear.

What does a woman experience after marriage? Typically, the joys of childbirth. Yet, not all pregnancies have happy endings.

Maternity by Mary M. Boyle, with text by Alice Meynell, captures a woman’s pain of losing a child, "in vain, a mother was born".

Lament by Carol Worthey is the voicing of sadness through music, the powerful force for healing.

Moon Lilies by Lydia Busler-Blais takes us to a night when the fragrant white Moon Lilies glowed mysteriously in the moonlight in the murk of a cloudy evening. It is meant "to evoke in us the feeling of the night, that stirring in the soul that brings forth the call of wonder into the unknown Universe..."

Songs of No Return by Lera Auerbach is the journeys of three women. Diary of the Unknown Self, with text and music by Lera Auerbach, touches on the inner emotions of a young lady, her childhood memory, first kiss, and battle with darkness... seen through the eyes of her diary. Lady Lazarus with text by Sylvia Plath takes us through a woman’s battle with death. "Like the cat I have nine times to die. (...) Dying is like an art... I do it exceptionally well." Revisionist Dream portrays another woman, who could not drag herself back from death despite the joys of yoga, music, or cooking. "The dream blew up at dawn."

Yellow Jade Banquet by Deon Nielsen Price is based on a Chinese folk song and inspired by a sumptuous Chinese banquet that Deon attended at the home of composer Joan Huang; Joan’s Chinese name translates into Yellow Jade. This feast for the ear "utilizes a wide variety of timbres, intricate and unusual percussion effects, irregular Bartókian meters and rhythms. It maximizes the characteristic vibrant colors of the solo B-flat and E-flat clarinets, basset horn" and piano.

Bright Moonlight by Chen Yi, with text and music by the composer, is about contemporary human beings and our yearning. It reminds pianist Mary Au of the time when, as a child, she went fishing with her father. “Missing my homeland...Yearning for the world of consonance.”

Love Ritual, with text and music by Dr. Sharon Willis, is a group of songs "about a vain and self-absorbed young woman obsessed with love and the cycle of emotions she experiences from day to day regarding her self-proclaimed beloved".

Adagio by Mary M. Boyle, in the form of an intimate, leisurely, playful instrumental dialogue between the clarinet and the piano, reminds us of a dark figure standing under a lamp-post on a hazy moon-lit night, engaging in a thoughtful soliloquy.

Slave from Three Women by Thea Musgrave, the story of Harriett Tubman, depicts her struggle to embrace a life devoted to the cause of freedom. How far our country has come! The American dedication to freedom and justice for all, seen through the eyes of Tubman, continues in the 21st century.

Three Dream Portraits, a song cycle by Margaret Bond with text by Langston Hughes, is a reflection of different themes related to being Black in America. "The work is a series of mood paintings with many characteristics of the jazz style."

He's got the Whole World in His Hand, a spiritual arranged by Margaret Bond, reaffirms the ever-present love of God for his people. "He’s got you and me right in His hand."

Amen.