That’s the title of a new CD from soprano Kira Braun and pianist Peter Krochak. Yesterday I got to hear them perform music from it at Rosemarie Umetsu’s new digs on Davenport. This is a great venue for small scale concerts and recitals and has a really good Yamaha piano. It’s also less awkward to get to than, say, Gallery 345 so check out their website and facebook page to see what’s happening.
What I really liked about this CD is that most of the music is fairly unfamiliar. We have all got CDs of the popular Schubert, Strauss, Britten etc songs sung by world class performers and we hear the same rep all the time in student concerts and recitals by big names. But how often does one get to hear Haydn’s English language songs or Schubert rarities like the Suleika songs (to texts by Goethe’s mistress no less)?
So that’s what we got yesterday along with some relatively rare Hahn and Tchaikovsky and piano transcriptions of songs by Schubert and Liszt produced by Liszt for concert showing off! This was all very nicely presented by Kira, who has a pleasant light, bright soprano, with Peter accompanying and playing the piano solos. The dress, natch, is by Rosemarie.
You can check out other music making by these two (free!) on Kira’s website.
I don’t usually post photos with me in them, apart from the obligatory back of my head, (possibly the best known back-of-head on the Interwebs) but this one does show off Kira and her dress rather nicely.
Photo credit: Rosemarie Umetsu