There was never a chance that Emily D’Angelo’s solo recital at Koerner Hall was going to be a steady procession of German lieder and French chansons with the odd Broadway number thrown in and it wasn’t. It was what D’Angelo fans would expect and (some of us at least) crave; lots of women composers and lots of contemporary music. There were five sets.
The first linked Hildegard von Bingen, Arnold Schoenberg and Missy Mazzoli. I’m going to focus on the Mazzoli. There was “Hello Lord” from Vespers for a New Dark Age and “You Are the Dust” from Songs from the Uproar. Both of these are stage works scored for chamber ensemble and electronics so they sound very different in piano score. Emily sang the with great purity and clarity and Sophia accompanied beautifully though there’s just no way one can capture the synth pop inflections of Mazzoli on piano. That said, it was a great advert for two works a I really admire. Continue reading
Unruly Sun is a song cycle in 19 parts with music by Matthew Ricketts (left) and words by Mark Campbell (below). It’s inspired by Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature and was performed last night in Mazzoleni Hall by tenor Karim Sulayman accompanied by piano and string quintet. I was much more affected by this piece than I expected to be. The text covers a lot of ground; Jarman’s cottage at Dungeness with it’s bleak shingle beach and nuclear power station, AIDS and the loss of friends, a bad porn movie and, of course, Jarman’s garden (which also of course inspired 
operaramblings 