Join pianist Lucy Mauro and lyric tenor Donald George for a 21st-century concert experience spanning music, literature and art, Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 8:15 p.m. in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall at the West Virginia University Creative Arts Center.
“The Old Wicked Songs of Heinrich Heine” will vividly show the audience what it was like inside the 19th-century salons where this poetry, music and artwork was created.
Mauro and George will perform art songs of Heine’s poetry from his “Buch der Lieder,” as interpreted by composers Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny Hensel, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Charles Ives and Clara Schumann.
They will perform Robert Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” in the second half of the show.
The evening will also feature narration by WVU music faculty members Robert Thieme and Janis Rozena-Peri.
There will be commentary on and translations of Heine’s poetry, along with projected images featuring contemporary sketches of Heine and personages in his life, including George Sand, Empress Elizabeth and Fanny Eissler.
As Heine said, “When words leave off, music begins.”
Mauro, WVU music faculty and George, associate professor of voice at the Crane School of Music and current artist-in-residence at WVU’s College of Creative Arts, perform nationally and internationally as the duo, DuoDrama.
DuoDrama presents recitals, workshops and master classes and specializes in 19th-century German melodrama as well as the art of collaborative performance. They have written articles for “American Music Teacher” and the international journal, “Die Tonkunst.”
In 2008 Mauro and George were guest artists at both the Asolo Song Festival and Institute in Italy and the International Performing Arts Institute in Germany, where Mauro is a member of the faculty.
DuoDrama performed this summer at the 2009 Mozart Festival in Wuerzburg, Germany.
Mauro is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory at John Hopkins University, where she received her undergraduate and graduate degrees while studying with Ann Schein and Julio Esteban.
George is an internationally-known opera singer and established lyric tenor in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe. He has sung at the Paris Opera, La Scala, the Royal Opera of Brussels, the Kennedy Center and the State Operas of Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna.
He has also performed at the Festivals of Salzburg, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Blossom USA, Kurt Masur, Yehudi Menuhin and Jeffrey Tate as well as recording for Sony Classics, Phillips Classics, Teldec, Naxos, Bavarian Radio and many others.
“The Old Wicked Songs of Heinrich Heine” is free and open to the public.
For more information about the recital, call 304-293-4841, ext. 3108.
For more information about the performers, see George’s Web site at www.donaldgeorge.de and DuoDrama’s Web site at www.duodrama.net.
-WVU-
02/18/10
CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4841 ext. 3108, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu