Contents:
-Concert Reminder: Peter's 30th Birthday Concert To Celebrate the Need: February 22, 8pm
-Concert Reminder: Opera Alchemy Performs MAY SHE | SHE MAY: February 28, 7pm
-Concert Feature Announcement: Art Songs with Harp in Stillwater, MN: March 27, 7pm
Dear Friends,
I know, it's pretty cutesy to tie a blog-post on Valentine's day to something about love, so thank you for your indulgence. Love is a pretty big theme, however, both in the concert next weekend, when my Walt Whitman cycle will be performed, but also the weekend after, when Opera Alchemy will perform a concert version of my chamber opera about Gertrude Stein's first lesbian love-affair. And (newly announced!) at the end of March, my art songs with harp will be my debut compositions performed in Minnesota, including my setting of a poem expressing love for a lost mother. I hope you'll be able to come to any of these events, as the musicians who are making my musical ideas possible are of the highest caliber!
Concert Reminder: Peter's 30th Birthday Concert To Celebrate the Need: Saturday, February 22, 8pm
Rehearsals have been non-stop for this exciting concert, and I am just bursting to share this music with you. I will say that, personally, the most exciting aspect of this has been to hear my music for lower vocal ranges come to life! I am grateful to enjoy such a rich and prolonged collaboration with soprano Katie Procell, as well as a number of other higher-ranged singers, so to hear the pieces I've written over the years for tenor and bass clefs finally have their turn opens up reinvigorating sounds to my ears. I hope you all will enjoy the music that these amazing musicians are working so diligently on as well! To Celebrate The Need will take place on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2020 at 8pm at 302 E Federal St, Baltimore, MD 21202. I hope you'll join me for some cake and concertizing!
Upcoming Concert Reminder: Opera Alchemy Performs MAY SHE | SHE MAY: Friday, February 28, 7pm
If you didn't get a chance to see the summer performance of MAY SHE | SHE MAY, you have another chance to witness the origin story of Gertrude's move to Paris (and chance of career to writer) and her first lesbian love-affair, a love triangle with two of her few fellow female colleagues at Hopkins medical school in 1900. Hannah Wardell and Arianna Arnold will reprise their roles from this past August in reenacting the story of Gertrude Stein's first lesbian love-affair and will be joined by Orianna Falla from New York City. In addition to the 25 minute opera, the Alchemy cast will perform selected opera scenes and numbers. The concert will be at 7pm at the Peabody Library (17 E Mt. Vernon Pl, Baltimore, MD, 21202) on Friday, February 28. The Peabody Library is worth a trip in itself, and there is no better way to experience it than through a concert.
Concert Feature Announcement: "An Evening of Melody, with Gina Hanzlik & Amy Nam": Friday, March 27, 7pm (CDT), in Stillwater, MN
I am so delighted to announce that my art songs for soprano and harp will be performed this coming March, and by a composer and harpist with whom I went to Vanderbilt University! Amy Nam is a marvelous harpist, composer, and pianist, and I am honored that she and soprano Gina Hanzlik will be performing my song Mothers in Spring (text by Anne Carson) and giving the world premiere of my setting of a unpublished fragment by poet Vicki Hearne: Beyond Dimension. These pieces (my Minnesota debut!) will be performed alongside music composed by Amy Nam, Joseph Schwantner, Debussy, Fauré, Schumann, Strauss, and Puccini. Get tickets here! The concert will take place at the Zephyr Theatre (601 Main St. N, Stillwater, MN 55082) at 7pm on Friday, March 27. If you're in the area, I hope you can and will go!
As there continue to be opportunities to hear my music, I never forget that it is because of the time, energy, dedication, and friendship of so many people, that I can have any music performed besides that which I could play myself. It is a humbling and awe-inspiring place to find oneself. I'll be seeing you soon, next Saturday!
-Peter