Soprano Nancy Froysland Hoerl Will Present “A Woman’s Journey: poetry and music in woman’s life”
The Westminster Choir College Faculty Recital Series continues on Sunday, February 5 with a recital presented by soprano Nancy Froysland Hoerl and pianist Akiko Hosaki in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton. The performance will begin at 4:00 p.m., rather than the originally scheduled time of 3:00 p.m.
The program, entitled “A Woman’s Journey: poetry and music of a woman’s life,” will include works that focus on different aspects of a woman’s life: courtly love, youth, mature love, home and love in the 21st century. Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, Christina Rossetti and Gertrude Stein are several of the female poets whose words are featured in the recital. Some of the works to be performed are Sept Chansons de Clement Marot, by Georges Enesco, I Am Rose by Ned Rorem, Begegnung by Richard Strauss, Liebeszauber by Clara Schumann, and Afternoon on a Hill by Ricky Ian Gordon.
Nancy Froysland Hoerl has performed in Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom. While studying lieder and opera at the Conservatory of Music in Vienna, Austria, she premiered numerous works for soprano and chamber orchestra and created the lead role of Gabi in Der Krach im Ofen, which premiered at the Theater an der Wien. At the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in Aldeburgh, England, she coached with Sir Peter Pears, Dame Nancy Evans and John Shirley-Quirk. A recipient of the 1990 International Professional Exchange program sponsored by the English Speaking Union, Ms. Hoerl studied the music of the British Isles in Edinburgh and Glasgow and presented an all-American recital in St. Cecilia Hall at the University of Edinburgh.
Active as a chamber musician, she was a founding member of the award-winning Grand Chamber Players of Wilmington, Del. She has appeared as guest artist of the Allegro Society of New Jersey with the Philadelphia Virtuoso Orchestra and is a frequent guest artist of the Wilmington Musical Festival, whose artistic director and Festival Quartet are members of the Philadelphia Orchestra. She has performed leading opera and operetta roles in Austria, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware and regularly appears with the Westminster Community Orchestra. She can also be heard on recordings as a back-up vocalist for the late, great jazz trumpeter Art Farmer. Ms. Hoerl presented a recital in Paris as part of the Atelier Concert Series, and she was the featured soprano soloist at the Moramus Singers Mozart Festival in Barbados in June, 2001.
A native of Minnesota, Ms. Hoerl received a bachelor’s degree in voice from Moorhead State University, Minn., and earned a Master degree in voice performance and pedagogy from Westminster Choir College. She has taught at Westminster Conservatory since 1992 and is an assistant professor of voice at Westminster Choir College.
Born in Osaka, Japan, Akiko Hosaki has appeared as soloist, as well as collaborative pianist with singers and instrumentalists, throughout Japan, the United States, Barbados, Taiwan, and Europe. She was appointed as the music director for the production of La Bohème, in Tsukuba, Japan, in 1991. Since then she has prepared the productions of La Traviata, Luisa Miller, Die Zauberflöte, Le nozze di Figaro and others for opera companies in Japan, such as Lirica Italiana and Nikikai. After moving to the United States in 1995, Ms. Hosaki earned a dual Master of Music degree in accompanying/coaching and piano performance from Westminster Choir College of Rider University. In 1998, she received the Vocal Accompanying Fellowship from the Tanglewood Music Center, where she worked with André Previn, Seiji Osawa and Mstislav Rostropovich. She was the main coach for the Opera Theater at the University of Minnesota in 2002 and 2003, preparing for the productions of Ariadne auf Naxos, The Dangerous Liaisons, and Albert Herring, as well as playing each opera’s keyboard part with the orchestra.
Ms. Hosaki has performed in recitals with Westminster voice faculty and conducting faculty members, and she has served as accompanist/basso continuo player with the American Boychoir, Fuma Sacra, the Westminster Community Chorus, the Westminster Community Orchestra, the Garden State Philharmonic, Riverside Symphonia, the Bach Festival at the University of Minnesota, the New Jersey State Opera, and the New Jersey Opera Theater. As collaborator with instrumentalists, she has performed at the World Saxophone Congress XIII, Tubonium2 and Tubonium3, and with José Meléndez as duo-pianist, and with Maurice Boyer of the Ashgrove Ensemble (chamber orchestra with piano). She has also served as one of the conductors of the campus orchestra at the University of Minnesota between 2003 and 2005. Currently Ms. Hosaki is a staff accompanist at Westminster, and a doctoral candidate in accompanying/coaching at the University of Minnesota.
Westminster Choir College is located at Hamilton Avenue and Walnut Lane in Princeton. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for seniors/students. For tickets or to receive Westminster’s 2005-2006 season catalog, call the box office at 609 921-2663.
