Friday, Mar 25, 2011
Master Classes, lectures and recitals - March 31 - April 2
by Anne Sears
The 2011 Westminster Choir College Art Song Festival will focus on French Mélodie. Held from Thursday, March 31 through Saturday, April 2 in Bristol Chapel on the campus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, the festival program will feature lectures, master classes and recitals.
Thursday, March 31 at 3:20 p.m., noted coach-accompanist Dalton Baldwin, one of the most important interpreters of the French repertoire in our time, will coach several Westminster Choir College students who are singing in the festival recitals with an emphasis on issues for English speakers who are singing in French. Afterward he and J.J. Penna will have a conversation about that topic. The public is welcome to attend at no charge.
Friday, April 1 at 7:30 p.m. Westminster Choir College students, accompanied by J.J. Penna, will perform a retrospective of French art song. Professor of Voice Lindsey Christiansen will present a pre-recital lecture at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors.
Saturday, April 2, Rosemarie Landry and Dalton Baldwin will present a seminar focusing on French art song from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Ms. Landry will begin with a lecture entitled Several Perspectives on Singing in French followed by a master class in which she is joined by Dalton Baldwin. Registration for the seminar is $110; it includes admission to both recitals.
Also on Saturday, Lindsey Christiansen will present another pre-recital lecture at 6:45 p.m. At 8 p.m. Westminster Choir College students, accompanied by J.J. Penna, will present a recital of songs on texts of Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors.
Dalton Baldwin, professor of Accompanying and Coaching at Westminster, has accompanied many of the world’s leading singers. He has long been associated with Gérard Souzay and Elly Ameling and has performed recitals around the world. His many recordings include the complete songs of Fauré, Debussy, Poulenc and Ravel.
Rosemarie Landry, professor of Voice at the University of Montreal has had an enviable career as an interpreter of French mélodie. She spent a sabbatical year studying perspectives of singing in French at important conservatories, especially the Paris Conservatory, and performing organizations throughout Europe and the United States.
J.J. Penna has performed extensively with a variety of eminent singers, including Kathleen Battle, Harolyn Blackwell, Measha Brueggergosman, Amy Burton, William Burden, David Daniels, Denyce Graves, Ying Huang, Kevin McMillan, Susan Narucki, Roberta Peters, Florence Quivar and Andreas Scholl. He has held prestigious fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center, Banff Center for the Arts, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Music Academy of the West, as well as the Merola Opera Program. Devoted to the teaching of art song literature, he has been on the faculties of the Yale University School of Music, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Bowdoin Festival, Vancouver International Song Institute and the Steans Institute of the Ravinia Festival. He currently teaches at Westminster and The Juilliard School.
Lindsey Christiansen is active as a clinician for master classes and lectures in song literature and voice pedagogy. She has twice been a master teacher for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Internship Program for young teachers. She has presented at the NATS national convention and NATS winter workshops. Her students have sung in opera houses all over the world including The Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Glyndebourne Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera and Seattle Opera.
