Lyric Fest – Connecting people through song

This one by Sharon Torello, on LocalArtsLive.com, a site well worth an extended visit by classical music lovers in the Philadelphia area. How often do you read a sentence like this in a review of a song performance?

It was as if the poem was projected on a IMAX screen.

Well then! Read the whole review and see for yourself why Sharon loved the variety of the songs on the program as well as the historical and artistic context provided by the concert.

The review was written by Tom Purdom and published in the Broad Street Review. Some choice tidbits to whet your appetite for the whole thing:

[...] one of Lyric Fest’s most varied and entertaining programs, complete with an after-concert mingle that included birthday cake and champagne in the Academy of Vocal Arts reception room.

The event included two spectacular young talents— soprano Meagan Miller and tenor Zach Borichevsky. Miller owns the kind of voice that made me sit up and take notice [...] It’s a strong voice that’s pure throughout its range, and she wields it with the sure touch of an artist who understands the full range of emotions demanded by opera. [...] Borichevsky displayed the same virtues when he joined her in the Puccini excerpt. In other pieces, he proved he can move between the power demanded by opera and the quieter, nuanced style required by art song.

[...] The third guest vocalist, Randall Scarlata, contributed the kind of performances that have made him a mainstay of the Philadelphia vocal scene. [...] Scarlata delivered the first section with imposing authority [...] he captured the intense high drama [...]

[...] soprano Randi Marrazzo had a good time with the comic lyrics from Victor Herbert’s “Baghdad,” [...] Marrazzo contributed the long melody line of a French chanson by the Venezuelan composer Reynaldo Hahn, and a moving performance of the song Irving Berlin wrote on the loss of his first wife [...]

[...] Suzanne DuPlantis presented one of the afternoon’s big surprises: A John Cage song that set a passage from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. [...] stunningly haunting [...] DuPlantis’s dark, knowledgeable delivery added the final touch. [...]

The third Lyric Fest founder, pianist Laura Ward, again contributed accompaniments that surrounded the vocalists with atmosphere and instrumental color. [...]

David Patrick Stearns reviewed our A Very Good Year ~ Happy Birthday to 1912 concert in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Read all about it on philly.com; here are some choice quotes:

With immense wit and perhaps tongue in cheek, Lyric Fest, the Philadelphia art song collective, unveiled the program titled “A Very Good Year: Happy Birthday to 1912″ last weekend. [...]

Discoveries began in the very first song. Simple arpeggios have rarely been more eloquent than in “Orpheus With His Lute” by the little-known Ivor Gurney (and as elegantly sung as Borichevsky). [...]

Reynaldo Hahn was represented by “Song at the edge of the fountain,” which [...] as sung by Marrazzo, emerged as one of the composer’s most distinctive creations.

DuPlantis had some choice items such as “In the Garden” by Ottorino Respighi, often imprinting the music with her personality as deeply as Ian Bostridge a few weeks back, but with infinitely greater emotional underpinning. [...]

The crowd pleaser was Delaware-raised Miller, in her first area appearance since re-debuting as a Straussian soprano. “There is a realm where all is pure” from Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos fit her voice and linguistic abilities beautifully. [...]

Do head over to the original to read the whole thing!