CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
The Song Continues: Spotlight Recital
Performers
Beste Kalender, Mezzo-Soprano
Benjamin Dickerson, Baritone
Warren Jones, Piano
Program
SANTOLIQUIDO I canti della sera
·· L’assiolo canta
·· Alba di luna sul bosco
·· Tristezza crepuscolare
·· L’incontro
BERG Sieben frühe Lieder
·· Nacht
·· Schilflied
·· Die Nachtigall
·· Traumgekroent
·· Im Zimmer
·· Liebesode
·· Sommertage
BRAHMS "Weg der Liebe," Op. 20, No. 1
BRAHMS "Die Meere," Op. 20, No. 3
BRAHMS "Die Boten der Liebe," Op. 61, No. 4
INTERMISSION
WOLF Alte Weisen
·· Tretet ein, hoher Krieger
·· Singt mein Schatz wie ein Fink
·· Du milchjunger Knabe
·· Wandl’ ich in dem Morgentau
·· Das Koehlerweib ist trunken
·· Wie glaentz der helle Mond
BIZET "Ouvre ton coeur"
BIZET "Chanson d’avril"
HAHN "À Chloris"
LISZT "Oh! Quand je dors"
FAURÉ "Puisqu’ici bas," Op. 10, No. 1
FAURÉ "Tarentelle," Op. 10, No. 2
Encore:
BRAHMS "Wiegenlied," Op. 49, No. 4
The Song Continues is supported, in part, by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.
Workshops and master classes are made possible, in part, by Mr. and Mrs. Nicola Bulgari and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.
This concert is part of the Marilyn Horne legacy at Carnegie Hall.
At a Glance
Next on the program are two duets from Johannes Brahms's early maturity, as well as another duet from 1884. All three are testaments to the importance of folk poetry and folk song for Brahms's Lieder output. Hugo Wolf, Brahms's younger contemporary in late-19th-century Vienna, espoused a very different approach to song, one that was influenced by Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner. Wolf's six songs collectively entitled Alte Weisen (Olden Melodies) portray six vivid female characters: an aristocratic woman "domesticating" her warrior-lover; a woman bidding her girlfriends to leave "the handsomest one" to her; a more experienced woman teasing a young boy who is clearly in love with her; a lovelorn young woman lamenting in the midst of Nature; a drunken former beauty howling in the woods; and an elderly woman tenderly envisioning heaven.
Four songs by three different French composers follow. We hear Georges Bizet's skillful re-making of an earlier symphony-ode into one of the most popular songs in the repertory and a joyful song of spring; Reynaldo Hahn's evocation of an exquisitely formal past over a famous pattern from Johann Sebastian Bach; and one of Franz Liszt's most gorgeous love songs, set to a poem by great French poet Victor Hugo. Duets close both halves of the program, with two by Gabriel Fauré as the culmination of the second half. Yet another poem by Victor Hugo finds harmonically subtle and sweet expression in the first duet, "Puisqu'ici-bas toute âme," while a fiery and demanding tarantella closes the program in a blaze of glory.
Bios
Beste Kalender
Mezzo-soprano Beste Kalender was a resident artist and a Rebanks Fellow at Toronto's Royal
Conservatory of Music during the 2015-2016 season. During the previous season, she
performed as an Emerging Artist with the Calgary Opera and made her mainstage debut with
the company in the title role of Bizet's Carmen. Ms. Kalender was named the Jeunes
Ambassadeurs Lyriques of Canada for the fourth time in 2016, and recently won the Bourse
Lyrique Coréen and the Bourse Lyrique Allemande. Other engagements include representing
Canada in Korea at the Sori Festival; in Bologna, Italy, with Teatro Comunale di Bologna;
and in Germany in 2016. Ms. Kalender made her French debut with Les Chorégies D'Orange in
2014, and recently made her US debut singing the title role in Music Academy of the West's
production of Rossini's La Cenerentola. She also performed with Stephanie Blythe
at Carnegie Hall in January 2016 as part of The Song Continues festival.
Ms. Kalender's repertoire includes Bianca (The Rape of Lucretia with Banff
Centre, Against the Grain Theatre, and Canadian Opera Company); Hänsel (Hänsel und
Gretel with Westminster's CoOPERAtive Program); Mercedes and Carmen
(Carmen with Music Academy of the West and Calgary Opera); Fox (The Cunning
Little Vixen with the Glenn Gould School); Zerlina (Don
Giovanni with the Glenn Gould School); and Cherubino (Le nozze di
Figaro with Opera by Request). Ms. Kalender is a recipient of the 2015 Canada
Council for the Arts Grant for Professional Musicians, was a finalist at the 2016 Opéra
Concours International de Chant de Marmande, and won the 2016 Sylva Gelber Music Foundation
Award.
Benjamin Dickerson
Baritone Benjamin Dickerson is the winner of Music Academy of the West's 2015 Marilyn
Horne Song Competition. This season, Mr. Dickerson joins the Caramoor Center for Music and
the Arts as a Schwab Vocal Rising Star, and New York Festival of Song as part of their
Emerging Artists series. He also returns to the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as a Gerdine
Young Artist. Mr. Dickerson's recent national recital tour culminated in a performance at
The Greene Space in New York-broadcast live on WQXR-with Isabel Leonard and Marilyn Horne.
Equally at home on operatic stages, Mr. Dickerson recently covered the roles of Schaunard
in La bohème and Pyralyl in the world premiere of Jack Perla's Shalimar the
Clown with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. He also recently covered the role of
Dandini (La Cenerentola) at Music Academy of the West and Green Mountain Opera
Festival. Mr. Dickerson has performed leading roles in Don Giovanni, The
Dangerous Liaisons, and Le roi l'a dit under the batons of Kenneth
Merrill and George Manahan at the Manhattan School of Music.
A Vermont native, Mr. Dickerson enjoys frequent collaboration with the Burlington Chamber
Orchestra and the Burlington Choral Society, performing works such as Haydn's The
Seasons, Handel's Messiah, and Francois Joseph Gossec's Requiem. In December
2016, he received a bachelor's degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a
recipient of the Mae Zenke Orvis Opera Scholarship. Other recent performances include
Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Ben (The Telephone), Gaudenzio (Il
signor Bruschino), Ottone (L'incoronazione di Poppea), and Papageno (Die
Zauberflöte). He currently studies with Ruth Golden.
Warren Jones
Warren Jones enjoys a notably eclectic career that has taken him to every corner of the
musical world. He was recently named artist-in-residence at the world-renowned Mason Gross
School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and performs with some of today's
best-known artists, including Stephanie Blythe, Anthony Dean Griffey, Bo Skovhus, Eric
Owens, John Relyea, and Richard "Yongjae" O'Neill. He is also the Robert and Mercedes
Eichholz Principal Pianist for Santa Barbara-based chamber music group Camerata Pacifica,
and has partnered with such great performers as Marilyn Horne, Håkan Hagegård, Kathleen
Battle, Samuel Ramey, Christine Brewer, Barbara Bonney, Carol Vaness, Judith Blegen,
Salvatore Licitra, Tatiana Troyanos, Thomas Hampson, James Morris, and Martti Talvela. He
is a long-time member of the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music and Music Academy of
the West, and received Music Teachers National Association's 2011 Achievement Award, the
organization's highest honor.
Mr. Jones was selected as Musical America's 2010 Collaborative Pianist of the
Year. He has been invited to perform at the White House for state dinners in honor of the
leaders of Canada, Russia, and Italy, and has also been invited three times by the Justices
of the United States Supreme Court to perform in musical afternoons. A graduate of New
England Conservatory of Music and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mr. Jones currently
serves on the former's board of visitors and has been honored with a doctorate degree from
the latter. His discography includes 31 recordings on every major label in a wide range of
repertory, and his conducting repertory is similarly varied. He has led sold-out,
critically acclaimed performances of Mascagni's L'amico Fritz, Rossini's Il
barbiere di Siviglia, and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, and he conducted the
world premiere of a new operatic version of A Christmas Carol at the Houston Grand
Opera in 2014. Mr. Jones returned to the Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera
for performances of Donizetti's Don Pasquale in the summer of 2015, and in
February 2016, he led an innovative new production of Menotti's The
Telephone and Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti for Tri-Cities Opera.
For more information, visit warrenjones.com.