Chicago Soprano In World Premiere

Chicago Soprano In World Premiere

The Chandler Center for the Arts will host another world premiere of music by Braintree composer, Gwyneth Walker, Saturday, Oct. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Chandler Music Hall in Randolph.

Last season, soprano Michelle Areyzaga and pianist Jamie Shaak dazzled an audience gathered at Chandler to celebrate Walker’s birthday with many varied performances of the composer’s own music. The Chicago-based duo returns to Chandler to premiere Walker’s new song cycle, "La Ternura" (Tenderness), a six-song work set to the poetry of Chilean poet, Gabriela Mistral.

Born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (1889-1957), Mistral was a journalist, educator, diplomat, and feminist who was the first Latin American, and fifth woman, to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, a mother’s love, sorrow and recovery, and Latin identity as formed from a mixture of Indian and European influences.

"La Ternura," written in 1923, is a collection of lullabies by a mother to her son. However, the message of tenderness is colored by many personal losses in the poet’s life, as well as the ever-present fear arising from the political unrest in Chile at the time.

Also on the program will be songs by Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc, and three contemporary composers, Richard Pearson Thomas, Lee Hoiby, and Mark Robson. In addition, Shaak will perform the playful and percussive piano solo work composed by Walker, "Rhythms from the North Country," and the Prelude from Edvard Grieg’s original piano version of the Holberg Suite.

Areyzaga has appeared in principal operatic roles from baroque to contemporary, including with the Chicago Opera Theater and the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists. Her concert work includes performances throughout the United States and Europe, and she has received critical acclaim for her interpretation of contemporary American music.

Shaak has been soloist with such ensembles as the Denver Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic, and the National Repertory Orchestra, and has performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and Lincoln Center in New York City. In Asia, while teaching at Payap University in Chiang Mai, Thailand, she toured as a musical ambassador with the United States Information Service through Asia and India.

The recording, "The Sun Is Love," a collaboration between Walker, Areyzaga and Shaak, is available in music stores on the Proteus label.

Tickets for this performance are available through the Chandler box office at 728-6464 or tickets@chandler-arts.org.

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