PUTNEY — Yellow Barn welcomes soprano Laura Strickling, pianist Liza Stepanova, and Venezuelan-American composer Reinaldo Moya for a residency of love songs honoring turn-of-the-century Spanish composer Enrique Granados (1867-1916).
The residency explores two major works: Cancíones amatorias, a collection of songs by Granados set to Renaissance Spanish love poems, and Ciudades del Porvenir (Cities from a Future to Come), a newly commissioned Spanish-language song cycle by Moya, according to a news release.
On Sunday, Dec. 18, at 3 p.m., their residency will culminate with a performance of Cancíones amatorias and the world premiere of Ciudades del Porvenir at Next Stage.
Strickling and Stepanova began their collaboration in 2011 and have performed together throughout the U.S. and in London. In 2013, they were awarded the Liszt Prize and First Prize in the Duo Division at the Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition.
'A nuanced sense of touch'
Described by New York music blog Lucid Culture as possessing a “stunningly nuanced sense of touch and ability to bring a composer's emotional content to life,” Stepanova in the 2016-2017 performance season will appear at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Atlanta's Spivey Hall, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and as a guest artist with New York Philharmonic Chamber Ensembles at Merkin Hall, among other venues.
Strickling, who has performed at Weill Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, and National Sawdust, was praised by The New York Times for her “flexible voice, crystalline diction, and warm presence.”
Recipient of the 2015 McKnight Composers Fellowship, Moya has seen his compositions performed in Germany, Colombia, Brazil, Australia, Argentina, Venezuela, and throughout the U.S. by performers such as the Juilliard Orchestra, the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, the Attaca Quartet, and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Stepanova met Moya while they were both attending graduate school at Juilliard, and she has performed several of Moya's works during the past few years.
“When Laura and I were considering a commission in connection with the Granados project,” she said in the news release, “his name immediately came to mind. His music is always beautiful and speaks directly to the audience. I recall hearing excerpts from his powerful opera 'Generalissimo' at Symphony Space in New York and knew that he could write very effectively for voice.
“Additionally, I hardly know a more avid book reader than Reinaldo. He has wide-ranging literary tastes, and it was not surprising that he immediately got to work selecting love poetry to match the impact of the Granados verse. I am very much looking forward to working on the result: the songs are gorgeous and I am excited to discuss poetry with Reinaldo that was written in his native language.”
Poetry and music
Moya writes of his new work: “The song cycle Ciudades del Porvenir consists of a pair of settings of the poetry by the young Mexican poet Yaxkin Melchy. I was attracted to his whimsical, almost surrealistic writings.
“I could sense that underneath the often sharp contrasts on the surface, there was a real human and moving quality to his poetry. The two songs work as kinds of foils to one another with El Corazón Humano (The Human Heart) being the louder, darker sibling to the more quietly expansive Ciudades del Porvenir.”
The years 2016 and 2017 mark a double-anniversary for the great Spanish composer Enrique Granados: the 100th anniversary of his untimely death in 1916, and the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1867. Granados is often cited particularly as a composer for the piano, but his lesser-known songs also are a seminal achievement.
According to the British pianist-scholar Graham Johnson, they are “the first in Spanish music where the piano, long an established part of the song tradition in the rest of Europe, is permitted to enter into an important role in its own right.”
In this sense, Granados' songs are the first truly collaborative chamber music between voice and piano in Spanish classical music.
The first retreat program in the U.S. created specifically for professional, performing musicians, Yellow Barn's Artist Residencies “further the art of the performance of classical music by providing an environment conducive to undistracted study, an exchange of ideas, and opportunities for performance.”