One Quiet Plunge
presents
Vocal music from the Hudson Valley
One Quiet Plunge announces its inaugural concert at the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center (12 Vassar Street) in downtown Poughkeepsie. The program of 90 minutes will include music by Jonathan Chenette, Craig Fryer, Brian Fennelly, James Fitzwilliam, Joshua Groffman, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Wilson, performed by soprano Lucy Dhegrae, baritone Kelvin Chan, and pianist James Fitzwilliam.
About the program:
Craig Fryer is Director of Bands at Millbrook Jr./Sr. High School and performs frequently as a vocalist and on the French horn. His piece Two Poems for soprano and piano sets two texts by E. E. Cummings and was commissioned for the Artscape celebration in Poughkeepsie at the Bardavon Opera House. www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/craigfryer
James Fitzwilliam holds degrees (B.M., M.M.) in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music and is well-known as a performer and composer throughout the Hudson Valley. This program is the world premiere of his Edgar Allan Poe Songs for baritone and piano. www.fourpawsmusic.com/
Joshua Groffman is on the faculty at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University and Sarah Lawrence College. His piece Pained in the blue seat, pained in the red seat for soprano, baritone, and piano is a collaboration with San Francisco-based poet Sarah Heady, who writes frequently about the human geography of the Hudson Valley, of which she is a native. www.joshuagroffman.com
Jonathan Chenette is Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Music at Vassar College. He says of his work for soprano and piano, “Posthumous Orpheus was inspired by Edward Hirsch’s poetic vision of Orpheus wandering across the modern-day Great Plains singing his ‘seven priestly notes’ of mourning for Eurydice to an alien and unheeding landscape.” http://deanofthefaculty.vassar.edu/dean.html
Brian Fennelly is Emeritus Professor of Music at New York University and a native of Kingston, NY. Of his work Sacred Songs, he says, “Sacred Songs consists of three intense religious poems by the English poet George Herbert (1593-1633) in settings for baritone and piano. This poet’s deep belief in a Christian God of love and salvation is fervently expressed, often in dialogues with his savior.” http://library.newmusicusa.org/brianfennelly
Lawrence Kramer is Distinguished Professor of English and Music at Fordham University and author of Why Classical Music Still Matters. His work Erat Hora for soprano, baritone, and piano is part of his larger setting of nine texts by Ezra Pound, Songs Acts, and was premiered in Vienna, Austria. www.musicbylawrencekramer.com/
Richard Wilson is Professor of Music on the Mary Conover Mellon Chair at Vassar College. His work Three Painters for soprano and piano sets texts by Phyllis McGinley, giving lighthearted impressions of Marc Chagall, Grandma Moses, and Jackson Pollock. www.richardwilson.org
About the singers:
Soprano Lucy Dhegrae is a passionate and open-minded advocate for contemporary music. She has performed with the International Ensemble Modern Academy (conducted by Brad Lubman), Contemporaneous, Hotel Elefant (Experiments in Opera), Ensemble Sans Maître, Nouveau Classical, Le Train Bleu, and the Da Capo Chamber Players (with pianist, Blair McMillen) at venues including Issue Project Room, (le) poisson rouge, Roulette, Spectrum, SubCulture, Galapagos Art Space, the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Morgan Library, Scandinavia House, and Bard College’s Richard B. Fisher Center.
Dhegrae has worked closely with a diverse array of composers, including Unsuk Chin, Anthony Braxton, Susan Botti, Doug Balliett, John Halle (including a recording of several works released on Innova), Judd Greenstein, Stefan Weisman, Gabrielle Herbst, Conor Brown, Dylan Mattingly, and Shawn Jaeger. She has appeared at several prominent music festivals, including the Aldeburgh Festival (as a Britten-Pears Young Artist; UK), the Klangspuren Festival (Austria), and, closer to home, the Bard Music Festival. She received her MM from the Bard College Conservatory and her BM from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. www.lucydhegrae.com/
Baritone Kelvin Chan is a versatile performer of the operatic, concert, and recital repertoire. His recent appearances include Der Lautsprecher in Opera Moderne’s critically-acclaimed Der Kaiser von Atlantis, New York City Opera’s 2012 VOX Festival, as well as a duo recital with soprano, Joélle Harvey on Trinity Wall Street’s Concerts at One Series. During Trinity Wall Street’s Stravinsky Festival, celebrating the centennial of the premiere of Le sacre du printemps, Mr. Chan was a featured soloist in Stravinsky’s The Flood, Threni, and Requiem Canticles, while covering Sanford Sylvan in Abraham and Isaac. Other recent engagements include a lecture recital on Hanns Eisler’s Hollywood Songbook on Opera Moderne’s Red Scare series, the Imperial Commissioner and Yamadori in Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Madama Butterfly, and with Houston Grand Opera, where he created the role of Goong-Goong in the HGOCo production of Courtside by Jack Perla. Mr. Chan has appeared with Cincinnati Opera as Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, and Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, creating the role of Shi-Yin in RedDust, an opera electronica by Mathew Rosenblum. On the concert stage, he has performed Bach’s Cantata 56 and 82 and as a soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Duruflé’s Requiem, Fauré’s Requiem, Haydn’s Harmoniemesse and Lord Nelson Mass, and Mozart’s Requiem. For five years, he performed with the all-male chamber vocal ensemble, Cantus, and served as that ensemble’s Artistic Co-Director. He is a member of the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street.
One Quiet Plunge 