LMC premieres new works by Australian, British and American Composers on December 7

Thursday, December 7 at the Seattle Art Museum features premieres by cogan, marshall and anderson.

Thursday, December 7 at noon
Seattle Art Museum
Plestcheff Auditorium
1300 First Ave, Seattle WA
*All our Concerts are Free and open to the Public*

​LMC member Jill Carlsen and guest performers from the active Puget Sound recorder community will present a West Coast premiere of the recorder quartet Sughisti, written in 2014 by Racheal Cogan. This composition features an alto recorder with three types of bass recorder: standard bass in F (sometimes affectionately referred to as the “baby bass”), Great Bass in C, and Contrabass, an octave lower than the baby bass.

Ms. Cogan composed Sughisti as a gift for Geri Bollinger, who is the maker of the Küng bass recorders featured in her piece. She writes that he came across her website with a photo of her holding one of his bass recorders, heard her music, and sent her an email. This became the start of their friendship.

She goes on to describe that while they corresponded from their respective homes in Canada and Switzerland, they discovered a shared love for cooking and bottling tomato sauces from their summer harvests. (Or maybe a necessity in her case​? She adds, this was “All to ferret away for the long, insistently cold and icy Winter in Alberta.”)

Geri referred to his tomato sauce using the Italian word, “sugo.” Sughisti are the sauce makers. You can get a “taste of sugo” on YouTube. Ms. Cogan was born in Australia and has lived in various parts of the world. Her extensive time in Greece is reflected in many of her works, including Sughisti. She currently lives in Montreal.

 

The program is rounded out by two contemporary vocal works.

The US premiere of British composer, Nicholas Marshall’s song cycle The Birds, for soprano, recorder and piano.

And, rounding out the program is the winter themed song cycle composed by LMC’s own Janet Anderson, For Snow.

UPS Voice Chair, Dawn Padula makes LMC Debut

December 2 program at the Frye Art Museum to feature Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano and Hilary Field, guitar

 

University of Puget Sound Director of Vocal Studies, Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano makes her LMC debut on Saturday, December 2 at the Frye Art Museum.

Dr. Padula will perform Maurice Ravel’s Histoires Naturelles (Natural Histories) a song cycle of poems about various animals and will be accompanied by Joan Lundquist on piano. Dr. Padula’s detailed biography, recordings and upcoming performances can be found at dawnpadula.com

Hilary Field, guitar is a former Frances Walton Competition winner

The other half of the one-hour program will be international performing and recording artist Hilary Field, guitar, performing works of her own composition. Find out more about Hilary at hilaryfield.com.

*The five songs of Histoires Naturelles are:

  1. Le paon (The peacock) – The peacock is described as waiting in his finery for the peahen he is to marry. She does not appear, but his vanity makes him confident that she will come tomorrow.
  2. Le grillon (The cricket) – The cricket returns to his home at the end of the day and obsessively puts it in order, before burrowing deep into the earth.
  3. Le cygne (The swan) – The swan is distracted by reflections in the water, confusing the image of his own neck for a woman’s arm. Each time he plunges his beak into the water vainly fishing for reflections he brings out a worm, and so grows fat.
  4. Le martin-pêcheur (The kingfisher) – A fisherman is pleased and proud that a beautiful kingfisher has just perched on his fishing rod before eventually flying on.
  5. La pintade (The guinea fowl) – The guinea fowl is ugly and belligerent, attacking the hens and even the turkey in the farmyard. She occasionally gives them some respite when she leaves the yard to lay an egg out of sight, in the countryside.

*Song descriptions taken from Wikipedia.org.

For detailed program information see our web calendar.

All of our concerts are FREE and open to the public.

LMC Opera travels to Russia on November 13, 2017

Russian Opera of the 19th Century
Monday, November 13 at 7:30 PM ~ University House, Wallingford

 

Widely considered the golden age of Russian opera, the 19th Century was a time of flourishing growth and development of an original Russian style.

LMC Opera Group  will trace Russian operatic history  beginning with the groundbreaking work of Mikhail Glinka. He is regarded at the father of Russian classical music and his style was highly influential on those who came after, notably a group who were referred to as “The Five” or “The Mighty Handful.”

Our first ever program of Russian opera program features arias and scenes sung concert style in Russian with historical notes and commentary by Director Regina Thomas with music by Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, Rubinstein, Musorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.

Featured performers: Regina Thomas and Meg Daly, sopranos, Dawn Padula and Janene Nelson mezzo-sopranos and Maria Khavin, pianist and Russian language coach.

New Afternoon Concert Series at Crossroads Community Center

LMC kicks off the 17-18 season at the Crossroads Community Center with a new time and day: Thursdays at 1:00pm

The series is sure to appeal to seniors, home school families and people who work in the neighborhood who want to enjoy music with their lunch.

Dates and Programming Planned:

Thursday, November 9 – Russian Opera of the 19th Century
Thursday, January 11 – Music of Spain and South America, solo piano, guitar and vocal music
Thursday, February 8 – Violin sonatas by Beethoven and Grieg
Thursday, March 8 – Soprano recital and instrumental recital TBA
Thursday, April 12 – Music by Schubert for solo voice and for violin, cello and piano trio

As with all of our concerts, this series is FREE and open to the public

Midge Bowman, Former Executive Director of the Frye collaborates on Debussy Concert, Nov 4

Midge Bowman, Former LMC President, Exec Director Emeritus of the Frye

Former Executive Director of the Frye Art Museum and Past President of the Ladies Musical Club of Seattle, Midge Bowman, will be the special guest speaker at LMC’s “The Life and Works of Claude Debussy” concert on Saturday, November 4 at 2:00 PM.  Midge will guide the audience through Debussy’s life as well as the development of his compositions over three distinct periods.

A one hour program of solo piano and vocal works as well as the first movement of the Debussy’s only cello sonata will be performed by LMC members.

Midge holds degrees in Music History from Pomona College and Yale University, and has done doctoral work at the Fielding Institute. Her writings have appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Puget Soundings, USA Today, Perspectives of New Music, and numerous educational newsletters.