Love Songs

So, believe it or not, there are other gigs on my horizon besides various Nozze productions or presentations of the Bhakti Project. And I got music today for one that I am extremely excited about: Brahms’ Liebeslieder waltzes!

This collection of short love songs (Liebes Lieder) for four voices (SMTB in various groupings) and piano duet are so much fun to sing, and I’ll be performing them with some great people. I even get two short duets with PM, a friend from grad school who I’ve had the joy of working with on several gigs now. Small ensemble singing like this is so much fun! There’s just something awesome about fine-tuning the harmonies (and discovering the harmonics) with four voices, working to blend the parts together in a way that you can’t quite when you’re dealing with a full choir or chorus.

My first real exposure to Brahms was at UGA, when we sang the Neue Liebeslieder (the “sequel,” so to speak) in concert choir. I’m still friends with one of my choir mates (I think he was singing bass then?), and we’ve talked about how much fun that concert was. We had a great conductor, and it just became one of those evenings you love to remember. I think it might have been her last concert with us, and we all sang with love in our hearts, both for her and for the music. Even after I saw the Mark Morris Company dance to these songs at Tanglewood, my strongest association is still that concert in UGA’s Hugh Hodgsen Concert Hall. I can probably even tell you where exactly I stood on stage…

(This was probably also around the time I heard Nadia Salerno-Sonnenberg perform the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 3 in d minor, which blew my mind. I remember thinking, “He could not have been happy when he wrote that.” I know now that you don’t have to be sad to write sad music, but that stormy third Sonata will always be musical heartbreak to me. Of course, I had just broken up with a boyfriend when I first heard it, so my own heartbreak probably colored it a bit…)

Anyway… Information on this performance will be forthcoming. It’s the inaugural concert of a new festival, and I want to wait until they issue their first press release before I start blabbing about it here (but keep your browsers pointed to this page for future information!). I will say that it’s going to be in NYC in early November (1&2), so if you’re here and you love Brahms, mark your calendar!

There is other music on the concert, too, but I’ll wait to talk about that until the press release. Some new material for me, some favorites, just as a good program should be. More things for the stack “on the piano…” I’m overdue for one of those posts, aren’t I? Stay tuned…