Monday concert features collaboration of faculty soloist

Pianist Amanda Hopson, tenor Kerry Jennings and mezzo soprano Caroline Smith, all members of the DePauw University School of Music faculty, will join forces for an evening of American music Monday, Sept. 30.

Their performance, the next in the Faculty Select Series, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Thompson Recital Hall at the Green Center for the Performing Arts, located on the DePauw University campus.

Professor Smith said the evening started out as a simple program of music by American composers. As the recital took shape, however, it developed into metaphors on night themes, love lost and the emotions that accompany those experiences.

"'December Songs' takes its origin from the inspiration of Schubert's 'Die Winterreise,'" Smith added, "but places it in a contemporary setting in Central Park instead of Austria. It is written in English, rather than German, and with the central voice being that of a woman instead of a man. For anyone who has experienced a lost love, this cycle will really touch them."

Jennings will sing two song groups, by Laitman and by Cipullo, which he recently recorded on a CD in collaboration with Amanda Hopson.

"Amanda and I were drawn to them because the composers' writing evokes such strong emotional responses," Jennings noted, "due to the ability to set English texts in an intelligible way, while also providing beautiful and singable melodies."

The new CD, "In My Memory: American Songs and Song Cycles," features the debut recording of Laitman's song "On A Photograph ...," which will be performed Monday.

The program also includes Samuel Barber's "Nocturne" (homage to John Field) for solo piano, to be performed by Professor Hopson. Field is credited with creating the piano nocturne, a musical form that was later made more relevant by Polish composer Frederic Chopin.

General admission tickets to Faculty Select Series concerts are $5. Admission for all students, children and seniors over 65 is free.

To purchase tickets, visit www.depauw.edu /music/tickets; drop by the Green Center box office Sunday and Monday between noon and 4 p.m. or call 658-4827.