NEWS

WIRES

OTHER

The Lark Ascending Presents Schubert Mal Vier On April 5 And 21

Schubert Mal Vier (Schubert Times Four)

On April 5, at 8 p.m. and again on April 21, at 6 p.m., The Lark Ascending will present Schubert Mal Vier, a program of well-known lieder by Franz Schubert specially arranged for vocal quartet. The venues will be: the Austrian Cultural Forum located on 11 East 52nd Street, and the German Consulate located on 871 United Nations Plaza.

Encouraged by the fact that Schubert's lieder have been sung individually by different voices, Nancy Bogen, artistic director of The Lark Ascending, decided to have them arranged for a soprano-alto-tenor-bass quartet. "I'm sure Schubert would've approved," Dr. Bogen said. Dr. Bogen got the idea after realizing that the strings of Schubert's "Trout" quintet and "Death and the Maiden" quartet, both composed a few years after each lied, represent four different voices.

Dr. Bogen founded The Lark Ascending in 1997, intending to give small, appreciative audiences a taste of the "best that was thought and said in the past." This meant poetry and drama, and also, by extension, music and art. Performances are usually accompanied by appropriate visuals of Dr. Bogen's creation; the handout programs, sometimes considered collectibles, are written and designed by her.

Past programs include readings of Books I and II of John Milton's Paradise Lost and all of Samson Agonistes, a healthy selection of Wordsworth's great poems, Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed," Façade, and "Canto IV" of Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Musical selections range from Bach to Schönberg, and usually include a taste of a work by a talented but little known contemporary American composer like Richard Brooks.

Of special mention are the past premieres of two works, both written and illustrated by Dr. Bogen: Coeur de Lion, Mon Coeur, about the love-relationship between Richard Lionheart and trouvère Blondel de Nesle, and Twelve-Tone Blues, about an old Austrian-Jewish serial composer and his Iowa-born wife.

Forthcoming soon is a workshop of her full-length play Lost Morning Eyes, about two mature women who were lovers in their twenties and find one another again.

For more information on Lark Ascending programs, visit http://www.thelarkascending.org. See especially the Gallery for Dr. Bogen's slide choreographies of music by Elodie Lauten, Nicolas Flagello, and Dinu Ghetso and poetry by Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane, as well as her Coeur de Lion, Mon Coeur.

For Schubert Mal Vier, Dr. Bogen engaged virtuoso-specialist Richard Duncan to arrange the music and train and accompany her hand-picked quartet: Shirley Perkins, soprano; Donna Slawsky, mezzo-soprano; Alex Guerrero, tenor; and Peter Ludwig, bass-baritone.

Both performances are free.

To reserve a seat, call the Austrian Cultural Forum at (212) 319-5300, ext. 222, or Mrs. Rennebarth at the German Consulate at (212) 610-9721.

     
   artistic director
   Lark Ascending
   New York,    NY,    10014
   USA
   212-741-2417 (phone)
   nancyrbogen@cs.com
   www.thelarkascending.org