January at 92Y to Present INFLECTION Series

January at 92Y brings three consecutive evenings devoted to the Inflection series, January 22 - 24. Inflection, which spotlights bold collaborations across multiple disciplines, is the creation of Hanna Arie-Gaifman, who celebrates her 20th anniversary this season as Director of 92Y's Tisch Center for the Arts. The series opened in November with the Geneva Camerata's Dance of the Sun, which set the orchestra in motion as they played works by Lully and Mozart. January's events explore the sometimes porous boundary between speech and song, on a continuum ranging from heightened speech to chanting, Sprechstimme, and full-throated vocalizing.

For tickets and information visit: https://www.92y.org/

On Wednesday, January 22 (7:30 pm), baritone Roderick Williams performs a rare Brahms vocal cycle, 15 Romances on L. Tieck's Die schöne Magelone, which includes singing and narration; the narration will be accompanied by specially-created films by award-winning animator Cristina Garcia Martin. The program also includes Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte.

Thursday, January 23 (8 pm) brings performer/scholar Benjamin Bagby's riveting and widely acclaimed rendition of the epic medieval poem known as Beowulf, sung and chanted to the accompaniment of a six-stringed harp. Bagby performs the poem in the original Anglo-Saxon, with projected translations.

And on Friday, January 24 (8 pm), soprano Lucy Shelton stars in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, accompanied by an ensemble of top New York Players led by pianist Benjamin Hochman.

Also on the bill: Janáček's Diary of One Who Disappeared, sung by mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano and a tenor to be announced, accompanied by Hochman.

Tickets for all performances are available at 92Y.org.

T H E P R O G R A M S

Wednesday, January 22 (7:30 pm):

Roderick Williams, baritone; Julius Drake, piano; Cristina Garcia Martin, animation; plus an actor tba: Brahms' Die schöne Magelone

Roderick Williams has been described by The Evening Standard [UK] as "the most engaging of performers" who "has one hanging on every word." Brahms' 15 Romances on L. Tieck's Die schöne Magelone is based on the fourteenth-century French legend of Count Peter of Provence and his search for Magelone the Fair, which was adapted by nineteenth-century German author Ludwig Tieck into the prose novel that inspired this work. Each of the eighteen chapters of Tieck's version contained a romance in verse; Brahms set fifteen of them for this piece.

Brahms planned to include a connecting narrative for an 1874 edition of this work; while that never came to fruition, Williams has adapted narrative segments from Tieck's text, which will be read between songs by an actor to be announced. Accompanying the narrations will be fanciful films by award-winning animator Cristina Garcia Martin, whose works are shown worldwide. The program also includes Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, which appears on each program of 92Y's Vocal Series this inaugural season.

Thursday, January 23 (8 pm):

Benjamin Bagby: Beowulf: The Epic in Performance

Singer, harpist, and scholar Benjamin Bagby performs his enthralling rendition of the epic medieval poem Beowulf, which tells of the titular hero's battle against the monster Grendel. Speaking, chanting, and singing in the original Anglo-Saxon with projected translations, Bagby creates an entire world with only voice and six-string harp, in the ancient tradition of the great bards.

To develop his vocal delivery, Bagby has studied a variety of surviving bardic traditions, mostly non-European. His harp, built by Rainer Thurau, is based on The Remains of an instrument excavated from a nobleman's grave in south of Stuttgart, Germany. But above all, Bagby has drawn inspiration from "the language of the poem itself, which has a chilling, magical power that no modern translation can approximate."

The Washington Post called his performance of Beowulf "astounding... Bagby held his audience spellbound for 75 uninterrupted minutes... He keened, growled, sang, and emoted, all within the poem's precise metrics, constantly changing tone, pacing, and character... An accomplishment of such magnitude and this specialized is not only unique, it is uncritiquable. This has been Bagby's lifework...and those of us fortunate enough to experience it can only feel gratitude and awe at his achievement."

Friday, January 24 (8 pm):

Lucy Shelton, soprano; Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; TBA, tenor; Benjamin Hochman, piano, and others: Pierrot Lunaire + Diary of One Who Disappeared

Legendary soprano Lucy Shelton is one of the foremost exponents of Arnold Schoenberg's visionary song cycle Pierrot Lunaire, in which he refined the vocal technique known as Sprechstimme ("speech voice"). Reviewing a performance in Cleveland, the Plain Dealer wrote, "Lucy Shelton has lived with Pierrot Lunaire for more than 25 years, and the relationship has been rewarding. The renowned soprano has delved so deeply into Arnold Schoenberg's 1912 masterpiece that she grasps every subtlety in the thorny score... The spellbinding performance won cheers from audience members." Here she will be accompanied by a lustrous quintet led by pianist Benjamin Hochman, with Tara Helen O'Connor (flute), Romie de Guise-Langlois (clarinet), Jennifer Frautschi (violin), and Raman Ramakrishnan (cello).

To open the program, the sublime mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano joins a tenor and pianist Benjamin Hochman in a performance of Leos Janáček's Diary of One Who Disappeared. This deeply moving, mysterious tale of an ill-fated love was said by the composer to be a reflection of his relationship with his muse.

J A N U A R Y C O N C E R T S A T - A - G L A N C E

Wednesday, January 22 (7:30 pm):

Roderick Williams, baritone; Julius Drake, piano; Cristina Garcia Martin, animation; plus an actor tba: Brahms' Die schöne Magelone

BEETHOVEN: An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98

BRAHMS: 15 Romances on L. Tieck's Die schöne Magelone, Op. 33

Tickets from $40

Thursday, January 23 (8 pm): Benjamin Bagby: Beowulf: The Epic in Performance

Tickets from $25

Friday, January 24 (8 pm): Lucy Shelton, soprano; Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; TBA, tenor; Benjamin Hochman, piano, and others: Pierrot Lunaire + Diary of One Who Disappeared

SCHOENBERG: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21

JANACEK: Diary of One Who Disappeared

Tickets from $25