Mezzo-Soprano Erin Wagner to Perform World Premiere By Errolyn Wallen at Weill Recital Hall

The Walter W. Naumburg will present ERIN WAGNER, mezzo-soprano, the winner of the 2021 Naumburg Vocal Award, on Monday, November 20 at 7:30pm in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.  Ms. Wagner will be collaborating with pianist Shawn Chang in a program that features a Naumburg commission and world premiere by Errollyn Wallen, “Joy”, a group of five songs – Magritte Man, Yellow Blues, Viv, Still and Joy.  The program also includes excerpts from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, two pieces by Stefana Turkewich – Silver Song I and My Heart, Adam Cast Forth a world premiere by Shawn Chang, and excerpts from Messiaen's Harawi Chant d'Amour et de Mort.

 

As the winner of the 2021 Naumburg Vocal Competition held in May 2021, Ms. Wagner received a $25,000 cash award and two New York City recitals, as well as a commissioned work to be written by Earrollyn Wallen. Her first concert as winner of the Naumburg Vocal Award took place on April 19, 2021.

  

Program

 

Errollyn Wallen (b.1958)                               JOY (2023) World premiere; Naumburg commission

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     l. Magritte Man

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     ll. Yellow Blues

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     lll. Viv

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    lV. Still

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    V. Joy

 

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)                         Des Knaben Wunderhorn (excerpts)      

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Das irdische Leben

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Rheinlegendchen

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Wo die schönen Trompeten Blasen

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Urlicht

 

Stefana Turkewich (1898-1977)                  Silver Song l

 

Stefana Turkewich (1898-1977)                  My Heart

 

Shawn Chang (b. 1985)                                  Adam Cast Forth (2023) World premiere

 

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)                     Harawi Chant d'Amour et de Mort (excerpts)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          La ville qui dormait, toi

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Bonjour toi, colombe verte

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Katchikatchi les étoiles

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Amour oiseau d'étoile

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        L'escalier redit, gestes du soleil

About the Artists

 

Erin Wagner mezzo-soprano, is passionate about vocal music which represents modern and diverse perspectives. As the winner of the 2021 Naumburg Foundation Vocal Award she made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in a program entitled But how things change which explored both collective and individual experiences brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic through the music of Edie Hill, Fauré, Ravel, Errollyn Wallen, Shawn Chang, and Mahler.  Erin recently joined the esteemed Houston Grand Opera Studio where she made her debut as Jack in Dame Ethyl Smyth's The Wreckers and will perform in Le Nozze di Figaro (Barbarina) and Salome (Page) in addition to recital work and scenes from Pélleas et Mélisande (Mélisande) and Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor (Frau Reich). During her time at the 2022 Merola Opera Program, Erin won the Schwabacher Recital Debut Auditions alongside her collaborative partner, Shawn Chang. The duo will return to San Francisco Opera to give their recital debut in a program entitled Everything Must Change, which is a call to action as proclaimed through the music of Shawn Chang, Molly Joyce, Schubert, Caplet, Mahler, Radiohead, and Bernard Ighner. Erin returned  to Aspen Music Festival as a Renée Fleming Artist in 2023 to portray the role of Idamante inIdomeneo with Robert Spano and to perform the orchestrated songs of Schubert under the baton of Nicholas McGegan.

Erin is passionate about making our art form and the spaces in which we share our art accessible to all. She commissioned Shawn Chang to compose Marty's Letter utilizing text from her father's childhood depicting his life with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (a very rare and debilitating bone disorder) and partnered with David Clay Mettens to create The Sustaining Air, a song cycle set to text by Larry Eigner, a poet of the Beat Generation who lived with cerebral palsy and whose output was largely impacted by his physical point of view from his wheelchair.

Erin received her master's degree from The Juilliard School where she won the Juilliard Vocal Arts Honors Recital with Shawn Chang in a program entitled Life in Color featuring the music of Shawn Chang and Peter Lieberson, she performed with Brian Zeger in Juilliard Songfest twice as a recitalist sharing the music of Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Gustav Mahler, and she was a Gluck Community Service Fellow with a focus on sharing music by women and bringing joy and connection to those who needed it most. Erin's bachelor's degree is from Manhattan School of Music where she performed in Warren Jones' Seminar and in Albert Herring (Mrs. Herring). In 2022 she attended Merola Opera Program where she reprised Zweite Dame in Die Zauberflöte and performed in scenes from Ariadne auf Naxos (Der Komponist), Carmen (Mercédès), and Ainadamar (Niña A). While at Aspen Music Festival and School as Renée Fleming Artist in 2021 she took on the roles of Zweite Dame and Knabe in Die Zauberflöte and Unulfo in Rodelinda as well as scenes from Cosí Fan Tutte (Dorabella), La clemenza di Tito (Annio), and Semele (Ino). Erin previously studied at Renée Fleming's SongStudio at Carnegie Hall (2021), The Chautauqua Institution (2019), SongFest as a Colburn Fellow (2018), and Matthew Rose's Scuola di Bel Canto (2018). She currently studies with Dr. Stephen King and has previously studied with Darrell Babidge and Joan Patenaude-Yarnell.

 

Shawn Chang, lauded for his performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 that “...emphasized the melodic, lyrical aspect of the work... It was a beautiful performance...” (The Riverdale Press), Taiwanese American pianist and composer Shawn Chang has created an international career of distinction. His compositions are marked by their emotive harmonic shifts and rhythmic drive which evoke both the urban and country landscapes of his home state of New York.  As a solo pianist, Chang has given recitals in high profile venues throughout the US, Canada, and Taipei, Taiwan, including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Kaufmann Hall of 92nd Y, Merkin Concert Hall, the United Palace Theatre, Aspen's Benedict Music Tent, the Nicholas Roerich Museum, Bohemian National Hall, June Havoc Theatre, and the Taipei National Music Hall. He was recently one of the pianists at the San Francisco Opera's Merola Program of 2022, where he, along with his duo partner Erin Wagner, won the Schwabacher Debut Recital Audition. He was one of the 2020 Schwab Rising Stars of the Caramoor Music Festival. Chang appeared with pianist Steve Blier in a concert of Argentinian music presented by the New York Festival of Song at the Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Center. In October 2019, he was the soloist with The Orchestra of The Bronx in a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”, and in 2018 was featured with the orchestra as soloist in J.S. Bach's Keyboard Concerto. Chang was the music director and arranger for Aya Aziz's show Eh Dah? Questions for my father (2016), which was a New York Musical Festival award winner. As a répétiteur, Chang has worked with opera companies such as The Bronx Opera, the Garden State Opera, and OperaRox.

Also a composer, Chang's compositions have been premiered by the Chromatic Voice Exchange, and Schola Sine Nomine. His most recent song cycle, Portraits of Unrelated Colors - six songs that use the seven colors of the spectrum and American landscapes as symbols for various emotional journeys - was featured on NYFOS (New York Festival of Song) curated by director Steve Blier and Baritone Gregory Feldmann. One of the songs from the cycle won the commission prize of the 2022 Sparks & Wiry Cries SongSlam, which led to a commission for their 2023 festival.

Chang holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore where he studied with Benjamin Pasternack, and a Master of Music degree in collaborative piano at The Juilliard School with Lydia Brown. He is currently pursuing a Doctoral of Music Arts degree at Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Kenneth Merrill.

 

Errollyn Wallen is a multi-winning Belize-born British composer and performer.  Her prolific output includes twenty-two operas and a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber and vocal works which are performed and broadcast throughout the world.  She was the first black woman to have a work featured in the Proms and the first woman to receive an Ivor Novello award for Classical Music. Errollyn composed for the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games 2012, for the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilees, a specially commissioned song for the climate change conference, COP 26, 2021, and a re-imagining of Jerusalem for BBC's Last Night of the Proms 2020.  She is one of the top 20 most performed living composers of classical music in the world.

BBC Radio 3 featured her music in 2022 for its flagship program, Composer of the Week and she has made several radio documentaries including Classical Commonwealth, nominated for the Prix Europa. Her carol, Peace on Earth was part of the Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast from King's College Cambridge at Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2022.

Errollyn founded her own group, Ensemble X whose motto is “we don't break down barriers in music…we don't see any.”  Their orchestral album, PHOTOGRAPHY on the NMC label was voted a Top Ten Classical Album by USA's National Public Radio.  Orchestra X performed Errollyn's composition Mighty River, which was featured in PRAF's New Music Biennial 2017 and which was performed at this year's PRSF Biennial by National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain Inspire at Coventry Cathedral and the Southbank, London.

Errollyn Wallen collaborated with artist Sonia Boyce on her installation, Feeling Her Way, for the British Pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale which won the Golden Lion prize for Best National Participation. 

Her critically acclaimed opera, Dido's Ghost premiered at the Barbican London, in June 2021 and received its US premiere in November 2023 in San Francisco by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale.  Other works for 2023 include: a violin concerto, Dances for Orchestra for Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and a song cycle JOY, for Erin Wagner, winner of the 2021 Naumburg Vocal Award. Last month, Errollyn gave her Wigmore Hall debut performing the songs from The Errollyn Wallen Songbook.  Errollyn's book Becoming a Composer will be published by Faber this year.   She was awarded an MBE in 2007 in the Queen's Birthday Honours and CBE in 2020 in the New Year Honours for services to music. Errollyn Wallen lives and composes in a Scottish lighthouse.

 

 

The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation was founded in 1926 by Walter W.  Naumburg and continues today in the pursuit of ideals set out by Mr. Naumburg.  His desire to assist gifted young musicians in America has made possible a long-standing program of competitions and awards in solo and chamber music performance, composer recordings, and conducting.  It was Mr. Naumburg's firm belief that such competitions were not only for the benefit of new stars but would also be for those talented young musicians who would become prime movers in the development of the highest standards of musical excellence throughout America.  Among past winners of the Naumburg Vocal competitions include Julia Bullock (2014), Faith Esham (1980), Irene Gubrud (1980), Jan Opalach (1980), Steven Salters (1999), Lucy Shelton (1980), and Dawn Upshaw (1985).www.naumburg.org