Press Release
For Immediate Release:
December 1, 2005
NEC Voice Faculty Delores Ziegler, Soprano Linda Mabbs, Pianist John Greer Present Evening of Songs and Duets, December 15 in NEC’s Jordan Hall
Friends and colleagues since they all taught together at the University of Maryland, mezzo soprano Delores Ziegler of the New England Conservatory voice faculty and John Greer, pianist and Director and Chair of Opera Studies at NEC, will get together with soprano Linda Mabbs for an evening of songs and duets, December 15 at 8 p.m. The concert in NEC’s Jordan Hall is free and open to the public.
Ziegler and Mabbs, who perform together frequently in programs they style “Bosom Buddies,” will sing a wide-ranging selection of music “from bel canto to Broadway.” The NEC concert follows upon a performance last week at the trio’s old stomping ground, the U of M.
Ziegler, an acclaimed interpreter of bel canto mezzo roles has sung in the world’s greatest opera houses, performing the Composer, Idamante, Dorabella and Octavian at the Vienna Staatsoper, those roles plus Romeo in I Capuleti e I Montecchi and Meg Page at La Scala; and Sextus in La Clemenza di Tito at the Salzburg Festival. She is the most recorded Dorabella in history having sung that role on audio discs conducted by Bernard Haitink and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, on videodisc with Riccardo Muti and in a film directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.
Mabbs, Professor of Voice at the U of M, is internationally recognized for her interpretations of Mahler and Strauss. She has sung the Marschallin with the New York City Opera and her 1997 world premiere recording of Dominick Argento’s monodrama, Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night, on Koch International was called “the most brilliant opera recording of the year” by the Washington Post. The soprano has sung with world’s leading orchestras, collaborating with conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Sir Neville Marriner, Neeme Jarvi, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sir Georg Solti, David Robertson, Roberts Shaw and Leonard Slatkin. Composer Robert Hanson wrote his Songs of America for her and Sir Peter Pears asked her to give the American premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Cabaret Songs, two of which she will sing on the December 15 concert.
John Greer joined the NEC faculty in 2004 where he heads up the Opera Studies department, conducts many of NEC’s fully staged opera productions and teaches collaborative piano. Formerly head of opera studies at the Eastman School, he has spent the last five summers as general manager and head of music staff for the Janiec Opera Company at the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina. There, he has conducted numerous works, including the world premiere of David Liptak's chamber opera The Moon Singer. Greer's original compositions include ten song cycles, as well as several works based on Canadian folk songs. His children's opera, The Snow Queen, after Hans Christian Anderson, was written for the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus and has already had its American premiere. The opera was recently orchestrated by Greer, and revived in Toronto before a European tour including performances in Cologne and Amsterdam. Recent work includes his second opera, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's fairy tale The Star-Child, with librettist Ned Dickens.
Last season, Greer’s arrangement of songs by Noël Coward for vocal octet and “palm court” trio was one of the hits of the NEC concert season. This year, his arrangements of Kurt Weill songs, There Once Was a Girl Named Jenny, will be performed in NEC’s Jordan Hall, January 30 and 31.
The program for the Ziegler, Mabbs, Greer concert follows:
Three duets by Henry Purcell:
We the Spirits of the Air from The Indian Queen
Two Daughters of this Aged Stream from King Arthur
Sound the Trumpet from Orpheus Britannicus
Two songs by Mozart:
An Chloe and Als Luisa die Briefe ihres Liebehabers verbrannte
Four duets:
Johannes Brahms: Die Schwestern
Gabriel Fauré: Puisqu’ici-bas Toute Âme
Camille Saint-Saëns: El Desdichado
Gioacchino Rossini: La Regata Veneziana (Soirées Musicales)
Show tunes:
Benjamin Britten: Mother Comfort and Johnny from Cabaret Songs
Kurt Weill: The Saga of Jenny from Lady in the Dark
David Shire: It's Never that Easy/I've Been There Before from Closer than Ever
Leonard Bernstein: A Boy Like That/I Have a Love from West Side Story and We are Women from Candide
For more information, call the NEC Concert Line at (617) 585-1122 or visit NEC on the web at www.newenglandconservatory.edu/concerts
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.