Song and Verse: Diva! Romance, Peril, Dream, and the Feminine Eternal

Inaugurated in the fall of 2020, the Song and Verse recital series provides a platform for undergraduate singers at NEC to experience the unique and invigorating process of song preparation and performance—creating interpretations, building performance skills, and forging intellectual and musical connections with a wide literature.

Working closely with Vocal Arts faculty members, students will engage with rich traditions of song composition from around the globe.

Committed to diversity, our programs will feature both established and emerging composers and poets from across many cultures and traditions. This series creates new opportunities for students to participate with the singular type of storytelling unique to song. 

J. J. Penna coached and serves as accompanist for tonight's program.

This concert which explores song as a vehicle for dramatic expression: Words and music as theater. Ophelia. Gretchen. Mignon. Bilitis. Titania. Sappho. Each work presents the familiar trope of the woman in peril, a mind in crisis, set in dialogue with critical voices from the modern theater. Both the musical scenes and the spoken commentary bear witness to survival in the midst of calamity, women refocusing their gaze on the world in the face of personal upheaval and producing urgent, meaningful messages of hope and endurance. 

Music by Vincenzo Bellini, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss, Alison Bauld, Sara Corry, Claude Debussy, Franz Schubert, Hector Berlioz, and Francis Poulenc

Readings by Viola Davis, Tennessee Williams, Hilton Als, Sarah Bernhardt, Maria Callas, Marina Abramovic, Stella Adler, Patti Smith, and John Cassavetes.