Posted April 26, 2013

Posted April 26, 2013 

From Maxine Bernstein of Lieder Alive! :

Dear Lieder Lovers,
 
On April 27, LIEDER ALIVE! and the Goethe Institut are joining forces to celebrate Richard Wagner’s bicentennial birthday with “A Wagnerian Liederabend,” and we do hope you’ll join us. 
 
Tickets are available to purchase on-line. http://liederalive.eventbrite.com/#
 
This special all-Wagner program, the second of four concerts in our 2013 Liederabend Series, will open with a talk by internationally renowned author and scholar Professor Dr. Michael von Brück on the topic of “Wagner and Buddhism.”  Prof. von Brück is head of the Interfaculty Program of Religious Studies at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich; his talk will explore Wagner’s first encounter with Buddhism (through the writings of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer), and the composer’s eventual “renunciation of desire” for a wealthy merchant’s wife – the beguiling young poet Mathilde Wesendonck – that fueled the composition of his transcendent opera, Tristan und Isolde.
 
After Prof. von Brück speaks, pianist George Fee will play the rarely-performed Piano Sonata in A flat major, which Wagner wrote especially for Frau Wesendonck.  Dr. Fee has performed numerous solo recitals throughout the country, as well as appearing as chamber musician, soloist with orchestra, and accompanist. 
 
The program will culminate in a performance of the Wesendonck-Lieder – a group of songs set to Frau Wesendonck’s poetry, which Wagner wrote originally as a private sketch for Tristan und Isolde; our lovely mezzo-soprano Kindra Scharich will perform the five songs in the cycle in their entirety.  Kindra is, of course, well known to LIEDER ALIVE!’s audiences, and widely praised for her warm, radiant singing in recital, and earlier this year she gave concerts and master classes with the Yehudi Menuhin Chamber Music Festival as part of the Morris Chamber Music Center in San Francisco.  She is also very much at home on the operatic stage, with recent engagements as Countess Lydia Ivanovna in Opera San Jose’s West Coast premiere of David Carlson’s Anna Karenina, and as Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Opera San Luis Obispo.  Her collaborator, pianist Bryan Baker is Artistic Director of Masterworks Chorale, Director of Music at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, and Assistant Conductor of the San Francisco Choral Society. 
 
This exciting and unusual program will take place at The Music Salon at Salle Pianos -an intimate and convivial performance space perfectly suited to the tradition of Liederabend – and will be followed by a reception with the artists.  The doors open at 7:00 pm, and the event starts at 7:30.  You won’t want to miss what will be an extraordinary evening of music and ideas!