20th Century Music
for Strings & Women’s Voices
CONCERT was POSTPONED
Join us this Sunday Feb 19 at 1:00PM
Our next concert, “20th Century Music for Strings and Women’s Voices” was postponed due to the winter storm Sunday. Join us next Sunday, February 19, 2017. Note: we begin at 1:00pm,not 2:00. It will still be at The School | Jack Shainman Gallery.
We look forward to seeing you there.
If you have already made a reservation for the concert, we will hold your reservation as active for next Sunday unless you tell us otherwise.
Thank you.
NEW DATE: February 19, 2017 (Sunday)
New time: 1:00PM
Twentieth Century at the School, 1:00 p.m. Donation $20
Twentieth Century at the School, 2:00 p.m. Donation $20
Magically textured 20th century music for strings (BSO), women’s voices (BSC), and soloists. The School | Jack Shainman Gallery.
- R. Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
- Benjamin Britten: Les Illuminations, op. 18 (Amanda Boyd, soprano)
- Camille Saints-Saëns: La Nuit, op. 114 (soprano Caroline Dunigan; Elizabeth Chinery, flute)
- Francis Poulenc: Litanies à la Vierge Noire, FP 82 (2nd version)
- Arthur Foote: Suite for String Orchestra, op. 63
Reserve Seats (payment at the door)
At 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 12, Concerts in the Village offers its twentieth program: 20th Century Music for Strings and Women’s Voices. Works by Vaughan Williams, Britten, Saint-Saëns, Poulenc and Foote will feature the women of the Broad Street Chorale and strings of the Broad Street Orchestra, joined by sopranos Amanda Boyd and Caroline Dunigan, and flutist Elizabeth Chinery. David Smith, CITV’s Artistic Director, will conduct. This concert will be CITV’s third at The School | Jack Shainman Gallery, one of the region’s most remarkable spaces for the presentation of contemporary art.
The roster of the Broad Street Orchestra includes many of the region’s finest and most experienced string players. In programming this concert Artistic Director Smith has chosen to highlight this special strength. Vaughan Williams’ justly famous Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis opens the concert and is for many a premiere example of string sonority. Written in 1910 for a performance in England’s Gloucester Cathedral, this is a work ideally suited to the resonant acoustic of the main exhibition space of The School.
The exciting song cycle Les Illuminations of 1939 follows and is one of Benjamin Britten’s most ingenious creations. Setting poems by the elusive French writer Arthur Rimbaud, Les Illuminations is a work of incredible variety, and one full of musical challenges. The cycle is ideally suited to the well-known talents of singer Amanda Boyd, a frequent CITV guest artist. Although resident in Columbia County, Ms. Boyd is originally from England, where her teachers included the great soprano Janet Baker. According to David Smith, “Amanda and I have for quite a number of years been tempted by Les Illuminations. I am thrilled that we are at last realizing our earlier discussions.”
Following intermission, the strings of the Broad Street Orchestra are joined by the women of the Broad Street Chorale, soprano Caroline Dunigan and flutist Elizabeth Chinery, for the incredibly lush, but unjustifiably neglected La Nuit (1900) of Camille Saint-Saëns. With its many ethereal moments, and even bird-like imitations, La Nuit will prove another work ideally suited to the acoustic of The School. Caroline Dunigan is a recipient of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Encouragement Award and a graduate student of the Bard College Conservatory of Music Vocal Arts Program. She has been hailed as “a regal bearing, sparkling soprano . . .”
Francis Poulenc’s mystical Litanies à la Vierge Noire for women’s voices with organ was written in 1936, but revised in 1947, when the composer substituted strings for the organ. It is this seldom heard revision which will be performed on February 12. Poulenc’s Litanies is a mystical, chant-like creation, and another work ideally suited to The School.
With Arthur Foote’s Suite for String Orchestra, op. 63, the concert returns to America. Foote was one of a very fine group of composers known variously as the Boston Six, the Second New England School, or the New England Classicists. This suite was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1909. Its virtuoso string writing and great textural variety guarantee an exciting finish to CITV’s concert.
On the afternoon of this concert The School will be open to the public beginning at 1:oo p.m. The current exhibition is ANDRES SERRANO: Selected Works 1984-2015 and Home Room, a multimedia group exhibition featuring works by Huma Bhabha, Nick Cave, Turiya Magadlela, Enrique Martínez Celaya, Claudette Schreuders, Laurie Simmons, Michael Snow, Becky Suss and Carlos Vega. Note: This exhibition contains graphic imagery including violence, nudity and sexual content.
Amanda Boyd
Soprano Amanda Boyd trained in London at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she won the Susan Longfield prize. Additional studies were at the National Opera Studio, where she was supported by the Friends of Covent Garden. She has been coached throughout her career by Dame Janet Baker.
Ms. Boyd is frequently heard in recital and oratorio, and has assumed many operatic roles. Solo concert appearances include Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music with Sir Simon Rattle, Poulenc’s Gloria with Sir David Willcocks, and Britten folksong arrangements with the Albany Symphony Orchestra. She is well known in eastern New York as a teacher of singing, and resides in Columbia County.
Ms. Boyd first appeared with CITV in 2010 and is vocal coach to the Broad Street Chorale. www.amandaboyd.com
Amanda Boyd
Caroline Dunigan
A recipient of the 2016 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Encouragement Award and a graduate student of the Bard College Conservatory of Music Vocal Arts Program, American soprano Caroline Dunigan has been hailed as “a regal bearing, sparkling soprano, with a sure sense of the Baroque style” (Opera News). In the 2016-2017season, Ms.Dunigan appeared as Helena alongside countertenor David Daniels in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Brevard Music Center, and as Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with the Bard College Conservatory of Music at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Ms.Dunigan made her concert debut with the Albany Symphony Orchestra in “Star Wars: The Opera”, conducted by David Alan Miller, The Orchestra Now in Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Leon Botstein, and the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra in Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, conducted by James Bagwell.
Additional performance highlights include Eurinda in La Doricleawith the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater, First Lady in Die Zauberflöte, Giannetta in L’elisir d’amore,the Dew Fairy in Hänsel und Gretel, and Dolly in The Threepenny Opera, with the Brevard Music Center. Ms.Dunigan has participated in masterclasses led by Barbara Bonney at the American Institute for Musical Studies and Phyllis Curtin at the Tanglewood Institute.
Ms.Dunigan holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, and following the conclusion of her studies at Bard in May, she will be performing the role of Kate in the New York City premiere of Griffin Candey’s opera Sweets by Kate.
Caroline Dunigan
