Winterreise Concert – William S. Newman Artists Series

Franz Schubert’s Winterreise in concert, live-streamed from Moeser Auditorium. Visual artist Andrew Myers will be drawing an original work live as Callahan and Sekino perform the famous song cycle.

FEATURING

Marc Callahan, bass-baritone

Keiko Sekino, piano

and Andrew Myers, visual artist

PROGRAM

Gute Nacht

Die Wetterfahne

Gefrorne Tränen

Erstarrung

Der Lindenbaum

Wasserflut

Frühlingstraum

Die Post

Die Krähe

Der stürmische Morgen

Das Wirtshaus

Die Nebensonnen

Der Leiermann

An unnamed, unknown man resolves to leave his former sweetheart’s town. She or her parents or all three have rejected him for a wealthier man, and the rejection impels an inner journey into the soul (“Gute Nacht”). As he leaves by night, he bids her a tender, wistful farewell that she does not hear.

In “Die Wetterfahne,” he compares her heart to a weather vane spinning in the wind, wonders why his tears freeze on his face despite the heat of his grief (“Gefrorne Tränen”), and fears losing all memory of her should his frozen heart ever thaw (“Erstarrung”). He recalls the linden tree where they used to meet, a tree whose leaves now whisper of death (“Der Lindenbaum”). He fancies that his tears will flow to the beloved’s house (“Wasserflut”), carves the birth-and-death dates of their love in the frozen river’s crust (“Auf dem Flusse”), and feels as if he is hounded out of her town by the crows on the rooftops (“Rückblick”).

He follows a will-o’-the-wisp without caring how he will find a way out (“Irrlicht”). Soul-sick weariness (“Rast”) and the shattering disillusionment of awaking from dreams to cold reality (“Frühlingstraum”) are the next traumas along the way, leading to an utter sense of loneliness (“Einsamkeit”).

The post coach enlivens the cycle at mid-point (“Die Post”), as the wanderer wonders why his heart leaps when there is no prospect of a letter, of any communication from another human being. He broods increasingly on death and alienation from other human beings, with one outburst of stormy despair and a dance of delusion as he follows another will-o’-the-wisp (“Der greise Kopf,” “Die Krähe,” “Letzte Hoffnung,” “Im Dorfe,” “Der stürmische Morgen,” and “Täuschung”).

In the crucial 20th song (“Der Wegweiser”), he sees in his mind the “road I must tread, by which no one has yet returned,” but Death turns him away from the cemetery there-after (“Das Wirtshaus”). Longing for death but unable to kill himself, he keeps going somehow, with delusory courage (“Mut”) and resigned sadness (“Die Nebensonnen”). At the end (“Der Leiermann”), he encounters a beggar-musician (a hallucination? his double?), beyond the bounds of society, unheard, grinding away at his music regardless, and asks if he might go with him. There is no answer.

—Copyright © 2015 by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Andrew Myers is a visual artist who explores the concepts of conservation and preservation of wild places and creatures in work that is drawing-based with elements of installation, printmaking and sculpture. He received his undergraduate art degree from Eastern Oregon University and an MFA in drawing and painting from Portland State University. Myers is a founding member of Gray Space, a group of Oregon artists based in the Corvallis, Eugene and Roseburg areas who came together in 2016 to claim agency and circumvent institutional structures. Myers exhibitions include Duplex Gallery in Portland, OR, Soil Gallery in Seattle, WA, Rodgers Gallery at Willamette University and Fairbanks Gallery at Oregon State University. Recent awards include Ford Family Foundation funded artist residencies at Caldera and Playa, Summer Lake and a Career Opportunity Grant from the Oregon Arts Commission and the Ford Family Foundation to travel, create work in residence and install an exhibition in the Slovak Republic. He was selected as an inaugural resident at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation Artist Residency Program in Virginia and was awarded a funded residency at Pine Meadow Ranch in Sisters Oregon in summer 2019.

Myers is also part of the viewing program at the Drawing Center in New York.

He currently teaches at Oregon State University.

Marc Callahan holds degrees from Oberlin College, CCM, the École Normale de Musique de Paris and the Schola Cantorum. His performance career has taken him around the world, singing at opera houses such as: The Royal Opera House, Santa Fe Opera, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Théâtre du Capitole, Opéra National de Lyon, Opéra de Montpellier, Opéra Comique, Théâtre Royale de Versailles, Opéra de Marseille, and others. Opera magazine has reviewed him as “a powerful baritone, providing wickedly glamorous tone.”

As a director and designer, Marc Callahan has received critical acclaim for his production of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes, saying it was “designed and directed with jaw-dropping invention” and was awarded first prize for his production of Kurt Weill’s Der Jasager from the National Opera Association and was a national winner Honorable Mention for the Charles C. Reilly Director’s Prize. He has worked on productions at the Royal Opera House, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Holland Festival, Scottish Opera, Miami Music Festival, the New World Center, Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Théâtre du Capitole. Recent productions include: The Marriage of Figaro, Cendrillon, and The Blue Forest, Help, Help, the Globolinks!, Der Jasager, Lohengrin, Alcina, ATLAS, Die Walküre, Il sogno di Scipione, and L’incoronazione di Poppea (“…devising a brilliant production of remarkable dramatic intimacy.”).

He is currently on the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill as an Assistant Professor of Music.

Keiko Sekino: D.M.A., Peabody Conservatory of the John Hopkins University; M.M., Yale School of Music; B.A., Yale University. Solo recital and chamber music appearances throughout United States, Japan, and Europe, at venues including Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, Bennett-Gordon Hall at Ravinia Park, and Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria. Participation in festivals including Ravinia’s Steans Institute, Yellow Barn, and Norfolk in the U.S. and Kuhmo, Santander, La Gesse, and Pontino in Europe. Recipient of Presser Music Award and La Gesse Artistic Fellowship. Participated in Thomas Quasthoff Workshop in German Lieder at Carnegie Hall. Served as a pianist for Tanglewood Festival Chorus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, working with conductors John Oliver and James Levine. Studies with Robert McDonald, Peter Frankl, and Margo Garrett. Masterclasses with Elisso Virsaladze, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank, Boris Berman, and Richard Goode.

This performance is open to all on the department’s YouTube channel. It will also be available for viewing after the live-stream.

This performance is part of the William S. Newman Artists series. While performances are virtual we are waiving the $15 general admission tickets for this series. If you would like to make a donation to the department in honor of this performance, please visit https://music.unc.edu/support/.