Opera, New York City Opera, Pittsburgh Opera and Sarasota Opera.

He has been a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Cleveland Institute of Music Art Song Festival. In Pittsburgh, he has also served as the artistic director and principal accompanist of the Member Song Soire concert series at the Carnegie Museum of Art and The Andy Warhol Museum. As a musicologist, Dr. Binder has published scholarly articles in Current Musicology and presented papers on art song at conferences of the American Musicological Society and The Phenomenon of Singing International Symposium. He is also the director and co-founder of the Vancouver International Song Institutes Interdisciplinary Song Scholarship and Performance program. Dr. Binder is Assistant Professor of Music History and Theory at Duquesne Universitys Mary Pappert School of Music. He holds a M.M. in piano performance from Washington University and a Ph.D. in musicology from Princeton University. Robin McRoberts, Education Specialist, Conservation Education Department, Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, has served the Zoo since 2001, where she teaches students ages 2 to adult. Her presentations include classroom and assembly settings, and feature a variety of birds, reptiles, and small mammals. Her goal is to foster a love of the natural world by making personal connections between her students and the animals. To this end, she has developed more than 10 teacher workshops, and facilitated hundreds of sessions over the past 10 years. She has been a presenter on several occasions for PAEYC and other professional development organizations. Ms. McRoberts graduated magna cum laude from Westminster College, where she received a bachelors degree in Elementary Education, with extensive coursework in both psychology and the general sciences. The Pittsburgh Song Collaborative is an ever-expanding consortium of outstanding professional singers and pianists who are dedicated to developing a passionate and abiding audience for classical art song in the Pittsburgh area and beyond. By partnering with artists in other media, we create innovative and engaging concert events that explore every corner of the incredibly diverse art song repertoire.

[ present ]

The Singing Serpent: Animals in Song

www.pghsong.org pghsong@gmail.com You can also find us on Facebook or call 412.396.3455 for more information.

Sunday, November 6th, 2011 8:00 pm Kresge Recital Hall Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts

The Singing Serpent: Animals in Song

Kresge Recital Hall, Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts November 6, 2011
Le paon [The Peacock], from Histoires naturelles Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) Das Mdchen spricht [The maiden speaks], op. 107, no. 3 Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Song of the Frogs, from Vedic Hymns Gustav Holst (1874-1934 The Silver Swan, from Canzonettas John Musto (b. 1954) Lenny the Leopard, from Childhood Fables for Grown-ups Irving Fine (1914-1962) The Tyger, from Songs and Proverbs of William Blake Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) Polaroli, from Childhood Fables for Grown-ups Irving Fine

Biographies
Soprano Laura Knoop Very has performed recitals, opera and oratorio all over the United States. With degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Yale School of Music she continued studies at the Tanglewood Festival, Ravinia Festival and Norfolk Festivals where she honed her recital skills. Operatic training and apprenticeships were completed at Pittsburgh Opera Center, Santa Fe Opera and Houston Grand Opera. She is a two-time winner of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant from the Shoshana Foundation. Her Operatic roles include the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, the title role of Manon, Antonia in Les Contes dHoffmann, Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito, Alma in Lee Hoibys Summer and Smoke, Pamina and First Lady in Die Zauberflte, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, and Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow. She has appeared with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Washington National Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Washington Summer Opera, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, Mobile Opera, Opera Omaha, Arizona Opera and Eugene Opera. She has recorded the world premiere of Robert Morans The Dracula Diary, and appears with Cecilia Bartoli on London/Deccas video of La Cenerentola as Clorinda. On the concert stage, she has appeared with the National Symphony, Peabody Symphony, Houston Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, Jacksonville Symphony and Milwaulkee Symphony. Ms Very has taught at Point Parks Conservatory of Theater and is currently on faculty at the Carnegie Mellon School of Music. Hailed as clearly gifted with intelligence and musicality by The New York Concert Review, Alexander Hurd has garnered consistent critical acclaim for his performances of repertoire ranging from Schubert to Ligeti. A singer who often appears in recital and in performances of contemporary music, his upcoming performances include a concert with the Pittsburgh Song Collaborative, the premiers of new works written for him by Robert Dennis and Karl Kramer with Concerts in the Heights, and Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols with the Norwalk Symphony. Recent highlights include performances of Hugo Wolfs Italianisches Liderbuch with soprano Tony Arnold and pianist David Breitman; the premier of the recently discovered Heine-Liederzyklus of Marcel Tyberg; the part of Testo in Monteverdis Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with the Buffalo Chamber Players; Aaron Jay Kernis Infinite Sky, Brilliant Sky, with the Society for New Music; the 50th Anniversary Gala of The Joy in Singing Award at Merkin Hall; a recital at the Minato Mirai Hall in Yokohama, Japan; and Coplands Old American Songs with the Neward-Granville Symphony Orchestra under maestro Timothy

Weiss. Hurds recording of songs by John Musto was released by Centaur Records in September, 2009. It features twenty-four of the composers songs, including nine world-premiere recordings. Cantos, a disc devoted to the vocal works of Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, was released by Bridge Records in June, 2010. He is winner of the 2005 Joy in Singing Award. In 2004, he received 2nd prize in the Yong Concert Artists International Auditions. A Fulbright Grantee, he studied the lied repertiore in Suttgart, Germany. He earned dual Bachelors degrees in voice performance and history from Oberlin College and his Masters and Doctoral degrees from The Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Originally from Beaver, Pennsylvania, pianist Karen Roethlisberger Verm has been working as a Vocal Coach and Collaborative Pianist in the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University since 2005. She coordinates the Chamber Music Program at Carnegie Mellon as well. This season, Ms. Verm will be collaborating with both the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as the Mendelssohn Choir. In Pittsburgh, Ms. Verm has appeared with the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Youth Symphony, and Pittsburgh Opera, in the Opera Orchestra as well as with their Education Outreach Program. She has performed with the Lyrique-en-mer Festival (Belle-Ile, France), Robert Page Festival Singers (Budapest, Hungary, and Vienna, Austria), Duquesne University, Point Park University, Aspen Music Festival, Cincinnati Operas Education Outreach Ensemble, Rocky Ridge Music Center, and Saltnote Stageworks. She has participated in the Opera Theater of Lucca (Italy), Grandin Festival, Bowdoin Music Festival, and Eastern Music Festival. Ms. Verm is a recipient of numerous awards including first prize in the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Chamber Music Competition, Vocal Arts Resource Network Artsong Competition, Tuesday Musical Club of Pittsburgh Scholarship, NY State MTNA competition, and the Pittsburgh Concert Society Auditions with her husband, baritone Craig Verm. Ms. Verm is a graduate of Syracuse University (BM, Piano Performance) and University of Cincinnatis College-Conservatory of Music (MM, Piano Performance; MM, Vocal Accompanying; and Artist Diploma, Opera Coaching). Her major teachers include Kenneth Griffiths, Donna Loewy, Sylvia Plyler, Frank Weinstock, and Fred Karpoff. Benjamin Binder, pianist and musicologist, is the artistic director of the Pittsburgh Song Collaborative. A specialist of art song, Dr. Binder has accompanied vocal recitals throughout North America, Europe and the Caribbean, working with singers from companies such as the Metropolitan

Penguin Geometry John Woods Duke (1899-1984) The Porcupine Arthur Walter Kramer (1890-1969) The Serpent Lee Hoiby (1926-2011) The Hippopotamus Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (1922-1975) (1923-1994)

Laura Knoop Very, soprano Alexander Hurd, baritone Karen Roethlisberger Verm, piano Benjamin Binder, piano Robin McRoberts, zoological educator

Special thanks to: Denis Colwell, Carnegie Mellon University, Jim Cunningham, Stephen Baum, WQED-FM, and Ryan McMasters This project has been made possible in part by the Heinz Endowments Small Arts Initiative. The Heinz Endowments supports efforts to make southwestern Pennsylvania a premier place to live and work, a center for learning and educational excellence, and a region that embraces diversity and inclusion.

Welcome to the Pittsburgh Song Collaborative! Classical art song isnt a major part of the Pittsburgh musical scene, and we at the Pittsburgh Song Collaborative think it should be. From the 18th century up until the present day, composers have been exploring the entire landscape of human emotion and experience in setting poetry to music for solo voice and piano. The tradition of art song includes songs by Schubert, Debussy and Rachmaninoff, but in so many ways, these songs are no different in kind than those of Cole Porter, Leonard Cohen or Rufus Wainwright. In fact, the art song is the only genre of classical music that even remotely resembles the format were most familiar with today: the three-minute song. Songs are what fill up our iPods and stream out of our car stereos. Theyre interwoven with the fabric of our everyday lives, and yet we love them for the way they lift us out of the ordinary. By exploring every corner of the incredibly diverse art song repertoire with you over the coming months and years, we hope to make some of our favorite songs become some of your favorites as well. Whether youre new to classical music or already a devoted aficionado, art song provides a gateway to a deeper and more personal connection to this music. If you want classical music to really get under your skin, theres no better way than to delve into art song, where music and poetry are always explaining each other, coming together in a way that adds up to so much more than the sum of their parts. Sometimes the poetry of art song is in a foreign language, as with a few of the songs youll hear this evening. This is why the world of art song is sometimes unexplored territory even for the most passionate classical music lover. What an incredible discovery awaits you! Because we want you to share our passion for these songs in all their richness and beauty, concerts of the PSC will feature interdisciplinary and interactive elements that give you a vivid and immediate sense of the poetry as it unfolds, no matter what language the poetry is in. In our debut concert on November 18th, 2010, we commissioned new work by photographer Tom Persinger that conjured up an evocative visual setting for each of the 20 songs in Robert Schumanns masterpiece, Dichterliebe. In our last

concert on May 12th of this year, we teamed up with education curators from the Carnegie Museum of Art to explore the deeper resonances between the art forms of music, poetry, and visual art. And tonight, we reach out beyond the realm of art altogether with the help of Robin McRoberts, Education Specialist of the Pittsburgh Zoo/PPG Aquarium, well discover the many different ways that animals are portrayed in song, separating animal fact from artistic fiction. By creating windows into the poetry through supertitles and collaborating with other artists and organizations, we hope to bring to life the profound synergies between the art songs poetry and music. For more information about the PSC, please visit our website at www.pghsong.org, or send us an e-mail at pghsong@gmail.com. Subscribe to our e-mail list or join us on Facebook to receive updates on PSC activities. We hope to see you at our next concert event! Sincerely, Benjamin Binder Artistic Director, Pittsburgh Song Collaborative

h e P t t s b u r g h

D i c