Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Soprano Jill Morgan Brenner Prepares a Program of Music Related to Ancestry

At the end of this month, Seventh Avenue Performances, a recital series associated with the Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church, will present a vocal recital by soprano Jill Morgan Brenner. Brenner has a reputation for taking imaginative approaches to repertoire, and the title of her program is The Desire for Heritage: An Evening of German & Irish Lore. She has prepared a series of selections, each of which serves to identify the character of one of these two nationalities.

The German side of the program will involve a selection of the art songs of Richard Strauss, specific details of which have not yet been announced. However, she will also sing “Einsam in trüben Tagen” (alone in dark days) from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin, usually known as “Elsa’s Dream,” an opera with its origins in the medieval German narratives of Wolfram von Eschenbach. On the Irish side Brenner will sing Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs cycle, based on anonymous poems written by Irish monks and scholars between the eighth and thirteenth centuries (translated into modern English). She will also sing John Corigliano’s arrangements of three Irish folk songs. Brenner’s accompanist will be pianist Paul Dab, and for the Corigliano selection they will be joined by flutist Victoria Hauk.

This recital will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, October 29. The Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church is located at 1329 Seventh Avenue, about half a block south of the stop for the Muni N trolley line. General admission will be $15 with a $10 rate for students and seniors and $5 for children aged twelve and under. Tickets are available in advance online through a Brown Paper Tickets event page.

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