Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen Announces Recital Plan

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (photograph by Jiyang Chen, courtesy of San Francisco Opera)

Next month the 39th season of the Schwabacher Recital Series will continue with a performance by countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen. He will be accompanied at the piano by San Francisco Opera Center and Merola Opera Program Artistic Director Carrie-Ann Matheson. Recognizing the limited repertoire of music composed for the high countertenor vocal range, Cohen released the following statement:

We will be presenting a wide-ranging program that showcases many of the styles and eras of music that I most enjoy singing. Though on the opera stage, my voice type means that I’m limited to Baroque and contemporary works, what I love about singing recitals is that they allow me to sing a broader variety of works that showcase an even wider range of my artistic passions.

At the risk of picking a nit, I would say that what Cohen means by “contemporary” amounts to music composed during the twentieth century! This includes two selections that draw upon the Jewish liturgy, Max Janowski’s setting of the prayer “Avinu Malkeinu” and Maurice Ravel’s setting of the “Kaddish” prayer for the dead. On the more upbeat side, he will conclude his program with major hit tunes from the last century, Erroll Garner’s “Misty” and Cole Porter’s “I Get a Kick Out of You.” The other twentieth-century composers included on the program will be Roger Quilter (his 1905 Three Shakespeare Songs), Leslie Adams (the setting of Langston Hughes’ “Prayer,” which begins the Nightsongs cycle), and Florence Price (“Night” and “Sunset”).

There will also be two selections from opposite ends of the nineteenth century. The early side will be represented by four of the songs from Clara Schumann’s Opus 13 collection. At the “other end” will be three songs by Henri Duparc, “Chanson triste” (1868), “L’invitation au voyage” (1870), and “Phidylé” (completed in 1882). The selections specifically composed for Cohen’s vocal range will be two arias from George Frideric Handel’s HWV 53 oratorio Saul.

This performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 12. Like the preceding Schwabacher recitals, this program will take place in the Taube Atrium Theater, which is part of the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera, located in the Veterans Building (on the fourth floor) at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. General admission will be $30. Tickets may be purchased in advance online through an event page on the San Francisco Opera Web site. Note that it is possible to select the option of Wheelchair Accessible seats using the “Select Zone” pulldown menu. In addition, subject to availability, student rush tickets will go on sale at 7 p.m. at the reduced rate of $15. There is a limit of two tickets per person, and valid identification must be shown.