by Mike Telin

“I just love doing recitals. I love the opportunity to share stories, and you really get to be a story teller when you do a recital,” American soprano Christine Brewer told us by telephone from Minneapolis, where she was performing the role of Sister Aloysius in the world premiere of Douglas Cuomo’s opera Doubt at the Minnesota Opera. “I do a lot of recitals and I’m always trying to find something that is interesting to me and I hope will be moving and thought-provoking for the audience as well.” On Thursday, March 7 at 8:00 pm in Mixon Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Christine Brewer and pianist Craig Terry will perform songs based on the theme of being away from home.

“We’re really excited about doing this program. I know Craig from Lyric Opera of Chicago. We’ve done several recitals together and about a year ago he suggested the idea. The recital begins with Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915, to set the tone about the comfort one gets from being at home and being surrounded by people who are loving and protective. Brewer, who hails from Grand Tower, Illinois, a Mississippi River town, says “I grew up in a setting kind of like that. We really did gather at my grandparents’ house and lay on quilts in the yard and heard our parents chatting on the porch. You never really knew what they were talking about, but there was a comfort about the whole setting.” [Read more…]