by Mike Telin
Composer John Harbison has done it all. His numerous awards include a MacArthur Fellowship and a Pulitzer Prize. He has written works for many of America’s leading musical organizations and has served as composer in residence with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His catalogue includes three operas, seven symphonies, twelve concerti, a ballet, six string quartets, numerous chamber works, and a large body of sacred music. On her latest CD, Late Air — Music by John Harbison, soprano and Oberlin voice professor Kendra Colton reminds us that the celebrated composer has a special talent for writing art songs — she also proves herself to be a sensitive interpreter of them. [Read more…]
Start with the second track of this excellent survey of George Frideric Handel’s expertise in writing for the soprano voice and its realization through the supple vocal chords of Amanda Forsythe. “Geloso tormento,” from Almira, the 19-year-old composer’s first opera, shows how ravishingly Handel and Forsythe can depict both rage and lament in the course of a single aria. (The soprano stunned audiences with such vocal prowess in the role of Edilia in the same opera during the 2013 Boston Early Music Festival.)
This past Saturday evening the Youngstown Symphony presented the season’s last classical music program with a twentieth-century musical emphasis. Soprano Kendra Colton served as guest artist for the evening in a performance of Samuel Barber’s poignant Knoxville: Summer of 1915.