Graduate recital in Voice

Includes recorded audio files in WAV and MP3 formats, 52:82 in length.The recital material has been chosen to present varied styles and techniques. Each choice of literature was carefully selected to share this individual singer???s musical and creative interests. The recital???s underlying singer???s musical and creative interests. The recital???s underlying focuses on the diverse roles of five young women. The recital???s program is broken into two halves with five sections. The recital???s program is broken into two halves with five sections. The recital???s first half, containing two sections, provides musical and textual contrast between the Baroque interpretation of an ancient heroine, and a modern view of a 16th-century heroine. The second half of the recital, encompassing three sections, contains nationalistic folk inspired literature. The opening selections are two Cleopatra arias from George Frederic Handel???s Giulio Cesare. In the aria ???Venere bella,??? Act II, scene vii, Cleopatra prays gaily to the goddess Venus requesting an alluring disguise to capture a royal heart, Giulio Cesare. However in her aria ???Piangero la sorte mia,??? Act III, scene iii, Cleopatra???s mood drastically changes. After being captured by her brother, she grievingly mourns her entrapment, political failure, and possible death. Both arias are in da capo form, containing arioso passages, florid and sustained melodies, which enhance Cleopatra???s diverse emotional expressiveness. Following the Handel are John Harbison???s Mirabai songs. The cycle is based and translated from selected poetry of Mirabai, a 16th century Indian princess. Mirabai???s poems are about her obsessive religious love for Krishna, ???The Dark One.??? Harbison accents and frames the poetry with use of Eastern motives, tonal clusters, and minimalistic sequential patterns. ???Trois Bourrees??? are from Joseph Canteloube???s cycle Chants d??? Auvergne. Canteloube cleverly arranged ???Trois Bourrees??? from preexisting folk songs. Each bourree sequence is linked together with two expressively free cadenzas. (See more in text.