Program: An Evening of American Song

AN EVENING OF AMERICAN SONG Wednesday 27 July Song Without (good) Words

Charles IVES

Afterglow

Charles IVES

Apparition I. The Night in Silence Under Many A Star In Summer Fields Spring Song Apparition Vocalise 1: Summer Sounds II. When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d Mirage The Light That is Felt Apparition III. Dark Mother Always Gliding Near With Soft Feet Premonitions Apparition Vocalise 2: Invocation IV. Approach Strong Deliveress!

Vocalise 3: Death Carol (‘Song of the Nightbird’) At the River Apparition V. Come Lovely and Soothing Death Evening Apparition VI. The Night in Silence Under Many A Star

George CRUMB

Charles IVES

George CRUMB

Charles IVES

George CRUMB

Charles IVES George CRUMB

Charles IVES George CRUMB

Charles IVES George CRUMB

AMBER EVANS is an Australian vocalist, conductor and composer. She regularly performs as an early music soloist, chamber ensemble vocalist, and contemporary opera/vocal specialist, with consistent touring engagements in Australia, the US and the UK. Winner of the inaugural US Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Advancement Award for the interpretation of contemporary music, she is committed to the vital artistic collaboration with composers to thoughtfully contribute to the musical canon of the present day. An exponent of the capabilities of the “extra-normal” voice, Ms. Evans has premiered over fifty specialised vocal works, engaging audiences with ever-changing insights into the paramount role of the voice in the evolution of art-making. In 2022 for Opera Queensland (OQ), Amber joined their Young Artist Program. Most recently, she sang as a featured soloist in the QPAC Concert Hall season of OQ’s The Sopranos with Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and will tour regionally throughout Queensland with the production in May. During her time back in Brisbane, Amber became the inaugural lecturer for aural studies at the Young Conservatorium, stepped in as assistant conductor for The Australian Voices, established the vocal sextet Formant, directs the music for All Saints Anglican Church and continues to engage in ongoing online projects with composers and artists in the US and the UK. MARGARET SCHINDLER is Associate Professor and Head of Vocal Studies at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University. Her professional profile combines teaching and research with performances as concert artist. In a career spanning more than three decades, Margaret has appeared as soloist with major orchestras and performing organizations throughout Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Canada and Germany in opera, concert, song recitals and oratorio. She was a founding member of Southern Cross Soloists, ensemble-in-residence at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, performing, touring nationally and internationally, and recording with the ensemble for over twenty years. She has premiered nearly one hundred Australian works and recorded over 200 broadcasts for ABC Classic FM as well as CD recordings for ABC Classics, Melba Records, Artworks, and Wirripang. Margaret has served on the board of the Australian Voice Association and enjoys the creative nexus of teaching and performing as well as promoting multidisciplinary activity and research in voice. In 2015, she was awarded a Griffith University teaching citation in recognition of her outstanding achievements in this field.

SAMUEL MITCHELL is an Australian, Oxford-based singer and pianist. Since moving to the UK in 2016 for a choral scholarship at Gloucester Cathedral, he has been invited to sing with many leading groups including the Oxford Bach Soloists, Ex Cathedra, Siglo de Oro, St Martin’s Voices, Mogens Dahl Kammerkor (Copenhagen), The Platinum Consort, The Hanover Band and is deputy singer at Westminster Cathedral, St Paul’s Cathedral, St George’s Windsor Castle and Westminster Abbey. Previous solo engagements include Hamor in Jephtha alongside James Gilchrist, arias in several Bach cantatas with OBS, Charpentier’s Le Reniement de Saint Pierre under Laurence Cummings, Couperin’s Leçons de ténèbres, the St John Passion with Oxford Baroque and Stephen Darlington, and Bach’s Actus Tragicus with renowned early music ensemble In Echo. Samuel has recently finished his six-year tenure as a Lay Clerk at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford and is embarking on a freelance career.

As a pianist, Samuel is a founding member of the contemporary music collective Nonsemble, with whom he has presented at TEDx, featured twice on the influential ‘I Care if You Listen’ mixtape and has been played on New York’s WNYC show ‘New Sounds’ on multiple occasions. Their EP Go Seigen vs. Fujisawa Kuranosuke was hailed ‘a monumental contemporary classic’ (Cut Common Magazine). A passionate advocate for new music, he has given state, national and world premieres by composer such as David Maw, Chris Perren, Nico Muhly, Piers Connor Kennedy, and Steve Reich. As a pianist, performance highlights include John Adam’s Phrygian Gates at MOMA in Tasmania, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G conducted by Warwick Potter and opening the 2019 Extended Play Festival at the City Recital Hall in Sydney. Upcoming engagements include the European premiere of Michael Gordon’s chamber opera, Van Gogh, with the Oxford Alternative Orchestral and a season of concerts in Copenhagen with the Mogens Dehl Kammerkor.