West Virginia University music faculty member and pianist Lucy Mauro has a new CD, which she recorded with tenor Donald George, currently guest artist-in-residence at WVU. The CD is titled “Love is Everywhere: Selected Songs of Margaret Ruthven Lang, Vol. 1” on the Delos label.
It is part of the Naxos Music Library, an online classical music collection, and will be featured in the February edition of the Naxos Music Library newsletter.
The CD, made possible by a 2009 WVU Senate Research Grant, was recorded in Bloch Learning and Performance Hall. Mark Benincosa in the Division of Music’s Recording Studio was the recording engineer, and Tim Richards of the Division of Music was piano technician on the CD.
It is available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble (all music CD stores) and iTunes and was selected for the iTunes “New and Noteworthy” classical CDs section.
The CD also was just named Vocal CD Pick of the Week on WETA Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., for the week of Jan. 31.
“This is a wonderful achievement by two very fine musicians,” said Bernie Schultz, Dean of WVU’s College of Creative Arts. “I am pleased that our students have the ability to study with such accomplished artists.”
“Our experience has been that audiences, performers, teachers, scholars and students alike have been most enthusiastic about this music and this exciting ‘rediscovery,’ of composer Margaret Ruthven Lang,” Mauro said. “The music is truly beautiful and shows a composer who not only has a strong command of the language, but also a real gift for the song medium, with directness and simplicity and a genuine expression.”
Margaret Ruthven Lang (1867-1972), born in Boston, was the first female composer to have a work performed by an American orchestra. She was a prominent composer in America in the early 20th Century and lived long enough to have her 100th birthday commemorated with a concert in her honor by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to which she was, and still is, the longest consecutive subscriber.
Her parents, both musicians, were prominent in Boston musical life, and brought the international music scene to their home. They were friends of Dvorak, Liszt and Wagner. Young Margaret showed immense musical ability at a young age, and the list of her teachers reads like a Who’s Who of American music of the 19th Century.
Lang’s compositions covered a large territory. She wrote piano, chamber, choral and orchestral music. Her 140 or so songs are distinctively turn-of-the-century Americana, and she chose many of her texts from the works of female poets of the day.
Mauro and George often perform recitals of songs that span Lang’s compositional career, along with narration and projected images.
Mauro is a graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, from which she received bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees and where she studied with Ann Schein and Julio Esteban.
George is an internationally known opera singer and an established lyric tenor in the opera houses and concert halls of Europe. He is professor of voice at Crane School of Music at the State University of New York, Potsdam.
Mauro and George also perform together as a duo, called Duodrama. For more information about Mauro and George, see: www.duodrama.net or www.donaldgeorge.de.
Volume 1 of “Love is Everywhere: Selected Songs of Margaret Ruthven Lang” includes a CD of songs as well as a companion data disc including printable scores for all the songs in both volumes, and several PDFs of original manuscripts. The second volume of Lang’s songs was also recorded at WVU and is scheduled for release in the fall.
For more information, contact Lucy Mauro at Lucy.Mauro@mail.wvu.edu or Donald George at donald-george@donald-george.com.
Links:
A link for the Delos label.
Facebook page for Delos: http://www.facebook.com/DelosMusic
Lucy Mauro/Donald George CD: Love is Everywhere: Selected Songs of Margaret Ruthven Lang, Volume 1
Lucy Mauro/Donald George blog on the Naxos site: http://blog.naxosusa.com/2011/01/love-is-everywhere-reflections-on.html
YouTube links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEOKSFNh7GA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OSc8kM5Prc
Vocal CD Pick of the Week on WETA in Washington: http://www.weta.org/fm/features/vivalavoce/cdpick
West Virginia Public Radio: http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=18832&terms=wvu
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CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu
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