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WVU Creative Arts Center to host guest artist recital Jan. 23
Pianist Lisa Withers, an alumna of West Virginia University’s Division of Music who now heads the Music Department at Emory & Henry College, will join tenor Stephen Sieck for a guest artist recital at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 23, in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall at the Creative Arts Center.
The event is free and open to the public.
Titled “Aspects of Love,” the recital will feature “Horch, die Lerche” by Otto Nicolai; “Ganymed,” “Im Frühling” and “Die Böse Farbe” by Franz Schubert; “Poème d’un Jour” by Gabriel Fauré; “Chanson triste” by Henri Duparc; “Rima” and “Tu pupila es azul” by Joaquin Turina; and “Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op. 22” by Benjamin Britten.
Sieck, director of choral and vocal studies at Emory & Henry, will perform the love songs. The songs are all based on poems by Herman Mosenthal, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Ernst Schulze, Jean Lahor, Bécquer and Michelangelo, among others, in the original German, French, Spanish and Italian. Translations will be provided.
Withers previously served on the faculties of Augustana College in Illinois and Louisiana Tech University.
She has been active as a solo and collaborative pianist in college, university and civic concert series throughout the Midwest and eastern United States, collaborating with string quartets and trios, chamber orchestras, brass and woodwind soloists and vocalists in performances of new music, as well as works from the traditional repertoire.
Withers holds a doctorate in piano performance from WVU, a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a bachelor’s degree from Alderson-Broaddus College. She studied at the prestigious French Piano Institute in Paris in 1998.
Sieck received his doctoral and master’s degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his bachelor’s from the University of Chicago.
As a choral singer, he has performed with ensembles such as the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Roger Wagner Chorale and the Renaissance group Ensemble Choragós.
As a lyric tenor, he performed the principal tenor role in Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen,” Don Attavio in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Nanki-Poo in Sullivan’s “The Mikado” and Candide in Bernstein’s “Candide.” His oratorio solo credits include symphonic/choral works by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Gounod and Vaughan Williams.
For more information about the concert, contact the College of Creative Arts at 304-293-4841 ext. 3108.
Office: (304) 293-6997