Back to Press Release List > - Dawn Upshaw & Donnacha Dennehy Lead Workshop for Singers & Composers at Carnegie Hall

This April, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, in partnership with The Bard College Conservatory of Music, will present a Professional Training Workshop led by soprano Dawn Upshaw and composer Donnacha Dennehy. In this intensive seven-day workshop beginning April 11, the duo will mentor four composers and ten singers on the collaboration between composer and performer in creating new vocal music. The participants will preview their new works for voice and ensemble in a Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in Queens on Saturday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m. and premiere them in Zankel Hall on Sunday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m. The ensemble will be conducted by Alan Pierson.

Carnegie Hall commissioned four young composers—Shawn Jaeger, Aviya Kopelman, Christopher Mayo, and Shen Yiwen—to write new voice and ensemble works for selected singers, three chosen by audition and seven from The Bard College Conservatory of Music graduate program in vocal arts, where Ms. Upshaw is Artistic Director. Ms. Upshaw and Mr. Dennehy mentored these musicians through the collaborative compositional process, leading up to these premiere performances.

The singers selected in this year’s workshop include: Fanny Alofs, mezzo-soprano; Julia Bullock, soprano; Jeongcheol Cha, bass-baritone; Leroy Davis, bass-baritone; Jeffrey Hill, tenor; Mellissa Hughes, soprano; Clarissa Lyons, soprano; Margot Rood, soprano; Nian Wang, mezzo-soprano; and Ilana Zarankin, soprano.

Mr. Jaeger describes his Letters Made with Gold—with texts drawn from Appalachian sacred and secular songs—as a piece about “being in love and knowing that you, and your beloved, will die. The cycle traces a progression from youthful passion and optimism through denial and anger to acceptance.” Texts in Mr. Mayo’s Death on Three-Mile Creek are drawn from death notices written by 20th century poet and essayist Jonathan Williams, who was greatly influenced by Uncle Jake Carpenter’s “Jot-em-down Book” of the 1800s, which was later transcribed as Uncle Jake Carpenter's Anthology of Death on Three-Mile Creek, now considered one of the most important records of 19th-century rural North Carolina.

Ms. Kopelman’s Grief Measure is in three different languages—English, Russian, and Spanish—but are unified, according to the composer, by the universal emotions they express, each in its powerful way. Mr. Shen’s Taking Leave of a Friend, explores the eighth century, Tang dynasty poetry of Li Po beginning with a drinking song, With a Man of Leisure, moving through Ballades of Four Seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, which tell of romances from the past, and ending with a combination of two poems, Taking Leave of a Friend and Sit Alone With the Ching-Ting Mountain.

About the Workshop Leaders:
Donnacha Dennehy, who lives in Dublin and teaches composition at Trinity College, has received critical acclaim for his work, with The New York Times calling a recent piece “magnificently energetic,” and The Wire saying that he “has a sound world all his own.” His debut recording for the Nonesuch label, Grá agus Bás, featuring Irish singer Iarla O’Lionáird and Dawn Upshaw will be released on May 3, 2011. He has received commissions from WNYC (for the Bang on a Can All-Stars), Icebreaker, Percussion Group The Hague, and the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, among others. Upcoming commissions include a new work for Nonesuch artists Kronos Quartet and one for Ms. Upshaw and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Dawn Upshaw has achieved worldwide renown as a singer of opera and concert repertoire ranging from the sacred works of Bach to the freshest sounds of today. A four-time Grammy Award winner, she was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 2007, the first vocal artist to be awarded the “genius” prize. Current season highlights include performances of works by Osvaldo Golijov and Joseph Canteloube at the Tanglewood Music Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a European tour with György Kurtag’s Kafka-Fragmente, reprising her celebrated role in John Adams’s El Niño with the San Francisco Symphony, and beginning her second three-year term as Artistic Partner with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

The Weill Music Institute
The Weill Music Institute creates broad-reaching music education and community programs that play a central role in Carnegie Hall’s commitment to making great music accessible to as wide an audience as possible. Woven into the fabric of the Carnegie Hall concert season, these programs occur at Carnegie Hall as well as in schools and throughout neighborhoods, providing musical opportunities for everyone, from preschoolers to adults, new listeners to emerging professionals. With access to the world’s greatest artists and latest technologies, the Weill Music Institute is uniquely positioned to inspire the next generation of music lovers, to nurture tomorrow’s musical talent, and to shape the evolution of musical learning itself. The Weill Music Institute’s school and community programs annually serve over 170,000 children, students, teachers, parents, young music professionals, and adults in the New York metropolitan area and across the US, with more than an additional 100,000 people taking advantage of WMI’s online music education resources.

For the past twenty years, WMI’s intensive weeklong Professional Training Workshops, specially created for young artists ages 18–35, have provided unique opportunities to explore performance techniques and various aspects of musical life with many of today’s leading artists. In addition to the Carnegie Hall Choral Workshop, WMI presents one more professional opportunity during the 2010–2011 season with violinist and Perspectives series artist Christian Tetzlaff (May 1–5).

Program Information
Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 8:00 PM
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College
31-10 Thomson Avenue, Queens
NEIGHBORHOOD CONCERT: YOUNG ARTISTS OF THE DAWN UPSHAW AND DONNACHA DENNEHY PROFESSIONAL TRAINING WORKSHOP

Fanny Alofs, Mezzo-Soprano
Julia Bullock, Soprano
Jeongcheol Cha, Bass-Baritone
Leroy Davis, Bass-Baritone
Jeffrey Hill, Tenor
Mellissa Hughes, Soprano
Clarissa Lyons, Soprano
Margot Rood, Soprano
Nian Wang, Mezzo-Soprano
Ilana Zarankin, Soprano
Shawn Jaeger, Composer
Aviya Kopelman, Composer
Christopher Mayo, Composer
Shen Yiwen, Composer

Workshop Ensemble
Alan Pierson, Conductor
Lance Suzuki, Flute
Sarah Beaty, Clarinet
Carol McGonnell, Bass Clarinet
Joshua Frank, Trumpet
Rafi Malkiel, Trombone
Dan Peck, Tuba
Matthew Ward, Percussion
Cody Brown, Drum Set
Gregory DeTurck, Piano
Kyle Sanna, Guitar
Joseph Brent, Banjo
Bridget Kibbey, Harp
Anna Elashvili, Violin
Meena Bhasin, Viola
Claire Bryant, Cello
Kris Saebo, Bass

AVIYA KOPELMAN Grief Measure (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
CHRISTOPHER MAYO Death on Three-Mile Creek (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
SHEN YIWEN Taking Leave of a Friend (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
SHAWN JAEGER Letters Made with Gold (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)

Tickets: Free, RSVP via email required rsvp-lpac@lagcc.cuny.edu

The Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert Series is sponsored by Target®.

Professional Training Workshops are made possible, in part, by Mr. and Mrs. Nicola Bulgari and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

The Weill Music Institute’s programs are made available to a nationwide audience, in part, by the US Department of Education and by an endowment grant from the Citi Foundation.
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Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 7:30 PM
Zankel Hall
DAWN UPSHAW AND DONNACHA DENNEHY YOUNG ARTISTS CONCERT

Fanny Alofs, Mezzo-Soprano
Julia Bullock, Soprano
Jeongcheol Cha, Bass-Baritone
Leroy Davis, Bass-Baritone
Jeffrey Hill, Tenor
Mellissa Hughes, Soprano
Clarissa Lyons, Soprano
Margot Rood, Soprano
Nian Wang, Mezzo-Soprano
Ilana Zarankin, Soprano
Shawn Jaeger, Composer
Aviya Kopelman, Composer
Christopher Mayo, Composer
Shen Yiwen, Composer

Workshop Ensemble
Alan Pierson, Conductor
Lance Suzuki, Flute
Sarah Beaty, Clarinet
Carol McGonnell, Bass Clarinet
Rafi Malkiel, Trombone
Dan Peck, Tuba
Matthew Ward, Percussion
Cody Brown, Drum Set
Gregory DeTurck, Piano
Kyle Sanna, Guitar
Joseph Brent, Banjo
Bridget Kibbey, Harp
Anna Elashvili, Violin
Meena Bhasin, Viola
Claire Bryant, Cello
Kris Saebo, Bass

AVIYA KOPELMAN Grief Measure (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
CHRISTOPHER MAYO Death on Three-Mile Creek (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
SHEN YIWEN Taking Leave of a Friend (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
SHAWN JAEGER Letters Made with Gold (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)

Tickets from $15

Professional Training Workshops are made possible, in part, by Mr. and Mrs. Nicola Bulgari and The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

The Weill Music Institute’s programs are made available to a nationwide audience, in part, by the US Department of Education and by an endowment grant from the Citi Foundation.

Ticket Information
Tickets are available at the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 West 57th Street, or can be charged to major credit cards by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800 or by visiting the Carnegie Hall website, carnegiehall.org.

For more information on this and other discount ticket programs, including those for students, Notables members, and Bank of America customers, visit carnegiehall.org/discounts.

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