Recovered Voices

Liza Stepanova with special guests
Dr. Michael Beckerman, Maestro James Conlon, Dr. Michael Haas, & Simon Wynberg.

Duration: 2 hours

About:
Rediscover lesser-known gems of the song repertoire in a presentation-discussion dedicated to composers whose life and music were profoundly affected by the cataclysms of the first part of the twentieth century. Since 2015, Songfest has presented several programs curated by festival faculty Liza Stepanova bringing renewed attention to vocal masterworks by Walter Braunfels, Franz Schreker, Erwin Schulhoff, Karl Weigl, Erich Zeisl, composers who were interned in the Terezin Camp, and many others. This program is produced in consultation with the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at The Colburn School, James Conlon, Artistic Advisor. With special thanks to Robert Elias, President of the OREL Foundation. The Recovered Voices name is used by permission of LA Opera.

Recovered Voices Presenters:

• Dr. Michael Beckerman (Professor, NYU; Czech music scholar; Co-Founder, OREL Foundation)

• Maestro James Conlon (Artistic Director, Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices at The Colburn School; Founder and Artistic Advisor, OREL Foundation)

• Dr. Michael Haas (Senior Researcher and recording producer, exil.arte Center, Vienna; Author of "Forbidden Music")

• Dr. Liza Stepanova (Associate Professor of Piano at the University of Georgia, Hugh Hodgson School of Music)

• Simon Wynberg (Artistic Director of the ARC Ensemble of the Royal Academy of Music in Toronto)

Resources:

• Resource Guide & Index of Selected Composers

Video Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Liza Stepanova

• 3:55: Interview with James Conlon

• 46:30: Performance of Franz Schreker’s Rosentod

• 49:10: Michael Haas about the idea of “Inner Return” and music written in exile by Robert Fürstenthal, Hanns Eisler, Walter Arlen, and by extension, Korngold, Toch, Zeisl, and others

• 01:02:00: Simon Wynberg about exile composers with diverging paths including Paul Ben-Haim, Szymon Laks, Walter Kaufman, Mieczysław Weinberg

• 01:15:30: Performance of Walter Braunfels’s Echoes of Beethoven’s Music

• 01:17:10: Michael Beckerman about Czech composers including Kapralova, Martinu, Schulhoff, and music written in the Terezin camp by Haas, Klein, and Krasa

• 01:31:53: Performance of Gideon Klein’s Lullaby

• 01:34:10: Michael Haas, Michael Beckerman (01:42:53), and Simon Wynberg (01:45:20) about their own work: research, performances, and resources

• 01:47:25: Michael Beckerman and Simon Wynberg about performing this music given the enormous weight of the historical background

“Recovered Voices” & SongFest