Surfing the Thin Places

Alan Louis Smith with Lucy Fitz Gibbon & Ryan McCullough

Duration: 37 minutes

About:
Alan Smith discusses text painting and the portrayal of very personal emotions in his newest song cycle, Surfing the Thin Places.  Written for SongFest alumna, Lucy Fitz Gibbon, soprano and Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, pianist, this presentation includes audio of the duo performing the songs and a special talk about the process of their collaboration.  Surfing the Thin Places will have its west coast premier next summer during SongFest’s 2021 festival.

Composer’s Note: “The 'thin places' are where the temporal and the eternal seem infinitely close. Within the grief of saying ‘the long goodbye’ to my mom, while watching her physical body metamorphose, I felt a thrill for her anticipation of what her profound religious faith says lay ahead for her. These poems and these songs spring from the incredible, irreplaceable experience of saying goodbye, and watching my mother ‘surf the thin places’ in her hospital bed, arriving on ‘the other side,’ which, according to her faith sent her to the most beautiful and radiant welcome-home ever.”

About the Presenters

Alan Louis Smith

Pianist Alan Smith enjoys a reputation as one of the United States’ most highly regarded figures in the field of collaborative artistry. His performing experiences have included associations in major musical venues with such musical personalities as bass-baritone, Thomas Stewart; soprano, Barbara Bonney; mezzo-soprano, Stephanie Blythe; violist, Donald McInnes; violinist, Eudice Shapiro; as well as the Los Angeles Chamber Virtuosi. Broadcasts of his performances, compositions and interviews have been aired internationally. His expertise and experience in song literature, chamber music and opera make him much sought after as an accompanist, coach, faculty colleague, teacher of master classes and adjudicator of area and international competitions, including regular engagements as a judge for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

At the USC Thornton School of Music, Professor Smith serves as the chair of Keyboard Studies and still serves as the director of the Keyboard Collaborative Arts Program, one of the oldest and largest programs of its kind the country. Having studied with the legendary Martin Katz, Alan Smith has become a teacher of renown himself; among his awards are the Virginia Ramo Award for excellence in teaching and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Thornton School and the Inaugural Mellon Award Certificate of Recognition for Excellence in Mentoring. His current and former students maintain important positions internationally in the field of collaborative piano and coaching. He has served for 24 years as a member of the vocal coaching faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center in western Massachusetts, was formerly that program’s vocal program coordinator and most recently served as the coordinator of the piano program, for which he held a named chair as the Marian Douglas Martin Master Teacher.His own compositions for voice and piano have received performances in many parts of the world by some of the world’s most acclaimed artists in such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West and the Ravinia Festival. He was commissioned by the Tanglewood Music Center for a set of songs for a world premiere gala concert in 2002, celebrating the 80th birthday of American soprano, Phyllis Curtin. Alfred Publishing released his Four Folksongs for Soprano, Viola, and Piano in September of 2003 and his song cycle, Vignettes: Ellis Island, was recorded for public television in New York by mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe and pianist Warren Jones, and was aired in January of 2004. The performance has been added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York.He was commissioned to compose a new vocal chamber work, which was premiered by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in February of 2008. The composition, on texts taken from the diary of an American pioneer woman who crossed the continent in a covered wagon, Covered Wagon Woman was commissioned to be performed by Stephanie Blythe, and pianist, Warren Jones and has been performed nationwide.  2011 saw the world premiere of An Unknown Sphere, a piece for mezzo-soprano soloist and unaccompanied chorus that was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and Ms. Blythe. Dr. Smith has had articles published in Piano and Keyboard magazine and his articles and reviews on various aspects of collaborative artistry have appeared in the magazine, The American Music Teacher. He is president of the Eta chapter of the Pi Kappa Lambda national music honor society.

Fitz Gibbon & McCullough Duo

Soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough have been making music together since 2006, giving their first joint recital in Sacramento, California, in 2009. As both musical and life partners, Fitz Gibbon and McCullough bring an intimacy to their performances that speaks to their many years of collaboration. The husband-and-wife duo has performed throughout North America and Europe in such venues as New York's Merkin Hall, Park Avenue Armory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Di Menna Center; London's Wigmore Hall; and Toronto's Koerner Hall. Their growing joint discography includes forthcoming CDs with Albany Records (Descent/Return, featuring works by John Harbison and James Primosch, and another featuring the collected works of Sheila Silver alongside luminaries Dawn Upshaw, Stephanie Blythe, and Gilbert Kalish) and Acte Préalable (mid-century Polish art song).

Committed to the performance of contemporary works alongside the art song canon, Fitz Gibbon and McCullough have worked closely with emerging and established composers alike. Among the body of works dedicated to them are compositions by Niccolo Athens (Five Poems of Sara Teasdale), Dante De Silva (A Year of Strife), Andrew Hsu (Reticence), Anna Lindemann (The Colony), Pablo Ortiz (California Songs), and Alan Louis Smith (Surfing the Thin Places). They have also given premieres of works by John Harbison (Seven Poems of Lorraine Niedecker) and James Primosch (Descent/Return, The Pitcher, The Old Astronomer​) and have worked closely with Sheila Silver on numerous projects. Through the guidance and research of musicologist Mackenzie Pierce, Fitz Gibbon and McCullough have given the US premieres of numerous works by mid-20th century Polish composers ranging from the early and late works of Roman Palester (Three Songs to Texts of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna, Monogramy) and a modern setting of 16th century religious texts (Tadeusz Kassern's Tryptyk żałobny), as well as songs by Grażyna Bacewicz and Alexander Tansman (Ponctuation Française). They have also brought new life to Milton Babbit's lyrical Du and Adela Maddison's lush Cinq mélodies, while championing long-form songs by Schubert (Viola, Vergissmeinnicht) and Prokofiev (The Ugly Duckling).