Joyce DiDonato Will Continue Carnegie Hall Perspectives Series in February & March

In early 2015, the celebrated mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato continues her multi-part Carnegie Hall Perspectives series showcasing her vocal creativity and multifaceted talents that range from programs of familiar and forgotten repertoire from the Baroque and bel canto eras to new works by Jake Heggie written expressly for her.

On Thursday, February 5 at 7:30 p.m., Ms. DiDonato's Perspectives series moves to Zankel Hall for a concert with the Brentano String Quartet to include the New York premiere of Camille Claudel: Into the Fire by composer Jake Heggie, a frequent collaborator. The program also includes the world premiere of MotherSongs, specially commissioned by Carnegie Hall and arranged by Luna Pearl Woolf. MotherSongs features songs composed as part of the Lullaby Project, a series of songwriting workshops created by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute that provides young expectant and new mothers throughout New York City the opportunity to write and record a lullaby for their child with the help of professional musicians.

Later that month, Ms. DiDonato also shares her gifts as a dynamic educator and passionate advocate for music by leading three master classes for young professional singers presented by the Weill Music Institute in Carnegie Hall's Resnick Education Wing and streamed live online from February 21-23.

Ms. DiDonato completes her Perspectives series on Wednesday, March 18 at 8:00 p.m. with The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Maurizio Benini, singing beloved and rarely heard bel canto arias and ensembles with close colleagues, soprano Nicole Cabell and tenor Lawrence Brownlee.

In planning her programs, Ms. DiDonato shared, "Being asked to be a Perspectives artist for the season at Carnegie Hall is really overwhelming. I went through a lot of different ideas and possibilities, but at the end of the day, if it's a Perspectives series, I want to offer a sense of my perspective as a musician and as an artist and as a woman. What are the things that interest me? What are the things, if I'm given a ticket to speak about something (even if I'm singing), that I want to put out there? I thought it was also important to show a representation of my life as an artist-the things that I've specialized in and the things that I've spent a little bit of time exploring as a singer."

Further details on each concert are noted below. For more information on Joyce DiDonato's Perspectives series, please visit carnegiehall.org/didonato. For a video interview with Ms. DiDonato, please click here.

Feburary 5: MotherSongs and Heggie's Camille Claudel: Into the Fire with Brentano String Quartet
On Thursday, February 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall, Ms. DiDonato sings the New York premiere of Jake Heggie's Camille Claudel: Into the Fire with the Brentano String Quartet. In addition, she performs the world premiere of MotherSongs-an arrangement of four lullabies created through the Lullaby Project, a program of Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute in which young expectant and new mothers throughout New York City work with professional musicians to write a lullaby for their child. MotherSongs, arranged by Luna Pearl Woolf, was specially commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Ms. DiDonato. Also on the program, the Brentano String Quartet performs Charpentier's Suite in D Minor and Debussy's String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10. A pre-concert talk starts at 6:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall with Ms. DiDonato, Mr.Heggie, and Mark Steinberg of the Brentano Quartet in conversation with Jeremy Geffen, Director of Artistic Planning at Carnegie Hall.

On Camille Claudel, Ms. DiDonato said, "She's such an important person, one of the original feminists. She didn't answer to anybody; she marched to her own drummer. She was a sculptor in the time of Rodin in Paris as a woman. Extraordinary. She demanded things for herself. You don't do that in Paris in the late 1800s. It's quite an extraordinary journey. Gene Scheer has written some extraordinary texts, and it's one of the most moving projects I have ever been a part of. I am so thrilled that I get to have that be part of my season at Carnegie Hall."

February 21-23: Public Master Classes for Young Professional Singers
From February 21 to 23 in the new Resnick Education Wing at Carnegie Hall, Ms. DiDonato leads a series of three master classes focusing on opera arias presented by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute. Four singers, ages 18-35, were selected to participate in this set of public events, which will be streamed live online. These young professional singers-sopranos Alison King and Narea Son, mezzo-soprano Kayleigh Decker, and tenor Gerard Schneider-also have the opportunity to attend Ms. DiDonato's performance of Rossini's La donna del Lago at the Metropolitan Opera. Additional sessions on breathing, movement, and career development complement the program.

On working with Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute, Ms. DiDonato said, "Part of my 'perspective' comes from the idea of wanting to be an educator and a teacher. There's this whole segment of society that would never dream that they would merit an experience with Carnegie Hall. Why? Because they're in the cracks, they're in the fringe. They're a teenage mother. They're on probation. If music isn't for them, who is it for? I like the idea of shining a spotlight on what the Weill Music Institute is doing by reaching out to everyone. Carnegie Hall is the Holy Grail for musicians, but it can also mean something for everybody. Everybody has their thing that they need to aspire to. Carnegie Hall represents the best of humanity, and that needs to be available for everyone. I'm really happy to make that a part of my season."

March 18: The Philadelphia Orchestra with Benini, Cabell, and Brownlee
In the finale of Ms. DiDonato's Perspectives series, on Wednesday, March 18 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, the mezzo-soprano joins The Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Maurizio Benini for a program of bel canto arias, ensembles, and orchestral selections from Donizetti's Maria di Rohan and L'elisir d'amore, Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Rossini's Guillaume Tell and Zelmira, among other pieces, with soprano Nicole Cabell and tenor Lawrence Brownlee.

"What I think is amazing is that we tend to think that bel canto music is quite simplistic," Ms. DiDonato said. "It doesn't feel like the most enlightened, especially because Wagner was right on their heels and turned the whole world upside down. But what I find, especially working with composers like Valentini and Carafa and Pacini, is there are an incredibly infinite number of possibilities to convey emotion simply through the melody of the voice, the line of the voice. Sometimes it feels a little superfluous; sometimes it does feel like this is just a chance to show the voice off, so we're going to throw in some high staccatos, or we're going to plunge from the top B-flat way down to a low G (two and a half octaves) in the space of one measure. It is Olympic in a way, and it is quite a way to show off the voice. But what I'm always looking for is to find out what the emotional relevance and truth might be to underline that. If we can identify that, this music I think penetrates the heart more than most. That's the magic of bel canto. And it's the magic of the voice."

About the Artist
Recipient of the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo, Kansas-born Joyce DiDonato's signature roles include the bel canto roles of Rossini, and she also specializes in operas by Handel and Mozart. Ms. DiDonato is in demand on the recital circuit. In 2013, she received critical acclaim for her debut recital tour of South America, where she returned in the summer of 2014. She has recently appeared in concert and recital in Berlin, Vienna, Toulouse, Milan, and Aspen. An exclusive recording artist with Erato / Warner Classics, Ms. DiDonato's Grammy Award-winning solo CD Diva Divo comprises arias by male and female characters, celebrating the dramatic world of the mezzo-soprano. This was followed by Drama Queens, nominated for a 2014 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo. A retrospective of her first 10 years of recordings, entitled ReJOYCE!, was released in September 2013. Other honors include the Gramophone Artist of the Year and Recital of the Year awards and a German Echo Klassik award as Female Singer of the Year.

Carnegie Hall's Perspectives
Now in its 15th season, Carnegie Hall's Perspectives series is an artistic initiative in which select musicians are invited to explore their own musical individuality and create their own personal concert series through collaborations with other musicians and ensembles.

Previous Perspectives artists have included conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim; conductors Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Michael Tilson Thomas, and David Robertson; violinists Gidon Kremer and Christian Tetzlaff; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif Ove Andsnes, Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Maurizio Pollini, András Schiff, Peter Serkin, and Mitsuko Uchida; sopranos Dawn Upshaw and Renée Fleming; bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff; the Emerson String Quartet; the Kronos Quartet; early music ensemble L'Arpeggiata; Senegalese vocalist Youssou N'Dour; Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso; Indian classical tabla player Zakir Hussain; experimental rocker David Byrne; and singer/songwriter James Taylor.

Program Information
Thursday, February 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Zankel Hall
BRENTANO STRING QUARTET
•• Mark Steinberg, Violin
•• Serena Canin, Violin
•• Misha Amory, Viola
•• Nina Lee, Cello
JOYCE DIDONATO, Mezzo-Soprano

MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER Suite in D Minor
CLAUDE DEBUSSY String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10
LULLABY PROJECT MotherSongs (arr. Luna Pearl Woolf) (World Premiere, commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
JAKE HEGGIE Camille Claudel: Into the Fire (NY Premiere)

Pre-concert talk starts at 6:30 PM in Zankel Hall: Joyce DiDonato, Jake Heggie, and Mark Steinberg of the Brentano Quartet in conversation with Jeremy Geffen, Director of Artistic Planning at Carnegie Hall.

This concert is made possible, in part, by an endowment fund for young artists established by Mr. and Mrs. Anthony B. Evnin and the A. E. Charitable Foundation.

Photo by Jennifer Taylor

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