Death, Love and Terror in Music of Schubert
Thursday, September 7, 2017, 8 p.m.
Earl and Darielle Linehan Concert Hall
Tickets: $15 general admission, $10 seniors, $5 students, free for UMBC students with ID, available online or at the box office one hour before performances.
In a two-day spectacular, British cellist/bass-baritone/actor Matthew Sharp will enthrall his audience with a vocal and chamber concert and 21st century cabaret concerto, Death’s Cabaret. In this concert, Mr. Sharp sings Schubert Der Erlkönig and Jacques Brel’s Chanson des Vieux Amants and will be joined by UMBC string faculty for celestial and unsurpassed chamber work, Schubert’s Cello Quintet.
“Jacques Brel found Schubert’s C major Quintet inspirational – he listened to it when he wrote. I’ve always felt that their music shared a raw, unguarded, ‘leap from the precipice’ quality. So, we’re including two of their iconic songs – one where terror and death rips through the veil between fantasy and reality, the other in which love is both chains and salvation – as both a context for this late masterpiece and as a prelude to the cabaret concerto on Friday, September 8, Death’s Cabaret – A Love Story,” comments Matthew Sharp.
Program:
Franz Schubert: Der Erlkönig and String Quintet in C Major, op 163 D. 956
Stephen Deazley, composer
Martin Riley, Librettist
In a second of the program featuring British cellist/bass-baritone/actor Matthew Sharp, the audience will be treated to an unprecedented, and interactive performance of a new concerto format. The Department of Music presents a concerto for the 21st century — a cabaret concerto. A unique and thrilling marriage of the 19th century concerto form with the grime and sensuality of cabaret — both an innovation and a re-invention of an ancient tradition. Dangerous, intimate, raw and virtuosic, it promises to be an unforgettable night. As our hero discovers, Mistress Death comes to call. Your time upon this earth is up. When life is in the balance, what will save you? Love, music or waking from the nightmare? Let the performance of a lifetime begin!
“Terror and love and the blurred lines between fantasy and reality are at the heart of Death's Cabaret - A Love Story.
When I was making the piece with Martin Riley and Stephen Deazley - trying to conjure and hammer out what a cabaret concerto might be - I found myself drawn to the shaman-like charisma of performer/creators like Brel and Piazzolla and also to the bardic qualities of great story-telling songs like Der Erlkönig.
Death's Cabaret - A Love Story is raw, unguarded and bardic. Terror and love exist cheek by jowl. We were trying to make something new - a cabaret concerto. And found that we had made something ancient, something ritualised where music, song and story-telling come together to tell a tale of love and loss.” comments Matthew Sharp.
For a sneak preview, click here.
Matthew Sharp, an internationally recognized classical artist and a fearless pioneer brings his multi-faceted artistry to UMBC. An ‘unrivaled’ and ‘unprecedented’ artist working in music and across disciplines, Sharp blends provenance and vision in a unique and potent way. He studied cello with Boris Pergamenschikow in Cologne, voice with Ulla Blom in Stockholm and English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was taken to Jacqueline du Pré when he was 12, Galina Vishnewskaya when he was 18, and studied chamber music with the Amadeus Quartet. Sharp has appeared as solo performer with the RPO, LPO, RLPO, CBSO, Orchestra of Opera North, SCO, EUCO, ESO, Manchester Camerata, Orchestra of the Swan, Orchestra X, Arensky Chamber Orchestra, and Ural Philharmonic. He has recorded for Sony, EMI, Decca, Naxos, Somm, NMC, Avie and Whirlwind and has appeared in recital as both cellist and singer at Wigmore Hall, SBC and Salle Gaveau
This event is made possible through sponsorship from CIRCA, the Department of Music, Department of Dance, Department of Theatre, and Department of English.