Name: WEDS@7 Susan Narucki
Start: 2023-05-17T19:00:00
Location: University of California San Diego

Donald Berman

Susan Narucki

University of California, San Diego Department of Music

Susan Narucki and Donald Berman present a recital of works that evoke memories of other places and times, hidden mysteries wrapped in song. The longtime collaborators perform Samuel Barber’s iconic Knoxville: Summer of 1915, as well as the world premiere of Alex Taylor’s Agee Songs, songs that offer a reflection on Barber’s work, utilizing portions of Agee’s iconic prose poem which Barber did not set. In addition, the duo performs Scott Wheeler’s Wasting the Night, a cycle of songs set to poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The works vacillate between the poets’ acerbic wit and unflinching lyricism, in musical language that is playful, succinct and devastatingly understated. Tania Leóns’ Atwood Songs (2018), a cycle of five songs written to poems celebrated feminist writer Margaret Atwood, characterized by rhythmic vitality, bold use of instrumental timbre and color, and searingly expressive writing for the voice, complete the program.