Idaho State University, University of Montana Faculty to Perform Schubert Sept. 10 at Jensen Grand Concert Hall

Mezzo-soprano Kathleen Lane of the Idaho State University music faculty and tenor David Cody of the University of Montana will perform an evening of songs by Franz Schubert Monday, Sept. 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Jensen Grand Concert Hall, Stephens Performing Arts Center. 

Lane's pianist will be Kori Bond, head of the ISU Piano Program. Cody will be joined by Christopher Hahn of the UM piano faculty.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for ISU faculty and staff, $5 for pre-college students, and free for ISU students with university ID. Tickets can be purchased at the door, or by calling the box office at (208) 282-3595. No children younger than 6 will be admitted.

The recital represents the latest cultural exchange between ISU and UM, according to Lane, general director of Opera ISU. "We love having our friends and colleagues from Montana here to sing with us, and we look forward to repeating the program at UM Sept. 20," said Lane recently.  "As a former Grizz myself, I can't wait to see Missoula again."

"Schubert is such a favorite with singers and audiences alike, and he wrote about 600 songs, so we never run short of fresh material," Lane said. "In Schubert's day," she added, "his Viennese admirers would sponsor whole evenings devoted entirely to his music and call it a Schubertiad."

Schubert songs require a close partnership between singer and pianist, Bond noted. "It is such a privilege," she said, "to share some of the most intimate and expressive masterpieces of the collaborative repertoire between colleagues and enthusiastic listeners."

The program features five sets, each developing a theme typical of German Romanticism:  Rejoicing in Nature (Cody), Evening to Night (Lane), Mysticism (Cody), Spirituality of the Feminine (Lane), and Lust for Life (Cody).  Pianists Bond and Hahn will join in the great Fantasy in F minor for four hands.

"We couldn't miss the chance to showcase our pianists," Lane said, "because Schubert didn't relegate the piano to the background.  The pianist emerges as a featured artist to the point that the word 'accompanist' makes us singers a little uneasy."

Cody is active in the opera and concert scene of the intermountain west as a tenor soloist, musical director, stage director and clinician.  As a specialist in German Lieder (art songs), within the last six years, he has performed Schubert's three great song cycles, along with Schumann's "Dichterliebe" and "Kerner Lieder" and Wolf's "Italienisches Liederbuch."

Lane has become a familiar soloist at the Idaho State Civic Symphony, presenting favorite arias from Bizet's "Carmen" (2009), Elgar's "Sea Pictures" (2010), and appearing as a soloist in Haydn's "Creation" (2011).  She will be featured again this spring in the monumental Verdi "Requiem." She also joined the Idaho Falls Symphony for this year's Mozart "Requiem."

Bond performs widely as a soloist and collaborative artist.  In November, she will perform Manuel de Falla’s "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" with the Idaho State Civic Symphony.  She recently appeared with the Idaho Falls Symphony in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat Major.  In 2007, her complete recording of The Complete 24 Preludes and Fugues of Dmitri Shostakovich was released on Centaur Records.

Hahn has performed as a solo and collaborative artist throughout North America and Europe.  He has been featured in recital at prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall.  As a collaborative artist, he won the silver medal at the 2008 International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in Boston, and was a winner of Canada’s NUMUS Chamber Music Competition for New Music.  He was invited by Grammy-winning composer Libby Larsen to make a commercial recording of her piano duet "Gavel Patter."

For further information contac Kathleen Lane, 282-2423 or lanekath@isu.edu.