Collage New Music and soprano Lisa Saffer to Give First Boston Performance in Ten Years
of Elliott Carter’s A Mirror On Which to Dwell,
with Works by Wolpe, Schwendinger, and Lindemann

Boston, MA — Collage New Music, with soprano Lisa Saffer, gives the first Boston performance in ten years of Elliott Carter’s A Mirror on Which to Dwell, with works by Stefan Wolpe, Laura Schwendinger, and Anna Lindemann Sunday, February 23, at 7:30 p.m., at Harvard University’s Paine Hall.

A stunning setting of six poems by Elizabeth Bishop, A Mirror on Which to Dwell is part of a trilogy of works that represented Carter’s return to writing for voice after more than three decades of composing only instrumental music. Carter’s acute sensitivity to Bishop’s poetry—he was an undergraduate English major at Harvard in the 1920s—is evident throughout the song cycle. Critic Lloyd Schwartz has written, "Though parts of this cycle are breathtakingly melodic, the center of these settings is not in the melodies themselves, but in the interaction between voice and accompaniment… The words are crucial, and the settings always illuminate the words."

Based in Boston and a graduate of the New England Conservatory, internationally-acclaimed soprano Lisa Saffer is sought after worldwide for leading roles in contemporary operas. The European press raved about her performance last summer with the English National Opera as the title character in Berg’s Lulu. Of her defining interpretation of Marie in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten, The Nation wrote, "Among many superb performers, Lisa Saffer… was in a class by herself." Her performance of Carter’s A Mirror on Which to Dwell will mark Ms. Saffer’s debut with Collage New Music.

Born 100 years ago, Stefan Wolpe fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and found refuge in Palestine, where he was the leading disciple of the Second Viennese School. He arrived in the United States in 1938 and was described by Theodor Adorno as "an outsider in the best sense of the word." Wolpe is an icon of twentieth-century radical modernism whose music is rarely heard in Boston. A member of the composition faculty at the University of Illinois, composer Laura Schwendinger is in residence this semester at the Radcliffe Institute. Sixteen-year old Anna Lindemann is the winner of Collage’s 2002 Natalie & Murray S. Katz Young Composers Competition. Her trio, Into the Underworld and Out Again, is drawn from a full-length ballet entitled Persephone.

Tickets available at the door or by calling (617) 325-5200. $20 general admission, $7 for students and seniors. Free to students from Boston Conservatory, BU, Harvard, Longy, Milton Academy, MIT, NEC, Tufts, Suffolk, and Walnut Hill. Harvard University’s Paine Hall is located in the Fanny Peabody Mason Music Building, behind the Littauer Science Center.

February 23, 2003 | Paine Hall, Harvard University

David Hoose, Music Director
with Lisa Saffer, soprano


Fable (1994) | Laura Schwendinger

Christopher Krueger, flute | Joel Moerschel, cello | Robert Annis, clarinet | Chris Oldfather, piano | Ronan Lefkowitz, violin | Craig McNutt, percussion

Piece for Two Instrumental Units (1963) | Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972)

Christopher Krueger, flute | Peggy Pearson, oboe | Ann Hobson Pilot, harp | Chris Oldfather, piano | Craig McNutt, percussion | Ronan Lefkowitz, violin | Joel Moerschel, cello | Jim Orleans, double bass

-- INTERMISSION --


Into the Underworld and Out Again (2002) | Anna Lindemann (b. 1986)
World premiere
Winner, 2002 Natalie & Murray S. Katz
Young Composers Competition

Robert Annis, clarinet | Ronan Lefkowitz, violin | Joel Moerschel, cello

A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975) | Elliott Carter (b. 1908)
Lisa Saffer, soprano

Christopher Krueger, flute | Peggy Pearson, oboe | Robert Annis, clarinet | Chris Oldfather, piano | Craig McNutt, percussion | Ronan Lefkowitz, violin | Anne Black, viola | Joel Moerschel, cello | Jim Orleans, double bass