About GODS & MONSTERS

What are songs but stories set to music? Whether they are confessional stories of the self or the telling of any variety of narrative, songs are but musical tales.

Back in 2009, I had the privilege of participating in one of the Marilyn Horne Foundation’s National Artist Residencies in Oberlin, Ohio. These residencies consisted of a full, traditional recital on the local presenting series, preceded by a couple of days of outreach performances, taking art songs into the local schools. The most challenging and rewarding parts of this week in Ohio were these outreach performances. My pianist colleague and I performed in classrooms filled with children as young as five years old – first and second graders. We were limited to art song – no opera arias, no crossover repertoire. The task of presenting the songs of Robert Schumann and Benjamin Britten to these young people was a daunting one – how does one hold a child’s attention for the length of time required to sing these songs? When one is singing for an audience of five-year-olds, even a two-minute song can feel like an eternity.

It was a transformative experience for me, and it revolutionized my approach to performance. Now no matter the audience, I feel that the same techniques apply. One has to mine every detail and pretend that they are telling a tall tale around a campfire. No stone can be left unturned, and every colorful extreme must be brought to life.

As more and more children have entered our lives, most notably my longtime recital partner Myra Huang’s two daughters and my niece, storytelling has become a greater part of our personal lives, leading us to this fun program of songs about various myths, legends and fairy tales. Almost all of the great giants of the German Lieder repertoire are represented, and every song is one of these composers’ musically imaginative retellings of stories about various gods, monsters, witches, kings, knights and all sorts of other fantastical creatures. During my own childhood, one of the first books I remember falling in love with was a copy of D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. I’ve been fascinated with tales of the legendary and fantastic ever since. One of the most astounding aspects of these powerful musical miniatures is the incredible amount of color and atmosphere they lend to these stories, so that each song becomes an epic tale of almost cinematic proportions.