Lucy Shelton, Jeremy Gill, Robert Fleitz, Yoon Lee & Sophiko Simsive
NEW YORK CITY
National Sawdust
Arlo McKinnon - 12/15/19
SINGER LUCY SHELTON has had a long, distinguished career, with an emphasis on twentieth-century and contemporary music. On December 15, the seventy-five-year-old soprano gave a recital in Brooklyn’s National Sawdust featuring a cross section of works she has championed. The program was organized in the format of a formal, multi-course meal, in five sets. Given the difficulties of the various piano accompaniments, Shelton had a troupe of four pianists to share these duties, specifically, Jeremy Gill, Robert Fleitz, Yoon Lee and Sophiko Simsive. Shelton’s performances were impeccable throughout. Many of these works and their composers have faded from current concert life, and so a recital program offering any, let alone all of these pieces, is a rare treat, especially when offered by such a gifted performer. Many of these works have been either commissioned or recorded by Shelton.
The “Appetizer” set included two early works of Stravinsky, his wordless Pastorale (1907) and the “Counting Song” from his Four Russian Songs (1918-19). Both were warmly performed. Between these two songs were John Cage’s evergreen and lighthearted “The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs” of 1942, in which the piano is closed and the performer taps its outer surface in various places, and George Rochberg’s somber and mysterious “Black tulips” from his Eleven Songs (1969), a lament for his lyricist son Paul, who died at age twenty. In this number Yoon Lee performed almost exclusively on the interior of the piano, her hands moving with the grace of a dancer.
Read the entire review at OperaNews.com