AT HOME • Baritone Will Liverman & Pianist Gloria Chien
With an intriguing recital program of 10 works, Will Liverman has selected a varied vocal repertoire for the evening that offers a journey through spirituals, chamber, show and folk music, hailing from a range of composers and arrangers. CMNW Artistic Director and pianist Gloria Chien will join Liverman to perform in this intimate and powerful recital. Called “a voice for this historic moment” (The Washington Post), Grammy-nominated baritone Will Liverman took the Metropolitan Opera by storm last fall as Charles in Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Following Fire’s success, the Met announced that Liverman will star in Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X. The second opera by a Black composer in the company’s history, X has its premiere November 2023.
“...velvet-voiced baritone Will Liverman is out to make the classical music canon more inclusive…”
— NPR
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Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- WILL LIVERMAN & GLORIA CHIEN PROGRAM NOTES
Will Liverman & Gloria Chien program notes
As the first Black female American composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, Florence Price enjoyed considerable renown during her lifetime. Her compositional skill and fame notwithstanding, the entrenched institutional racism and sexism of the white male classical music establishment effectively erased Price and her music from general awareness for decades after her death. In 2009, a large collection of scores and unpublished works by Price were found in a house in rural Illinois. Since then, scholars, musicians, and audiences have been rediscovering Price’s music and her rich legacy.
Price’s 1941 setting of Langston Hughes’ poem, Songs to the Dark Virgin, celebrates Black ideals of physical beauty with the refrain, “Thou dark one.” The poem can also be read as a celebration of the image of the Black Madonna. Price’s rippling arpeggiated chords, commonly found in African American spirituals, supports a quasi-religious interpretation of the poem. Night, written in 1946 to a poem by Louise C. Wallace, compares the enveloping night sky to a blue-scented Madonna.
Maurice Ravel composed the song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée for a 1932 film about Cervantes’ immortal knight. He was asked for three contrasting songs: a romantic serenade, a heroic tune, and a humorous one. Each song features a distinctive dance rhythm characteristic of the mood: the Chanson romanesque’s quajira rhythm alternates 3/4 and 6/8 time in a graceful manner, while the valiant Chanson épique employs a Basque dance in a somber 5/4 time. The closing Chanson à boire (Drunk Song) effectively captures the stumbling brio of the inebriated Don who declares, “I drink to joy!”
Composer, conductor, and singer Carl Loewe wrote more than 400 Balladen, and achieved sufficient renown during his lifetime to earn the moniker “the Schubert of north Germany.” Like Schubert, Loewe also set Goethe’s haunting poem Erlkönig to music (it is not clear if Loewe knew of Schubert’s version when he wrote his own). Although not as famous as Schubert’s, Loewe’s setting also features an accompaniment of pounding chords representing a horse galloping through a stormy night, and the clearly delineated characters of the father, the terrified child, and the malevolent spirit chasing them. Edward, a Scots ballad translated by Johann Gottfried Herder, details the bloody exploits of young Edward, who kills his hawk, his horse, and finally his own father, and pays for his crimes by self-exile. Odins Meeresritt (Odin’s Sea-ride), which Loewe set in German translation during a visit to Norway in 1851, tells of the god Odin’s journey over land and sea on a swift horse. In this tempestuous setting, Loewe’s music verges on operatic for both singer and pianist.
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ cycle Songs of Travel, composed between 1901 and 1904, features the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. These songs coincide with Vaughan Williams’ exploration of the folk traditions of British music, and many of the melodies in this cycle, although original, have the flavor and feel of folk songs. The yearning of Let Beauty Awake, with its lissome arpeggios, overflows with Romantic sensibility. Youth and Love contrasts the benefits of “love”—a steady, stable life—with the freedom from responsibilities that incessant wandering brings, while the music alternates between sunny major and dolorous minor tonalities. Whither Must I Wander? recalls the joys of a childhood long past, and the music’s distinctive modal quality emphasizes the wanderer’s deep sadness that such times “will come again no more.”
The opening spiritual, Steal Away, like the closing song on tonight’s recital, 10,000 Miles Away, is concerned with a journey—in the first song, moving from a tortured life of bondage into the sweet repose of death—while 10,000 Miles Away describes both a journey into exile and a voyage to reunite with a loved one. Shawn Okpebholo’s spare, jazz-inflected chords in Steal Away eloquently convey both the pain and the anticipated joy of the song’s words. The rollicking motion of Steven Mark Kohn’s arrangement of 10,000 Miles Away evokes purposeful motion, as the traveler embarks on a new life.— © Elizabeth Schwartz
- AFRICAN AMERICAN SPIRITUAL “Steal Away” (arr. Shawn Okpebholo)
- FLORENCE PRICE “Songs to the Dark Virgin” (1941)
- FLORENCE PRICE “Night” (1946)
- MAURICE RAVEL “Don Quichotte à Dulcinée”
MAURICE RAVEL Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, M. 84 (1934) (8’)
(1875-1937)I. Chanson romanesque
II. Chanson épique
III. Chanson à boire- CARL LOEWE Selections from “3 Balladen”
CARL LOEWE Selections from 3 Balladen, Op. 1 (7’)
(1796-1869)III. Erlkönig
I. Edward- VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Selections from “Songs of Travel”
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Selections from Songs of Travel, IRV. 77
(1872-1958)II. Let Beauty Awake
IV. Youth and Love
VII. Whither Music I Wander?- FREDERICK LOEWE “If Ever I Would Leave You” (arr. Will Liverman)
- GEOGHEGAN “Ten Thousand Miles Away” (arr. Steven Mark Kohn)
Artists
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Will Liverman
Baritone
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Called “a voice for this historic moment” (Washington Post), GRAMMY-nominated baritone Will Liverman is the recipient of the 2022 Beverly Sills Artist Award by The Metropolitan Opera. He opened the Met’s 2021-22 season in a celebrated “breakout performance” (New York Times) as Charles in Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Following Fire’s success, the Met announced that Liverman will star in Anthony Davis’ X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, which will be the second opera by a Black composer in the company’s history, premiering in the fall of 2023.
Following performances at Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festival, Liverman’s 2022-23 season opens at the Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary Celebration, where he plays the Celebrant in Bernstein’s Mass. Next, the European premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Blue takes Liverman to Dutch National Opera, where he makes his house debut as the Reverend in the Music Critics Association’s 2020 pick for “Best New Opera.”
Liverman’s new opera, The Factotum, which he stars in and composed with DJ/recording artist K. Rico, premieres at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in February 2023. Previously workshopped at the Ryan Opera Center in winter 2020, The Factotum blends classical singing with diverse musical styles, moving from hip-hop, R&B, funk, and gospel to traditional barbershop quartet to create a soul opera. Inspired by Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, the piece takes place in a present-day Black barbershop on Chicago’s South Side and celebrates the strength of community and power of the human spirit.
Other 22-23 season engagements include performances of the title role in Pelléas et Mélisande at LA Opera and Zurga in Les pêcheurs de perles at Austin Opera; appearances with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and Portland Opera; and solo recital performances at London’s Wigmore Hall.
In addition to opening the Met’s 21-22 season with Fire Shut Up in My Bones, Liverman revisited the role of Charles at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in a “rich leading performance” (Chicago Tribune) described as a “beautifully vocalized … gripping portrayal” (Opera News). Further highlights from last season include reprisals of his roles in Akhnaten (Horemhab) and The Magic Flute (Papageno) at the Met Opera; Steward (Jonathan Dove’s Flight) at Dallas Opera; and performances with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Aspen Music Festival, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Park Avenue Armory, and Chicago Sinfonietta.
In February 2021, Cedille Records released Liverman’s Dreams of a New Day: Songs by Black Composers with pianist Paul Sanchez – a collection of works by Damien Sneed, Henry Burleigh, H. Leslie Adams, Robert Owens, Margaret Bonds, and Thomas Kerr, plus a world premiere recording by Shawn E. Okpebholo and Liverman’s arrangement of Richard Fariña’s Birmingham Sunday. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Traditional Classical chart, and The New Yorker praised its “clarity, sensitivity, and barely contained heartbreak,” while NPR declared “velvet-voiced baritone Will Liverman is out to make the classical music canon more inclusive.” Dreams of a New Day was nominated for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album at the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards. His 2020 album, Whither Must I Wander, with pianist Jonathan King, released on Odradek Records, was named one of the Chicago Tribune’s “best classical recordings of 2020” and BBC Music Magazine praised Liverman’s “firm, oaky baritone with a sharp interpretive attitude… admirable poise and clarity of intention.”
In 2019, Liverman made history as the first-ever Black Papageno in The Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Magic Flute. Other notable past performances include Malcolm Fleet in Nico Muhly’s Marnie at the Met Opera; Pantalone in The Love of Three Oranges at Opera Philadelphia; Silvio in Pagliacci at Opera Colorado; Schaunard in La bohème with the Santa Fe and Dallas Operas, and Opera Philadelphia; and The Pilot in The Little Prince with Tulsa Opera. Additionally, Liverman has performed the leading role of Figaro in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Seattle, Virginia, Kentucky, Madison, and Utah Operas. He originated the role of Dizzy Gillespie in Charlie Parker’s Yardbird with Opera Philadelphia, in addition to performing the role with English National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Madison Opera, and the Apollo Theater. Other highlights include the role of Tommy McIntyre in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Fellow Travelers for its Lyric Unlimited initiative; Papageno in The Magic Flute with the Florentine and Central City Operas; his role debut as Marcello in La bohème with Portland Opera; his debut with Seattle Opera as Raimbaud in Le Comte Ory; Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia and Beaumarchais in The Ghosts of Versailles with Wolf Trap Opera; Andrew Hanley in the world premiere of Kevin Puts’ The Manchurian Candidate with Minnesota Opera; Sam in The Pirates of Penzance with Atlanta Opera; the Foreman at the Mill in Jenůfa; and the Protestant Minister in Menotti’s The Last Savage with Santa Fe Opera.
Expanding into the concert repertoire, Liverman performed the title role in a concert version of the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and was a featured soloist in Brahms’ Requiem with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Handel’s Messiah with the Seattle Symphony, Carmina Burana with Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with Civic Orchestra of Chicago. He was also featured in concert at Carnegie Hall, in addition to appearing in Schubert’s Die Winterreise at The Barns at Wolf Trap Opera.
Awards and achievements include receiving a 2022 Sphinx MPower Artist Grant, the 2020 Marian Anderson Vocal Award, a 2019 Richard Tucker Career Grant, and a 2019 Sphinx Medal of Excellence. In 2017 he received a 3Arts Award, a George London Award, and was recognized as a classical division Luminarts Fellow by the Luminarts Cultural Foundation. In 2015, he won the Stella Maris International Vocal Competition, the Gerda Lissner Charitable Fund Award, and a top prize from Opera Index.
Liverman concluded his tenure at the prestigious Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2015 and was previously a Young Artist at the Glimmerglass Festival. He holds his Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Music degree from Wheaton College in Illinois.
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Gloria Chien
Piano & Artistic Director
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Taiwanese-born pianist Gloria Chien has one of the most diverse musical lives as a noted performer, concert presenter, and educator. She made her orchestral debut at the age of sixteen with the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Thomas Dausgaard, and she performed again with the BSO with Keith Lockhart. She was subsequently selected by The Boston Globe as one of its Superior Pianists of the year, “who appears to excel in everything.” In recent seasons, she has performed as a recitalist and chamber musician at Alice Tully Hall, the Library of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Dresden Chamber Music Festival, and the National Concert Hall in Taiwan. She performs frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
In 2009, she launched String Theory, a chamber music series in Chattanooga, Tennessee that has become one of the region’s premier classical music presenters. The following year she was appointed Director of the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo. In 2017, she joined her husband, violinist Soovin Kim, as Artistic Director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival in Burlington, Vermont. The duo became Artistic Directors at Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Oregon in 2020. Chien studied extensively at the New England Conservatory of Music with Wha Kyung Byun and Russell Sherman. She, with Kim, were awarded Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2021 CMS Award for Extraordinary Service to Chamber Music.
Chien is Artist-in-Residence at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, and she is a Steinway Artist. Chien received her B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music as a student of Russell Sherman and Wha-Kyung Byun.
Upcoming Concerts & Events
- Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio: Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios “Dawn of a New Age”
- Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio: Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios “Triumph & Transcendence”
- Chien-Kim-Watkins Trio: Beethoven’s Complete Piano Trios “Breaking Boundaries”
- EXCLUSIVE DONOR CONCERT: Emerson Quartet Farewell with Gloria Chien