THE PINES OF ROME
yielded several recordings including Brahms ’ Liebeslieder Waltzes , Poulenc ’ s Stabat Mater , Szymanowski ’ s Stabat Mater , and the GRAMMY-nominated recording of Dvorak ’ s Stabat Mater . Other recordings include the title role in Iphigenie en Tauride for Telarc and Britten ’ s War Requiem , which won the 1999 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance .
This season Ms . Goerke returns to the Metropolitan Opera for Turandot and to the Houston Grand Opera for Parsifal . She will also be presented in recital by Cal Performances in Berkeley and appears with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in multiple concerts , serving as the Orchestra ’ s Artists in Residence for the 2023 – 24 season .
Ms . Goerke was the recipient of the 2001 Richard Tucker Award , the 2015 Musical America Vocalist of the Year Award , and the 2017 Opera News Award .
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
By Paula Maust
Jessie Montgomery
Born December 8 , 1981 in New York , New York Resides in New York , New York
RECORDS FROM A VANISHING CITY [ 2016 ]
Award-winning composer , violinist , and educator Jessie Montgomery seamlessly interweaves Western classical idioms with vernacular musics , improvisation , poetry , and social consciousness . Hailed by The Washington Post as “ wildly colorful and exploding with life ” and the BBC as “ one of the most distinctive and communicative voices in the U . S .,” Montgomery ’ s works are played by leading ensembles around the world . Her 2016 Records from a Vanishing City is a tone poem dedicated to the memory of
James Rose , a close family friend who played an integral role in shaping Montgomery ’ s artistic development when she was growing up in Manhattan ’ s Lower East Side in the 1980s and 90s . Montgomery recollects a vibrant community of artists and truth seekers where diversity was embraced , and neighbors gathered regularly for block parties and festivals . During these years , she was immersed in numerous musical soundscapes , including Latin jazz , alternative rock , Western classical , avant-garde jazz , poetry , and Caribbean dance music .
When Rose passed away , Montgomery inherited his LP collection , which contained a vast array of jazz recordings from the 1950s and beyond . Rose had records of John Coltrane , Miles Davis , Thelonious Monk , Ornette Coleman , and traditional folk artists from Africa , Asia , and South America . As she listened to the LPs , Montgomery was transported back to the sound world of her childhood . One particular piece stood out to her — a traditional Angolan lullaby sung in call and response by a women ’ s chorus . Each of the three main sections in Records of a Vanishing City contains Montgomery ’ s adaptation of the lullaby and the rhythmic chant that follows it . The piece is a moving homage to both her beloved family friend and the artistic vibrancy of the Lower East Side in the final decades of the 20th century .
Instrumentation One flute , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons , two horns , two trumpets , timpani , and strings .
Richard Strauss
Born June 11 , 1864 in Munich , Germany Died September 8 , 1949 in Garmisch- Partenkirchen , Germany
Maximilian Franz
FOUR LAST SONGS [ 1948 ]
Near the end of his life , the composer Richard Strauss felt especially connected to poetry by Joseph von Eichendorff and Hermann Hesse . Eichendorff ’ s “ At Sunset ” in which an aging couple looks off into the sunset and contemplates what the end of life will be like , inspired him to write a cycle of twenty-five songs . Unaware that these pieces for voice and orchestra would be his musical farewell , Strauss was only able to complete four of the songs before his own death in 1949 . The next year , Strauss ’ s friend Ernst Roth published them together as Four Last Songs , and they were premiered to
38 OVERTURE / BSOmusic . org