Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor
with Helena Baillie, violin and Anita Balàzs, cello

Downtown Music at Grace

Works in Progress: Meltdown
Baryshnikov Arts Residency

Guarneri Hall Presents

Thirty-five years after its dismantling, the Berlin Wall continues to hold a place in memory as a symbol of the Cold War. The collective output of a generation of writers, artists, and musicians on both sides of the Iron Curtain reveals a complex and often unexpected mix of conflicted nationalist loyalties, ideological optimism, and artistic triumph in the face of profound challenge. Guarneri Hall’s three-day festival commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 will explore the music of the Cold War and its context through the socio-political lenses of both the west and the east. With the help of leading topical experts, each event will illuminate less conventionally understood aspects of the era’s music and provide a balanced view of the forces that influenced its composers.

Selections from “The Hollywood Songbook” (1942-43) for low voice and piano
Fourteen Ways of Describing Rain, Op. 70 for flute, clarinet, violin/viola, cello and piano
Septet No. 2 (“Circus”)  for flute/piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, and string quartet
“Serious Songs” for baritone and strings

Artists: Tyler Duncan, baritone; Erica Switzer, piano; Elizabeth Fayette and Stefan Hersh, violins; Brian Hong and Tanner Menees, violas; Ari Evan and Alexander Hersh, cellos; Constance Volk, flute; Katherine Jimoh, clarinet; Ben Roidl-Ward, bassoon

Between Science, Artistic Practice, and Health: Exploring the Harmony of Music and Social Connection
UBC Brain Wellness Program

Distant Beloved
with Tyler Duncan, baritone

2:30 pm • Preconcert Talk with Hilary Porris
3 pm • Performance: Laquita Mitchell, Monica Yunus, and Camille Zamora, sopranos; Rebecca Ringle Kamarei and Adriana Zabala, mezzo-sopranos; Noah Stewart, tenor; Babatunde Akinboboye, baritone; Anna Polonsky, Erika Switzer, and Lucy Tucker Yates, piano; Sharyn Pirtle, director of Le dernier sorcier; and others

Hector Berlioz (1803–69)
Le mort d’Ophélie, Op. 18, No. 2 (1842)
La captive, Op. 12 (1831–32)

Pauline Viardot (1821–1910)
Le dernier sorcier (1869)

Works by Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868); Louise Bertin (1805–77); Clara Schumann (1819–96); and others

11 am • Performance with commentary by Byron Adams; with Jana McIntyre, soprano; Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, mezzo-soprano; Maximillian Jansen, tenor; Tyler Duncan, baritone; and Kayo Iwama and Erika Switzer, piano

Hector Berlioz (1803–69)
Irlande, Op. 2 (1830); songs

Songs and arias by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864); Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868); Franz Liszt (1811–86); Richard Wagner (1813–83); Pauline Viardot (1821–1910); Ernest Reyer (1823–1909); Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921); Georges Bizet (1838–75); Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93); Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924)

1 pm • Preconcert Talk with Jonathan Kregor
1:30 pm • Performance: Jana McIntyre, soprano; Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, mezzo-soprano; Tyler Duncan, baritone; Noël Wan, harp; Michael Stephen Brown and Erika Switzer, piano; Balourdet Quartet; and others

Hector Berlioz (1803–69)
Le montagnard exilé (1822–23)

Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842)
Etude No. 2 (1804)

Anton Reicha (1770–1836)
String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 49, No. 1 (1803)

Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)
Invitation to the Dance, Op. 65 (1819)

Elias Parish Alvars (1808–49)
Introduction and Variations on Themes from Bellini’s Norma, Op. 36 (n.d.)

Arias by Jean-François Le Sueur (1760–1837); Gaspare Spontini (1774–1851); Ambroise Thomas (1811–96)

Tyler Duncan, baritone
Erika Switzer, piano

Canadian baritone Tyler Duncan and collaborative pianist Erika Switzer perform a recital of Ludwig van Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, Lieder by Robert Schumann and a song cycle by Canadian composer Jeffrey Ryan; Everything Already Lost commissioned by and written for these artists. Join us for an afternoon of heartfelt emotion and artistic mastery as this music is brought to life by Canada’s most sought-after recitalists.

Elora Festival

The Elora Singers
Isaiah Bell, tenor
Erika Switzer, piano
Christopher Dawes, organ
Mark Vuorinen, conductor

Benjamin Britten is often called Great Britain’s greatest composer of vocal music since the 18th Century’s Henry Purcell. Experience the profound emotion and the rich tapestry that define the legacy of Britten’s vocal music. Join The Elora Singers, tenor Isaiah Bell, pianist Erika Switzer, and organist Christopher Dawes for a beautiful program of Britten’s glorious music for choir and solo voice.

Elora Festival

In collaboration with the North/South Consonance Chamber Ensemble
Into the Labyrinth: Recent Chamber and Vocal Works of Christopher James.
Songs of the Tragic Generation
Tyler Duncan, baritone
Erika Switzer, piano

DiMenna Center for Classical Music

Nevertheless, She Persisted: The second in a three-part series of music created and performed by German women at different times and in different places.  Click for more information about the program and performers.

Program II: Family Ties; German Music of the Classical and Romantic Eras. Works of Clara  Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn and Josephine Lang. The program is curated by Pianist Erika Switzer, and features violinist Chris Nelson, cellist Ethan Young, and soprano Katherine Lerner Lee.  

Grace Episcopal Church
White Plains, NY

Mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and pianist Erika Switzer premiere a new work by songSLAM commission prize-winning composer Laura Nevitt. Read more at Sparks & Wiry Cries.

National Sawdust, Brooklyn

Violinist Helena Baillie has been hailed by The Strad magazine for her “brilliance and poignance,” and stands apart for a rare ease on both violin and viola. American Record Guide praised her “gorgeous singing tone” in an album that “from the opening flourish will be a special recital”. A prizewinner in international competitions including Munich ARD, Banff and Tertis, Helena has performed throughout Europe and the United States, with broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and Performance Today for American Public Radio. Pianist Erika Switzer performs regularly in major concert settings around the world, including at New York’s Weill Hall (Carnegie), Geffen Hall, Frick Collection, Bargemusic, and at the Kennedy Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. Renaud Machart of Le Monde described her as “one of the best collaborative pianists I have ever heard; her sound is deep, her interpretation intelligent, refined, and captivating.”

These exciting musicians return to Downtown Music with a program which includes the Sonata in C Minor, Opus 45 of Edvard Grieg, and Three Romances, Opus 22 of Clara Schumann.

Downtown Music at Grace

Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies

Paulina Swierczek, soprano and Erika Switzer, pianist
Saturday, December 2, 2023 at 4 p.m.

A return appearance of acclaimed soprano, Paulina Świerczek, featuring famous songs from Central Europe composed by Moniuszko, Chopin, Brahms, Dvorak, Bretan, and others. She will be appearing with pianist Erika Switzer.

Free and open to the public.

Cultural icon Alma Mahler-Werfel's life intersected with some of the greatest artists of the late-19th and 20th centuries. A fascinating character, her intelligence, taste, and power (not to mention her romantic appeal) make her the subject of continuing intrigue. While her own composition career was reportedly stifled by her first husband, Gustav, Alma was entrenched in multiple artistic communities as life took her from Vienna to New York and Los Angeles. Soprano Jardena Gertler-Jaffe and pianist Erika Switzer explore her life and impact in this recital featuring works by Gustav Mahler, Berg, Schoenberg, Korngold, Britten, and Alma Mahler, herself.

Downtown Music at Grace

Program Four traces the evolution of a uniquely British sound through songs by the once-hugely-popular Maude Valérie White, Liza Lehrmann, and Roger Quilter; tragic figures George Butterworth and Ivor Gurney; occult-obsessed Peter Warlock; BBC music director Arthur Bliss; Vaughan Williams’s woefully underrated students Elizabeth Maconchy and Ina Boyle; and scions of the next generation Benjamin Britten and Gerald Finzi, whose Shakespearean song cycle, Let Us Garlands Bring, was written as a gift to the older composer. Vaughan Williams himself is represented by settings of verse by poets including his second wife, Ursula.

Bard Music Festival

Launching the 33rd Bard Music Festival, Program One harnesses Bard’s unusual ability to integrate orchestral, choral, vocal, and chamber works within a single event. This concert offers an overview of Vaughan Williams’s long and prolific career, from his early songs and Piano Quintet to his neo-classical D-minor Violin Concerto and famed Tallis Fantasia, which marries folk modality with Elizabethan themes in a stirring evocation of Englishness.

A program celebrating the inspiration born of Ludwig van Beethoven’s iconic An die ferne Geliebte in Robert Schumann’s Fantasie Op. 17 and Jeffrey Ryan’s Everything Already Lost with baritone Tyler Duncan.

Downtown Music at Grace

Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed at Caramoor, Bargemusic, with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, and Vail music festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt. Pianist Erika Switzer performs regularly in major concert settings around the world, including at New York’s Weill Hall (Carnegie), Geffen Hall, Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, at the Kennedy Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. Renaud Machart of Le Monde described her as “one of the best collaborative pianists I have ever heard; her sound is deep, her interpretation intelligent, refined, and captivating.” The program includes the Britten and Shostakovich Cello Sonatas.

Downtown Music at Grace

A program of Robert Schumann and Hugo Wolf settings for the residents of Kendal at Hanover with baritone Tyler Duncan.

CSI’s seventh season opening embarks on a journey of love separated by distance. Songs in Italian, German, and English guide the way through the emotional highs and lows, ultimately leading to peace and contentment with an experience understood by so many in this world.
Ludwig van Beethoven An die Ferne Geliebte and Jeffrey Ryan Everything Already Lost with baritone Tyler Duncan.

Cincinnati Song Initiative

As Bard’s Scholar-in-Residence, Philip Ross Bullock, discovers in a concert with commentary many of the composer’s songs were inspired by women. He dedicated them variously to Vera Skalon, his teenage sweetheart; Anna Ladyzhenskaya, with whom he became infatuated; Natalya Satina, the cousin he would defy the church to marry; Mariya Olferyeva, his brother’s common-law wife; and Antonina Nezhdanova, the great soprano who not only premiered his famous Vocalise, but collaborated closely on its creation. Rachmaninoff also set songs to texts by distinguished Russian female poets, including Marietta Shaginyan, who likewise inspired songs by the composer’s lifelong friend and correspondent Nikolai Medtner.

10 am Performance with commentary by Philip Ross Bullock; with Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, mezzo-soprano; Tyler Duncan, baritone; Erika Switzer, piano; and others. Songs by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943); Nikolai Medtner (1880–1951); and others

Bard Music Festival

Tyler Duncan and Erika Switzer invite you to join their journey through Schubert’s masterpiece Winterreise. Immerse yourselves in the icy landscape of Wilhelm Müller’s stark poetry as Schubert’s music evokes loneliness and longing.

Learn more here

Franz Schubert’s Winterreise on the poetry of Wilhelm Müller
with baritone Tyler Duncan
Beall Concert Hall, 7:30pm PST
Oregon Bach Festival

The Wadsworth Concert returns just in time for Mother’s Day at the Wadsworth Auditorium. Soprano Courtenay Budd returns to her hometown as Artistic Director and Host. She brings with her a group of world-class musical artists: violinist Chee-Yun, pianists Henry Kramer and Erika Switzer, cellist Wendy Sutter, and violist Masumi Per Rostad in his Wadsworth debut. We welcome this year’s artists to Newnan and to the Wadsworth.
Tickets

Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan is joined by pianist Erika Switzer on this program featuring music of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Raman Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed at Caramoor, Bargemusic, with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, and Vail music festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt.

Downtown Music at Grace

The Lyndon Woodside Oratorio Solo Competition finals
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall