Measha & Mahler

April 25, 2020 | Hill Auditorium

Behind the Music

Your A2SO’s historic 2019/2020 season comes to a commanding conclusion with a glowing performance from Soprano Measha Brueggergosman. Feelings of love, longing, and loss from three compositional generations will be sung in Brueggergosman’s debut with the A2SO. Hector Berlioz’s Les Nuits D’été (Summer Nights) sets the text of Théophile Gautierand in an unusually passionate and personal manner. While it is a mystery who Berlioz wrote the songs for, a powerful feeling of desire is undeniable. The sway of a waltz in Erik Satie’s Je Te Veux is mesmerizing and you will lose yourself in the story of passion told by Henry Pacory’s text. Selections from William Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs are a “highbrow” nod to the composer’s “lowbrow” days growing up in Seattle playing in vaudeville shows. The ambitious program for the season finale is rounded out with Verdi’s exploration of fate in La Forza del Destino and Mahler’s sprawling and tempestuous First Symphony.

PROGRAM

VERDI Overture to
La Forza del Destino

BERLIOZ Summer Nights (selections)

SATIE Je te Veux

BOLCOM Cabaret Songs (selections)

MAHLER Symphony No. 1 in
D major, “Titan”

Measha Brueggergosman, soprano

The A2SO performs Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 for the first time in 20 years.

MEASHA BRUeggergosman, Soprano

BIOGRAPHY

Motivated and hungry for new experiences, Ms. Brueggergosman’s career effortlessly embraces the broadest array of performance platforms and musical styles and genres.

On the opera stage, her recent highlights include Giulietta and Antonia Les contes d’Hoffmann, Elettra Idomeneo, Madame Lidoine Dialogues des Carmélites, Jenny in Weill’s Mahagonny, Emilia Marty Věc Makropulos, Hannah in Miroslav Srnka’s Make No Noise, and Sister Rose in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking while on the concert platform she has worked with the San Francisco Symphony and New World Symphony Orchestras and conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Michael Tilson Thomas, Franz Welser-Möst, Sir Andrew Davis, Gustavo Dudamel and Daniel Harding.

Measha began her career predominantly committed to the art of the song recital and has presented innovative programs at Carnegie Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, both the Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, Madrid’s Teatro Real, as well as at the Schwarzenberg, Edinburgh, Verbier and Bergen Festivals with celebrated collaborative pianists Justus Zeyen, Roger Vignoles, Julius Drake, and Simon Lepper.

Her first recording for Deutsche Grammophon, Surprise, includes works by Schoenberg, Satie and Bolcom and is one of the most highly regarded debut albums of recent years. Her subsequent disc Night and Dreams, which features songs by Mozart, Brahms, Strauss, Schubert, Debussy, Duparc and Fauré won several awards and her recording of the Wesendonck Lieder with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra earned her a Grammy nomination.

Off the stage, Measha is just as active: autumn 2017 sees the release of her memoir (published by HarperCollins); she appears regularly on primetime TV (most recently advocating on behalf of contemporary Canadian literature); and leading Canadian children across the country in song, in celebration of the nationwide campaign for music education.

Measha Brueggergosman champions the education and involvement of new audiences and holds several honorary doctorates and ambassadorial titles with international charities.

More information at measha.com

Fast Facts

Stuck With The Titan

Wrapping your head around a Mahler symphony is no easy task and for Mahler’s audiences of the 19th-century, the enormity of his First Symphony and its sound was a lot to absorb. The piece divided audiences who were used to the sound of works by Brahms and Beethoven. When the symphony was premiered in 1889, Mahler gave the audience the tip that the music was based on the novel The Titan by Jean Paul. As the composer started to revise his symphony he made attempts to distance it from the association he originally forged, but the name remains attached to the symphony to this day.

Building Song Structure

The range of William Bolcom’s compositional work has amassed a catalog with everything from solo piano pieces to symphonies that explore modernism, pastiche, pop, and cabaret. His prolific career began at the age of 11 when Bolcom enrolled at the University of Washington. While minoring in English, he built a foundation of knowledge that he used to explore American popular song and write his own songs often collaborating with his wife and and singer, Joan Morris.