POPULARITY
For Part I of the interview, please see Previous Post With a shared passion for Music, Text & Story, we talk about the many hurdles young musicians face in getting the support they need to succeed. We talk about the impact of the pandemic and the lessons we've learned along the way. Most importantly we talk about the soul-deep need for community that is the human experience, and how we can use music to connect. New music powerhouse Dr. Lisa Neher (pronouns: she/her, last name pronounced "NEER") is an award-winning composer, mezzo-soprano, and actress on a mission to transform audiences through sound, story, and vulnerability. Described as a “maestro of beautifully wacky noises” (Oregon ArtsWatch) and a composer of “varied and imitable” vocal lines (Contemporary Classical), Lisa writes music inspired by female athleticism, the tender love of friends, the ambiguities of death, and the eerie mystery of deep ocean life. Praised as “a small woman with a very big voice” and “especially alive” (Oregon ArtsWatch), Lisa captivates audiences as a performer with her electrifying dramatic commitment and unforgettable vocal colors. Lisa's musical-theatrical fluency and passion for contemporary music have led to engagements such as Reciter for William Walton's Façade with the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra, the world premiere of Space Station 189: A Micro-Opera for Instagram at New Music Gathering, the first staged version of Sun Songs: Three Micro-Operas by Augusta Read Thomas with the Center for New Music, the world premiere of Aaron Israel Levin's Fiumana, for mezzo-soprano singing while playing the bass drum, and the leading role of Jennifer in the world premiere of Rita Ueda's chamber opera One Thousand White Paper Cranes for Japan with the Singaporean ensemble Chamber Sounds. Her recent engagements include performances with Third Angle New Music, the Resonance Ensemble, Opera Theatre Oregon, Queer Opera, and the International Saxophone Symposium. Lisa is an active advocate for new music, frequently premiering new works as well as established masterworks of the last fifty years. She is the creator of the One Voice Project, a one-woman performance combining contemporary poetry and new musical works for unaccompanied voice chosen through a call for scores initiative. Lisa is in high demand as a concert soloist. Her credits include Duruflé's Requiem, Mozart's Requiem, Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, and Coronation Mass, Bach's Magnificat and Ascension Oratorio, and Arvo Part's Pässio, with groups such as the Central Iowa Symphony, the Grinnell Oratorio Singers, and the Chamber Singers of Iowa City. Her operatic credits include Dorabella in Così fan tutte with Iowa City Concert Opera, Dolores in The Gondoliers, Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus and Annio in La clemenza di Tito with Martha-Ellen Tye Opera Theatre, the Student in the premiere of the chamber opera The Nightingale and the Rose by Li Kai Han Jeremiah with Helianthus Ensemble, and Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro with the Midwest Institute of Opera. Lisa was a Young Artist with Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre and the Vancouver International Song Institute. Lisa's compositions include solo and chamber music for instruments and vocal works in the operatic, song, and choral genres. Her particular passion for text and poetry has led to works such as her chamber operas Sense of Self, about a triathlete struggling with a breast cancer diagnosis and White Horizon, about a nineteenth-century Arctic expedition gone wrong. Lisa's major song cycle, No One Saves the Earth from Us But Us speaks the the urgency of the global climate crisis. Her commissioners include Third Angle New Music, Third Angle New Music, Opera Elect, Opera Theatre Oregon, Coe College Symphony Orchestra, Kirkwood Community College Choirs, the Glass City Singers, tenor Zach Finkelstein, pianist Michael Kirkendoll, and flutists Rose Bishop and Hal Ide. Lisa was selected to be part of the inaugural year of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Lisa is a member of the Iowa Composer's Forum, Cascadia Composers, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and ASCAP. In addition to her creative work, Lisa coaches singers on technique, acting, and interpretation, and composers on writing and marketing their music. Recognized in particular for her deep knowledge of the voice and extended techniques, she frequently teaches workshops on composing for singers. Lisa has served on faculty at Lewis & Clark College, Coe College, Kirkwood Community College, and Grinnell College. Lisa graduated summa cum laude from Lewis & Clark College with degrees in vocal performance, music composition, and theatre, and holds a master's degree in music composition from the University of Kansas and a Doctor of Musical Arts in voice performance and pedagogy from the University of Iowa. Her doctoral essay explores the chamber vocal works of composer Gabriela Lena Frank. She is a vocal student of Julia Nielsen, Stephen Swanson, Katherine Eberle, Julia Broxholm, and Susan McBerry, and studied composition under the tutelage of Michael Johansen and Forrest Pierce. Born just south of Seattle, Lisa is an outdoor enthusiast and triathlete. She spends her free time distance running, watching science fiction movies, and baking delicious treats involving copious amounts of chocolate. DR. LISA NEHER: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram LATEST NEWS: Announcing Something About Isolation, a series of web releases Nov 8-20 Lisa is selected as one of 10 composers for this season's NATS Mentoring Program for Composers Lisa's opera with Kendra Preston Leonard Par for the Course programmed on New Opera West's Pop-Up Festival 2022! Lisa's choral work Three Basho Haiku chosen for Project: Encore Catalog Lisa is the winner of the 2021 Iowa Composer's Forum / Iowa Choral Directors Association Composition Contest for Three Basho Haiku Lisa and Kendra Preston Leonard release new Halloween songs for young singers Read Now: BRINGING GRIT AND GUTS TO OPERA, a profile of Lisa in Oregon ArtsWatch Read Now: MUSICAL READINGS ON A BROKEN WORLD, the story behind Red Vespa's commission of Upon a Broken World in Women's Song Forum
With a shared passion for Music, Text & Story, we talk about the many hurdles young musicians face in getting the support they need to succeed. We talk about the impact of the pandemic and the lessons we've learned along the way. Most importantly we talk about the soul-deep need for community that is the human experience, and how we can use music to connect. New music powerhouse Dr. Lisa Neher (pronouns: she/her, last name pronounced "NEER") is an award-winning composer, mezzo-soprano, and actress on a mission to transform audiences through sound, story, and vulnerability. Described as a “maestro of beautifully wacky noises” (Oregon ArtsWatch) and a composer of “varied and imitable” vocal lines (Contemporary Classical), Lisa writes music inspired by female athleticism, the tender love of friends, the ambiguities of death, and the eerie mystery of deep ocean life. Praised as “a small woman with a very big voice” and “especially alive” (Oregon ArtsWatch), Lisa captivates audiences as a performer with her electrifying dramatic commitment and unforgettable vocal colors. Lisa's musical-theatrical fluency and passion for contemporary music have led to engagements such as Reciter for William Walton's Façade with the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra, the world premiere of Space Station 189: A Micro-Opera for Instagram at New Music Gathering, the first staged version of Sun Songs: Three Micro-Operas by Augusta Read Thomas with the Center for New Music, the world premiere of Aaron Israel Levin's Fiumana, for mezzo-soprano singing while playing the bass drum, and the leading role of Jennifer in the world premiere of Rita Ueda's chamber opera One Thousand White Paper Cranes for Japan with the Singaporean ensemble Chamber Sounds. Her recent engagements include performances with Third Angle New Music, the Resonance Ensemble, Opera Theatre Oregon, Queer Opera, and the International Saxophone Symposium. Lisa is an active advocate for new music, frequently premiering new works as well as established masterworks of the last fifty years. She is the creator of the One Voice Project, a one-woman performance combining contemporary poetry and new musical works for unaccompanied voice chosen through a call for scores initiative. Lisa is in high demand as a concert soloist. Her credits include Duruflé's Requiem, Mozart's Requiem, Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, and Coronation Mass, Bach's Magnificat and Ascension Oratorio, and Arvo Part's Pässio, with groups such as the Central Iowa Symphony, the Grinnell Oratorio Singers, and the Chamber Singers of Iowa City. Her operatic credits include Dorabella in Così fan tutte with Iowa City Concert Opera, Dolores in The Gondoliers, Mrs. Malaprop in The Rivals, Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus and Annio in La clemenza di Tito with Martha-Ellen Tye Opera Theatre, the Student in the premiere of the chamber opera The Nightingale and the Rose by Li Kai Han Jeremiah with Helianthus Ensemble, and Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro with the Midwest Institute of Opera. Lisa was a Young Artist with Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre and the Vancouver International Song Institute. Lisa's compositions include solo and chamber music for instruments and vocal works in the operatic, song, and choral genres. Her particular passion for text and poetry has led to works such as her chamber operas Sense of Self, about a triathlete struggling with a breast cancer diagnosis and White Horizon, about a nineteenth-century Arctic expedition gone wrong. Lisa's major song cycle, No One Saves the Earth from Us But Us speaks the the urgency of the global climate crisis. Her commissioners include Third Angle New Music, Third Angle New Music, Opera Elect, Opera Theatre Oregon, Coe College Symphony Orchestra, Kirkwood Community College Choirs, the Glass City Singers, tenor Zach Finkelstein, pianist Michael Kirkendoll, and flutists Rose Bishop and Hal Ide. Lisa was selected to be part of the inaugural year of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Lisa is a member of the Iowa Composer's Forum, Cascadia Composers, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and ASCAP. In addition to her creative work, Lisa coaches singers on technique, acting, and interpretation, and composers on writing and marketing their music. Recognized in particular for her deep knowledge of the voice and extended techniques, she frequently teaches workshops on composing for singers. Lisa has served on faculty at Lewis & Clark College, Coe College, Kirkwood Community College, and Grinnell College. Lisa graduated summa cum laude from Lewis & Clark College with degrees in vocal performance, music composition, and theatre, and holds a master's degree in music composition from the University of Kansas and a Doctor of Musical Arts in voice performance and pedagogy from the University of Iowa. Her doctoral essay explores the chamber vocal works of composer Gabriela Lena Frank. She is a vocal student of Julia Nielsen, Stephen Swanson, Katherine Eberle, Julia Broxholm, and Susan McBerry, and studied composition under the tutelage of Michael Johansen and Forrest Pierce. Born just south of Seattle, Lisa is an outdoor enthusiast and triathlete. She spends her free time distance running, watching science fiction movies, and baking delicious treats involving copious amounts of chocolate. DR. LISA NEHER: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram LATEST NEWS: Announcing Something About Isolation, a series of web releases Nov 8-20 Lisa is selected as one of 10 composers for this season's NATS Mentoring Program for Composers Lisa's opera with Kendra Preston Leonard Par for the Course programmed on New Opera West's Pop-Up Festival 2022! Lisa's choral work Three Basho Haiku chosen for Project: Encore Catalog Lisa is the winner of the 2021 Iowa Composer's Forum / Iowa Choral Directors Association Composition Contest for Three Basho Haiku Lisa and Kendra Preston Leonard release new Halloween songs for young singers Read Now: BRINGING GRIT AND GUTS TO OPERA, a profile of Lisa in Oregon ArtsWatch Read Now: MUSICAL READINGS ON A BROKEN WORLD, the story behind Red Vespa's commission of Upon a Broken World in Women's Song Forum
All the way from New York, performer, teacher, and collaborative pianist Dr. Alison d’Amato feels exceptionally lucky to be working online and carrying on mentoring young artists. A founding member of the Vancouver International Song Institute, The Florestan Project, and a faculty member at the University of Buffalo, Alison is in high demand worldwide as a teacher and a performer. Listen in as Alison chats about her love of British Columbia, her gratitude for the wonders of technology that have made her online initiatives possible, and her newfound love of baking. She reflects on what the essential nature of theatre is and how thinking outside the box may create new performance genres for future generations.Season 3 of Saucy Talk welcomes musicians, composers, and conductors from around the world. We learn what they've been doing to keep financially afloat, creatively sane, and what their thoughts are on the future of the post-pandemic arts.Buy Melina A Matzo Ball HERE!For more content like this, and to follow The Saucy Soprano's culinary and personal pandemic journey, subscribe to The Saucy Soprano blog HERE. Don't forget to check out The Saucy Soprano on Instagram HERE and Facebook HERE.Host: Melina Schein (The Saucy Soprano)Guest: Dr. Alison d'Amato
The Lied is one of the most important genres of nineteenth-century Romantic music, and one of the most intriguing. Balanced between public and private performance, an expression of both poetic and musical meaning, musicologists have tended to study Lieder by analyzing the connections between the music and text. In her new book Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century published by Indiana University Press in 2018, Dr. Jennifer Ronyak studies a set of Lieder with texts she identifies as “intimate lyric poetry” through the lens of performance using methodologies culled from literary studies, philosophy, and musicology. Delving deeply into German Romantic ideas about interiority and the self, Ronyak considers Lieder as an intimate expression of meaning for composer, lyricist, singer, and audience. She contextualizes this act of performance within the salon culture of several important German cities. By centering a philosophical inquiry into the paradox of the Lieder as the outward expression of inwardly facing ideas, Ronyak is able to de-emphasize the most famous Lieder composers of the period and bring in the voices and contributions of marginalized figures including women who functioned in a variety of roles: performers, intellectuals, salon hostesses, and writers. Jennifer Ronyak is currently Senior Scientist in Musicology at the Institute for Musical Aesthetics at the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria (Kunstuniversität Graz). Her work has been published in The Journal of the American Musicological Society, 19th-Century Music, Music & Letters, The Journal of Musicology, and the Jahrbuch Musik und Gender; additional research is forthcoming in collections from Boydell & Brewer and Oxford University Press. She has also explored the implications of her research into song for current performing practices as a guest faculty member of the Vancouver International Song Institute and at the Kunstuniversität Graz. Kristen M. Turner, Ph.D. is a lecturer at North Carolina State University in the music department. Her work centers on American musical culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has been published in several journals and essay collections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Lied is one of the most important genres of nineteenth-century Romantic music, and one of the most intriguing. Balanced between public and private performance, an expression of both poetic and musical meaning, musicologists have tended to study Lieder by analyzing the connections between the music and text. In her new book Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century published by Indiana University Press in 2018, Dr. Jennifer Ronyak studies a set of Lieder with texts she identifies as “intimate lyric poetry” through the lens of performance using methodologies culled from literary studies, philosophy, and musicology. Delving deeply into German Romantic ideas about interiority and the self, Ronyak considers Lieder as an intimate expression of meaning for composer, lyricist, singer, and audience. She contextualizes this act of performance within the salon culture of several important German cities. By centering a philosophical inquiry into the paradox of the Lieder as the outward expression of inwardly facing ideas, Ronyak is able to de-emphasize the most famous Lieder composers of the period and bring in the voices and contributions of marginalized figures including women who functioned in a variety of roles: performers, intellectuals, salon hostesses, and writers. Jennifer Ronyak is currently Senior Scientist in Musicology at the Institute for Musical Aesthetics at the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria (Kunstuniversität Graz). Her work has been published in The Journal of the American Musicological Society, 19th-Century Music, Music & Letters, The Journal of Musicology, and the Jahrbuch Musik und Gender; additional research is forthcoming in collections from Boydell & Brewer and Oxford University Press. She has also explored the implications of her research into song for current performing practices as a guest faculty member of the Vancouver International Song Institute and at the Kunstuniversität Graz. Kristen M. Turner, Ph.D. is a lecturer at North Carolina State University in the music department. Her work centers on American musical culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has been published in several journals and essay collections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Lied is one of the most important genres of nineteenth-century Romantic music, and one of the most intriguing. Balanced between public and private performance, an expression of both poetic and musical meaning, musicologists have tended to study Lieder by analyzing the connections between the music and text. In her new book Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century published by Indiana University Press in 2018, Dr. Jennifer Ronyak studies a set of Lieder with texts she identifies as “intimate lyric poetry” through the lens of performance using methodologies culled from literary studies, philosophy, and musicology. Delving deeply into German Romantic ideas about interiority and the self, Ronyak considers Lieder as an intimate expression of meaning for composer, lyricist, singer, and audience. She contextualizes this act of performance within the salon culture of several important German cities. By centering a philosophical inquiry into the paradox of the Lieder as the outward expression of inwardly facing ideas, Ronyak is able to de-emphasize the most famous Lieder composers of the period and bring in the voices and contributions of marginalized figures including women who functioned in a variety of roles: performers, intellectuals, salon hostesses, and writers. Jennifer Ronyak is currently Senior Scientist in Musicology at the Institute for Musical Aesthetics at the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria (Kunstuniversität Graz). Her work has been published in The Journal of the American Musicological Society, 19th-Century Music, Music & Letters, The Journal of Musicology, and the Jahrbuch Musik und Gender; additional research is forthcoming in collections from Boydell & Brewer and Oxford University Press. She has also explored the implications of her research into song for current performing practices as a guest faculty member of the Vancouver International Song Institute and at the Kunstuniversität Graz. Kristen M. Turner, Ph.D. is a lecturer at North Carolina State University in the music department. Her work centers on American musical culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has been published in several journals and essay collections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Lied is one of the most important genres of nineteenth-century Romantic music, and one of the most intriguing. Balanced between public and private performance, an expression of both poetic and musical meaning, musicologists have tended to study Lieder by analyzing the connections between the music and text. In her new book Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century published by Indiana University Press in 2018, Dr. Jennifer Ronyak studies a set of Lieder with texts she identifies as “intimate lyric poetry” through the lens of performance using methodologies culled from literary studies, philosophy, and musicology. Delving deeply into German Romantic ideas about interiority and the self, Ronyak considers Lieder as an intimate expression of meaning for composer, lyricist, singer, and audience. She contextualizes this act of performance within the salon culture of several important German cities. By centering a philosophical inquiry into the paradox of the Lieder as the outward expression of inwardly facing ideas, Ronyak is able to de-emphasize the most famous Lieder composers of the period and bring in the voices and contributions of marginalized figures including women who functioned in a variety of roles: performers, intellectuals, salon hostesses, and writers. Jennifer Ronyak is currently Senior Scientist in Musicology at the Institute for Musical Aesthetics at the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria (Kunstuniversität Graz). Her work has been published in The Journal of the American Musicological Society, 19th-Century Music, Music & Letters, The Journal of Musicology, and the Jahrbuch Musik und Gender; additional research is forthcoming in collections from Boydell & Brewer and Oxford University Press. She has also explored the implications of her research into song for current performing practices as a guest faculty member of the Vancouver International Song Institute and at the Kunstuniversität Graz. Kristen M. Turner, Ph.D. is a lecturer at North Carolina State University in the music department. Her work centers on American musical culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has been published in several journals and essay collections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Lied is one of the most important genres of nineteenth-century Romantic music, and one of the most intriguing. Balanced between public and private performance, an expression of both poetic and musical meaning, musicologists have tended to study Lieder by analyzing the connections between the music and text. In her new book Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century published by Indiana University Press in 2018, Dr. Jennifer Ronyak studies a set of Lieder with texts she identifies as “intimate lyric poetry” through the lens of performance using methodologies culled from literary studies, philosophy, and musicology. Delving deeply into German Romantic ideas about interiority and the self, Ronyak considers Lieder as an intimate expression of meaning for composer, lyricist, singer, and audience. She contextualizes this act of performance within the salon culture of several important German cities. By centering a philosophical inquiry into the paradox of the Lieder as the outward expression of inwardly facing ideas, Ronyak is able to de-emphasize the most famous Lieder composers of the period and bring in the voices and contributions of marginalized figures including women who functioned in a variety of roles: performers, intellectuals, salon hostesses, and writers. Jennifer Ronyak is currently Senior Scientist in Musicology at the Institute for Musical Aesthetics at the University for Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria (Kunstuniversität Graz). Her work has been published in The Journal of the American Musicological Society, 19th-Century Music, Music & Letters, The Journal of Musicology, and the Jahrbuch Musik und Gender; additional research is forthcoming in collections from Boydell & Brewer and Oxford University Press. She has also explored the implications of her research into song for current performing practices as a guest faculty member of the Vancouver International Song Institute and at the Kunstuniversität Graz. Kristen M. Turner, Ph.D. is a lecturer at North Carolina State University in the music department. Her work centers on American musical culture at the turn of the twentieth century and has been published in several journals and essay collections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices