Axelle Fanyo, soprano
with Kunal Lahiry – Rising Stars
Song recital reloaded
The intimate intensity of a song recital, or the extravagance of the opera stage? If we leave the choice up to French soprano Axelle Fanyo, the song recital will be the format she favours. A stroke of good luck for Hamburg music lovers: Fanyo is bringing an unconventional programme to the 2024 Rising Stars Festival, where she lends a thoroughly personal touch to the traditional song recital format.
The singer already demonstrates her love of discovery as she digs deep into the treasure chest of music history and opens the evening with chansons by Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg is known for his atonal and sometimes awkward music: these pieces offer a rare opportunity to rediscover him as a composer of lascivious entertainment music.
The programme continues on the other side of the Atlantic, when, in addition to music by George Gershwin, Fanyo presents spirituals as well as works by two female African American composers, Florence Price and Margaret Bonds.
The audience is then returned to the mood of the sensuous opening with boisterous cabaret songs by William Bolcom, which beckon with the infectious rhythms of the glittering American musical.
Performers
Axelle Fanyo soprano
Kunal Lahiry piano
Programme
Kurt Weill
Trois Chansons
Maurice Ravel
Oiseaux tristes / aus: Miroirs
Arnold Schönberg
Brettl-Lieder (selection)
– Interval –
Sofia Avramidou
Entre les Miroirs for solo voice / commissioned by Philharmonie de Paris, Auditorium de Lyon, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO)
George Gershwin
The Man I Love (version for piano)
Anonymus
Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child / Spiritual
Florence B. Price
Song to the Dark Virgin
Margaret Bonds
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
William Bolcom
Cabaret Songs based on texts by Arnold Weinstein (selection)
Subscription
Rising Stars
Series
Young Artists