Date:
3/30/2011
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 575.562.2253
PORTALES – Jason Vest, voice faculty at Eastern New Mexico University, will perform his voice recital at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 4, in Buchanan Hall in the Music Building on the Portales campus. ENMU music professor John Olsen will accompanying him on piano. Translations for songs in Italian, German and French will be given to audience members.
Vest will perform arias composed by Handel, Cilea and Bizet, including “Flower” from the famous opera “Carmen.” Other songs include difficult compositions from Hugo Wolf and Henri Duparc, which, according to the voice and French instructor, are filled with “comedy, anger, and sublime and peaceful love.”
Vest, who has performed on stages in Austria, Madagascar, New York and other venues in the United States, chose the works despite their difficulty because of the way they are written. “Because the text and the poetry are so important to these composers, I don’t have to work so hard to emphasize poetic meaning,” says Vest. “I am able to just sing what the composer wrote and I have been surprised at the emotional depth and honesty of some of these songs.”
The former resident of the islands od Madagascar and La Reunion hopes the audience feels connected to the songs chosen. “I hope that the audience leaves feeling we have communicated something to them, that in listening they remember moments and meaning in their life that these songs bring to the surface.”
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Kathi Fraze at 575-562-2377.