NICK CURATES AND PERFORMS IN EMERGING VOICES PROJECT FOR PCMS
NICK CURATES AND PERFORMS IN EPIC EMERGING VOICES PROJECT EXPLORING SONG AS AN EXPRESSION OF IDENTITY WITH THE PHILADELPHIA CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY CULMINATING IN WORLD PREMIERE OF NICO MUHLY’S “STRANGER“
Photo: Matt Genders / Philadelphia Inquirer
“The final concert on Friday at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater was among the most ambitious — titled The Rise of the American Voice — with the project’s curator/tenor Nicholas Phan premiering a new work by Nico Muhly (known both for commissions by the Philadelphia Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera)…All of the programs explored key points leading up to and coming out of World War I — through the relatively unimposing but bold personal lens of art song…Friday’s program charted a fascinating artistic progression…
…Titled Stranger, the new Muhly song cycle (commissioned by PCMS) showed the art-song medium at its agile best. Addressing current issues around immigration, Muhly chose prose texts quoting letters from the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the morality-steeped Book of Leviticus, dealing with the racism inflicted on the Chinese in America as a case in point. In the tradition of word-dominated songs, Muhly showcased some fairly volatile ideas with vocal lines fashioned with clear, unheated rhetoric — all buoyed by string quartet accompaniment full of post-minimalist arpeggios. Muhly is usually impressive, but this is a piece you can take to your heart, especially in the well-studied, beautifully polished performance by Brooklyn Rider and Phan at his articulate best.”
“The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society (PCMS), which presents fine musicians playing traditional repertoire of classical chamber music, enlisted tenor Nicholas Phan to develop and coordinate a mold-breaking two-week gathering of musicians, scholars, historians, poets, and composers to discuss national identity, social impact, and historical reflection in the music just before and after World War I. Phan's program, Emerging Voices: Art Song and Social Connection, is a hit in Philly.
The range of music and ideas is so compelling and intriguing…The musicians, including Phan, not only were consummate artists, but also took the task of steeping themselves in the language, text, and historical context extremely seriously. Pianists Shannon McGinnis and Myra Huang mastered a compilation of songs by composers who put to music the various voices of upheaval as new countries emerged from the chaotic aftermath of World War I…This tour de force by Phan and the PCMS provides a shot of adrenaline to the Philadelphia chamber music scene, attracting a more diverse audience to discover art songs and the picture they paint of history and social change.“