The Dramatic Mezzo-Soprano
| 1. | Introduction | 00:00:50 |
| 2. | Mahler: Rückert-Lieder for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano | 00:24:17 |
| 3. | Kallor: The Tell-Tale Heart for Voice, Cello, and Piano | 00:33:22 |
| 4. | Closing | 00:00:30 |
Sitting between soprano and alto, the mezzo-soprano is traditionally known for its warm, rich vocal color with the dramatic mezzo-soprano eliciting a strong, dark tone that has been used as an operatic temptress, trickster, and femme fatale — the witch in Hänsel and Gretel, Dalila in Samson et Dalila, the sorceress Ortrud in Lohengrin. In this program, the mezzo-soprano, Jennifer Johnson Cano takes on roles both light and ghoulish. In Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder love poems of German poet and linguist, Friedrich Rückert are set among beautiful contrasts in harmony and melody. Highlighting the spookier side of the mezzo-soprano, Gregg Kallor sets Edgar Allen Poe’s infamous, “Tell-Tale Heart” poem into an aural representation of guilt as the incessant heartbeat of our protagonists’ victim thumps away through the percussive repetition of the piano.
PROGRAM
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Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) |
Rückert-Lieder for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano (1901–1902) Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Sean Lee, violin; Yura Lee, viola; Keith Robinson, cello; Michael Stephen Brown, piano |
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Gregg Kallor |
The Tell-Tale Heart for Voice, Cello, and Piano (2016) Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Nicholas Canellakis, cello; Lucille Chung, piano |
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Sean Lee
Yura Lee
Michael Stephen Brown
Nicholas Canellakis
Violinist Sean Lee has captured the attention of audiences around the world with his lively performances of the classics. A recipient of a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he is one of few violinists who dares to perform Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices in concert, and his YouTube series, Paganini POV, continues to draw praise for its use of technology in sharing unique perspectives and insight into violin playing. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the San Francisco Symphony, Israel Camerata Jerusalem, and Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice, and his recital appearances have taken him to Vienna's Konzerthaus, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall. As a season artist at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and an alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he continues to perform regularly at Lincoln Center and on tour. Originally from Los Angeles, Lee studied with Robert Lipsett of the Colburn Conservatory and legendary violinist Ruggiero Ricci before moving at the age of 17 to study at the Juilliard School with his longtime mentor, violinist Itzhak Perlman. Lee performs on violins made by Samuel Zygmuntowicz in 1995 and David Bague in 1999, with bows made circa 1890 by Joseph Arthur Vigneron and circa 1910 by W. E. Hill & Sons.
Violinist/violist Yura Lee is a multifaceted musician, as a soloist and as a chamber musician, and one of the very few that is equally virtuosic on both violin and viola. She has performed with major orchestras including those of New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. She has given recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. At age 12, she became the youngest artist ever to receive the Debut Artist of the Year prize at the Performance Today awards given by National Public Radio. She is the recipient of a 2007 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first prize winner of the 2013 ARD Competition. She has received numerous other international prizes, including top prizes in the Mozart, Indianapolis, Hannover, Kreisler, Bashmet, and Paganini competitions. Her CD Mozart in Paris, with Reinhard Goebel and the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, received the prestigious Diapason d’Or Award. As a chamber musician, she regularly takes part in the festivals of Seattle, Marlboro, Salzburg, Verbier, and Caramoor. Her main teachers included Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, Thomas Riebl, Ana Chumachenko, and Nobuko Imai. An alum of CMS's Bowers Program, Lee is on the faculty at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles. She lives in Los Angeles with her dog Nugget.
Michael Stephen Brown is a composer and pianist hailed by the New York Times as “one of the leading figures in the current renaissance of performer-composers.” A 2025 MacDowell Fellow, 2024 Yaddo Artist, and winner of Lincoln Center’s Emerging Artist Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Michael performs internationally and receives commissions from orchestras, soloists, and festivals around the world. Recent highlights include a recital at Alice Tully Hall for CMS, collaborations with cellist Nicholas Canellakis and violinists Pinchas Zukerman, Kristin Lee, and Arnaud Sussmann, and an Asia recital tour. Currently he is composing The Magical Carnival, a CMS-led project co-presented by a consortium of US presenters. His first album devoted entirely to his music, Twelve Blocks, will be released in fall 2025. He is the composer for Angeline Gragasin’s upcoming film Look But Don't Touch. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Michael lives in New York City and Wallkill, New York, with his two 19th-century Steinways, Octavia and Daria.
Nicholas Canellakis has become one of the most sought-after and innovative cellists of his generation, praised in the New Yorker as a “superb young soloist.” Recent highlights include solo debuts with the Virginia, Albany, Bangor, and Delaware symphony orchestras; concerto appearances with the Erie Philharmonic, the New Haven Symphony, and the American Symphony Orchestra; Europe and Asia tours with CMS; and recitals throughout the US with his longtime duo collaborator, pianist-composer Michael Stephen Brown. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he is a regular guest artist at many of the world’s leading music festivals. Canellakis is the Artistic Director of Chamber Music Sedona in Arizona and is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music (where he was recently appointed to the cello faculty) and New England Conservatory.