theater visit
On April 4th, I made my way to the music building to see Megan Miskill perform her Junior Music recital. Her concert was shared with a violin player, Trevor Corneliusen, but for this paper, I will only discuss Megan's performance. She sang three sets of pieces: Schubert, Faure and Mozart. Each set was contrasting, yet featured her lyric soprano voice beautifully. Nick Williams was her accompanist.The first section of her concert was the Franz Schubert pieces. Schubert, a romantic composer, wrote pieces that focus mainly on nature, love, and unrequited passion. Megan sang Im Fruhling, Die Sterne, and Heimliches Leiben. Im Fruhling and Die Sterne both have a lighter tone color than Heimliches Leiben does. The texture of the first two pieces were lighter and had a sooth melody and softer dynamics. Although they both are melodically and harmonically complex, they still maintained a very positive, happy, feel. Both the first and the second of the Schubert pieces are very cyclical. The form of the first is ABABAA and the form of the second is AAAA. In the second, the melody is exactly the same except for a few accidental notes that were either flat of sharp. T
All of the singing was beautiful, but my main critique is that it was not loud enough and that she did not have any facial expressions. She simply stood still and sang. I think the performance would have been increasingly interesting had she used more body language to convey the emotions in the songs. However, I was particularly impressed by the fact that she could sing in all those different languages. When I asked her, she said that all freshman music majors are required to take a diction class in order to learn to read and pronounce the different languages that they sing. Megan has been singing since she was five years old. She started in the church choir and then began to sing with the Anchorage Opera. She said that voice is not what she wants to do as a career, but rather as a hobby. She said that there are too many nasty politics in the music world that she does not want to have to deal with. I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to not only hear, but also interview such an accomplished vocalist. The last section, the Batti Batti by Mozart, is in Aria form. It is from Don Giovanni's opera. In this piece, Megan sang the part of Zerlia, in which a lover has to talk her way out of being caught cheating. There are long decrescendo-like runs in which Megan sang from a very high note to a very low note. Megan told me that this piece is practically written for a lyric soprano because it shows off the technical aspects of a lyric soprano's voice. There were two different rhythm sections in this piece. It starts out slow, but then at the word "pace" there is a shift to a happy, quick tempo. The music shifts when Zerlia has finally talked her way out of the predicament. This is
Some common words found in the essay are:
Don Giovanni's, Heimliches Leiben, Schubert Faure, Die Sterne, Secret Love, Megan Miskill, Anchorage Opera, Franz Schubert, Faure Mozart, Trevor Corneliusen, schubert pieces, megan sang, heimliches leiben, die sterne, megan miskill, im fruhling die, pieces lighter, schubert faure, romantic composer, pieces schubert, romantic composers, fruhling die sterne, pianist pounding keys, third faure piece,
Approximate Word count = 1168
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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