It’s a cliché that we’re known by the company we keep, and soprano Dawn Upshaw distinguishes herself not only by her musicianship but by the roster of outstanding musicians with whom she’s formed long-lasting bonds. So when she was approached about doing a recital to benefit the Yellow Barn Music School and Festival, she assented because of her colleagues’ ties to the Putney summer fest, even though she’d never visited herself.
"Gil [Kalish the pianist] had been out a few times to Yellow Barn," she explains over the phone from New York. "In fact Gil came back from his first summer out there and told me what a really beautiful experience it was — not just for students but for visiting faculty as well. Osvaldo [Golijov, the composer] had spoken about it as well. And out of that, Seth [Knopp, pianist and the festival’s director] called and asked whether Gil and I would do a benefit." (The Chiara String Quartet will participate as well.)
A more traditionally minded musician would take the occasion to roll out familiar crowd pleasers. But that has never been the way for Upshaw. The program for next Thursday displays musical intelligence and a desire to please in equal measure. Rachmaninov and Mahler will sit side by side with Golijov and Earl Kim. The evening is bookended by songs by Stephen Foster at the beginning and selections from William Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs at the end.
Her links to the two local composers on the bill — Golijov and Kim, who taught at Harvard until his death in 1998 — are strong ones. One of the Golijov works on the program is Lúa descolorida ("Colorless Tears") a setting of a Galician poem for voice and string quartet that Golijov later inserted into his St. Mark Passion. Upshaw was captured by the music the first time she sang it. "Sometimes, when I feel like music is really touching me, it feels like it enters my body somehow. I feel like Lúa almost aches. It’s a very sad poem — he set it in a major key with beautiful long lines, and with very simple and touching harmonic progressions. I’ve always felt that longing physically when I sing it — the music sort of seeps into my pores."
She retains fond memories of working with Kim as a graduate student at Tanglewood. "He had such a wonderfully different way of working on music, of describing things. I remember this one little drop of a few notes from Pamina’s aria in The Magic Flute, and he compared it to a teardrop. That was the beginning of a long relationship. These songs that were written for voice and string quartet I only did once, a long time ago, so I’m very excited to be getting back to them."
By the time she arrives in Cambridge for the Yellow Barn benefit, Upshaw will have finished singing Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the Met in New York. The role of Anne Trulove is one she’s become associated with since making a splendid recording of the opera with Kent Nagano in the ’90s. "I hadn’t done Rake’s Progress since the premiere of this production in 1997, and it’s great to get back to it. It’s packed with so many incredible moments. I’m always totally undone by the last scene. It’s a real pleasure to sing that, very gratifying. I kind of get a little high from it!"
Although she won’t appear in Boston for the rest of the year, she’s looking forward to spending "a big bulk of time" at Tanglewood over the summer. In addition to teaching and recitals there, she’ll also participate in the premiere of a chamber opera by Golijov in August. Then in the early fall she’ll give the first performances of a work by Henri Dutilleux with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. Soon after, she’ll collaborate with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in a program including Bach and arrangements of Bartók folk songs. Just the kind of intrepid projects that must seem utterly familiar to her by now.
Dawn Upshaw, Gilbert Kalish, and the Chiara String Quartet perform a concert to benefit the Yellow Barn Music School and Festival next Thursday, April 15, at 8 p.m. at Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street in Harvard Square. Tickets are $32 to $100; call (617) 496-2222 or visit www.yellow barn.org.
LOCAL TALENT. Sergey Schepkin is one of Boston’s great treasures, a supremely intelligent pianist who plays Bach as well as anyone. He’s giving a free recital at Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, on May 14; on the program are the master’s Fifth Partita as well as Beethoven’s Sonata No. 7, Debussy’s D’un cahier d’equisses, and the original version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. That’s at 8 p.m.; call (617) 585-1100. And as if John Harbison needed any more premieres this year, pianist David Deveau will take the first crack at Harbison’s cadenzas for Mozart’s D-minor Piano Concerto on May 18. That’s on the program of a Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra concert that also includes Harbison’s The Most Often Used Chords and Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. It’s at 8 p.m. at Sanders, and tickets are $9 to $42; call (617) 496-2222.
