Brad Mehldau & Anne Sofie von Otter
Love Songs

Sunday, February 27, 2011 | 7:00 pm

Reynolds Industries Theater

America’s most “inventive, dazzling pianist” (NY Daily News), Mehldau’s made a career of showing how apparently disparate genres connect—jazz, classical, and most recently a textured, feedback-washed variety of indie-pop. Von Otter’s a mezzo-soprano of global renown and “electrifying” power (Guardian (UK)), collaborator with Elvis Costello; and tireless enemy of musical boundaries. In this “breathtaking” new partnership (Financial Times), the two genre-bending artists treat a synthetic classical-and-pop program that finds the common ground between Lennon/McCartney and Brahms, concluding with Mehldau’s own hybrid masterpiece, Love Songs.

PROGRAM:
LOVE SONGS

Grieg — Med en vandlilie, Op. 25, No. 4
Peterson-Berger — Som stjärnorna på himmelen
Stenhammar — I lönnens skymning, Op. 37, No. 2
Grieg — Kveldssang for Blakken, Op. 61, No. 5
Sibelius — Till kvällen, Op. 17, No. 6
Sibelius — Narciss
Sibelius — I systrar, I bröder, I älskande par!, Op. 86, No. 6
Sibelius — Vilse, Op. 17, No. 4
Brahms — Capriccio in B Minor, Op. 76, No. 2
Brahms — Capriccio in G Minor, Op. 116, No. 3
Brahms — Juchhe!, Op. 6, No. 4
Brahms — Wir wandelten, Op. 96, No. 2
Brahms — Unbewegte laue Luft, Op. 57, No. 8
R. Strauss — Die Nacht, Op. 10, No. 3
R. Straus — Nichts, Op. 10, No. 2

  —Intermission—

Brad Mehldau — LOVE SONGS:
1. Child, child
2. Twilight
3. Because
4. Dreams
5. Did You Never Know

Selections to be announced from the stage by Michel Legrand, Joni Mitchell, Lennon / McCartney, and others.

“[Mehldau] can turn a standard with consummate musicianship and real swing, he can mine the depths of a blues chord sequence, he can summon a rock-anthem ecstasy. And lurking in the background is a fascination with classical music, revealed in the way inner parts surge and pluck at the main melody.”
—Telegraph UK

“[von Otter’s is] some of the most dramatic singing…imaginable. Each vowel, ornament, and phrase has been shaped into a narrative dart meant to pierce the listener’s soul.”
—Toronto Star