The Arts at Sheridan College has announced it will present a Faculty Voice Recital at 7 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 29, at Whitney Center for the Arts featuring tenor Dr. Robert Psurny and pianist Bobby Pace.
Psurny is the director of choirs and vocal studies at Sheridan College, and Pace is the collaborative pianist and accompanist at Chadron State College.
A matove of northwestern Ohio, while appearing on Sheridan Media’s Public Pulse program, Psurny told listeners that music has always been a vital part of his life.
Dr. R. Psurny
The concert program will feature music from the 19th and 20th centuries highlighting the themes of distance and time with songs by Ludwig van Beethoven, Vítězslava Kaprálová and Benjamin Britten.
According to Sheridan College, the first piece is Beethoven’s song cycle, “Songs to the Distant Beloved.” Composed in 1816, this work is often cited as the first true song cycle, because the six songs blend together seamlessly with constant music throughout. The poet sings of his sorrow at being separated from his love and implores the clouds, streams and birds to carry his songs of love to his beloved, far away.
Next are songs by Vítězslava Kaprálová, a Czech woman who despite dying at the young age of 25, composed remarkable music and received accolades across Western Europe during her lifetime. Her song cycle Zpíváno do Dálky, or “Sung into the Distance”, echoes the theme of separation in Beethoven’s songs, but this time the texts are more matter-of-fact, and the poet realizes that the love is fading. Sbohem a Šáteček, or “Waving Farewell”, is an extended song with recurring motifs and a dramatic piano interlude.
The recital will close with a performance of Benjamin Britten’s “Winter Words”, a cycle of eight songs on Thomas Hardy texts. Hardy wrote these poems when he was well into his eighties, and many of the themes involve the passage of time and how things have changed during his lifetime. From the growth of tall trees that Hardy himself planted, to new birds fledging every year, and vignettes of railway travel, the texts observe the unfaltering march of time and probe insights on how we may attach meaning to this.
This event is free and open to the public.
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Last modified: January 17, 2022