CONCERT News:
What: Rick Beaubien, baritone & Natasha Stanjovska, piano
Music: American Art Songs
Date: May 27, 2022
Time: 5:30 p.m. (doors open at 5:15 p.m.)
Where: First Presbyterian Church 208 Grant Ave. Santa Fe, NM 87501
Admission: Freewill offering and open to all
For More Information call 982.8544
Program:
- American Songs, American Poems
- Musical settings of well-known American poems
- Rick Beaubien, baritone; Natasha Stojanovska, piano
Program:
(Note: All printed texts are the versions set by the composer, which sometimes differ from the originals.)
- “Serenity” (1919)
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
Poem by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), excerpted from “The Battle of Soma”
O, Sabbath rest of Galilee!
O, calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with Thee,
the silence of eternity
Interpreted by love.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease:
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess,
the beauty of thy peace. - “Miniver Cheevy” (1948)
John Woods Duke (1899-1984)
Poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean when he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam’s neighbors.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.
Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediaeval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking:
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking. - “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (1941)
Margaret Bonds (1913-1972)
Poem by Langston Hughes (1901-1967)
I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers. - “Root Cellar” (1963)
Ned Rorem (1923- )
Poem by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath. - “Look Down Fair Moon” (1957)
Ned Rorem (1923- )
Poem by Walt Whitman (1819-1892), first published in the 1865 Drum-Taps, a collection of Whitman’s Civil War poems.
Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene,
Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple,
On the dead, on their backs, with arms toss’d wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon. - “As Adam Early In the Morning” (1957)
Ned Rorem (1923- )
Poem by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
As Adam early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower refresh’d with sleep,
Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body. - “Dirge for Two Veterans” (1942)
Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
Poem by Walt Whitman (1819-1892, first published in the 1865/66 Sequel to Drum-Taps, Whitman’s second collection of Civil War poems. Note: “Dirge,” along with Weill’s settings of two other Whitman poems appeared shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and connected with the patriotic fervor of America’s entry into World War II.
The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.
Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.
I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they are flooding,
As with voices and with tears.
I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.
For the son is brought with the father,
(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them.)
Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.
The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love. - “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven” (1914)
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
Poem by Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)
Note: The death in 1912 of “General” William Booth, the English Methodist minister who along with his wife Catherine founded The Salvation Army, inspired Vachel Lindsay’s poetic vision of Booth’s entrance into heaven. Lindsay himself came from an evangelical background. Ives set a condensed version of the poem as it appeared in his local newspaper.
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said, “He’s come.”
(Washed in the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the Lamb.)
Walking lepers followed rank on rank,
Lurching bravos from the ditches dank
Drabs from the alleyways, drug fiends pale
Minds still passion ridden, soul flowers frail:
Vermin eaten saints with moldy breath,
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Ev’ry slum had sent its half a score
The round world over (Booth had groaned for more).
Ev’ry banner that the wide world flies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes,
Big voiced lasses made their banjoes bang,
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang;
“Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”
Hallelujah, Lord! It was queer to see
Bull necked convicts with that land make free.
Loons with trumpets blown a blare, blare, blare,
On, on, upward thro’ the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Jesus came from out the court house door,
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones
Round and round…
Yet! in an instant all that blear review
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled,
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) - “Charlie Rutlage” (1920)
Charles Ives (1874-1954)
Poem by D. J. “Kid” O’Malley (1867-1943) as collected in Cowboy Songs and other Frontier Ballads, edited by John A. Lomax.
Another good cowpuncher has gone to meet his fate,
I hope he’ll find a resting place, within the golden gate.
Another place is vacant on the ranch of the X I T,
‘Twill be hard to find another that’s liked as well as he.
The first that died was Kid White, a man both tough and brave,
While Charlie Rutlage makes the third to be sent to his grave,
Caused by a cowhorse falling, while running after stock;
‘Twas on the spring round up, a place where death men mock,
He went forward one morning on a circle through the hills,
He was gay and full of glee, and free from earthly ills;
But when it came to finish up the work on which he went,
Nothing came back from him; his time on earth was spent.
‘Twas as he rode the round up, a XIT turned back to the herd;
Poor Charlie shoved him in again, his cutting horse he spurred;
Another turned; at that moment his horse the creature spied
And turned and fell with him, beneath poor Charlie died,
His relations in Texas his face never more will see,
But I hope he’ll meet his loved ones beyond in eternity,
I hope he’ll meet his parents, will meet them face to face,
And that they’ll grasp him by the right hand at the shining throne of grace.
Rick Beaubien
Beaubien has been stage-struck since his parents took him to live performances of The Sound of Music and Carousel in the early 1960’s. He sang and performed from early childhood and went on to study voice with New York City Opera star Richard McKee and other instructors at the Yale School of Music. While at Yale he also performed with the Yale International Chorus conducted by the Nigerian composer and musician Lazarus Ekwueme, and with the Connecticut Experimental Theater, an opera company based in New Haven. After leaving Yale, Beaubien suspended his vocal pursuits for many years while he pursued a career developing automated library systems for the U.C. Berkeley Library. During this time, he also trained in classical ballet, and danced character roles with the Berkeley Conservatory Ballet. Since returning to vocal music, Beaubien has studied with soprano Karen Hall in Santa Fe for nearly a decade and coached with pianist Natasha Stojanovska for several years. Locally, he has sung with the Santa Fe Symphony Chorus and he performed Winterreise Part 1 in a 2016 First Presbyterian TGIF concert. Recently, he has performed regularly in the “Stojanovska Studios Recital Series.” Besides his musical pursuits, Beaubien teaches medieval and modern English poetry for Santa Fe’s continuing education organization, RENESAN.
Natasha Stojanovska
After earning degrees in piano performance from Lynn University under Roberta Rust (BA) and from Indiana University South Bend under Alexander Toradze and Ketevan Badridze (MA), Macedonian pianist and composer Natasha Stojanovska recently attained her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, where she studied with James Giles. She has performed solo and chamber music recitals, many publicly broadcast, in the United States, the West Indies, Western and Eastern Europe, and Asia, and in such prestigious concert halls as UM Maurice Gusman Hall, the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at Notre Dame and the Harris Theater in Chicago. Stojanovska recently represented the Bienen School of Music at the Gilmore Piano Festival, and in April 2021 performed a solo piano recital as part of the Henry Fogel Presents concert series in Chicago. More recent performances include her debuts with the Princeton and Ear Taxi Festivals, as well as solo recitals in two prestigious Chicago concert series: Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts and The PianoForte Chicago Foundation Concerts. Locally, Natasha performs in the Albuquerque based Chatter Music series, sometimes with violinist Elizabeth Young and flutist Molly Barth. With her pianist sister Marina, she has also performed widely as part of the duo ensemble SISTERS Stojanovska. Stojanovska has collaborated with many well-known musicians including violinist Rachael Barton Pine as part of the Musicians Club of Women Performance Series in Chicago. In 2017 she served as a composition and piano consultant for Metropolitan opera star Renee Fleming’s and jazz celebrity Patricia Barber’s song project. As the pianist for The Sacred Music Program at the University of Notre Dame, Stojanovska collaborated with prestigious musicians such as Shulamit Ran, Carmen Helen Tellez, Mario Lavista, Robert Kyr, Sven-David Sandstorm, Nathan Gunn, among others. Stojanovska’s legion honors include awards, many in first place, from: The American Prize, the Samuel Thaviu/Isaak Piano Performance Competition, the Southern Illinois Young Artists Competition, the Martin Fellowship in Piano and Arts Excellence and the Indianapolis Matinee Musicale Collegiate Competition. PARMA Recordings will release Natasha’s solo CD featuring the piano music Eastern European women composers in July.
First Presbyterian offers weekly recitals 5:30-6 p.m. Fridays. These concerts are free and open to all. A freewill offering for the recital fund will be received.
