ASPECT Chamber Music Series Presents Schubert’s Winterreise

ASPECT CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES PRESENTS

Schubert’s WINTERREISE

Performed by Baritone Tyler Duncan and Pianist Erika Switzer

Wednesday, December 8 at 7:30pm at the Bohemian National Hall 

With an Illustrated Talk by Schubert Scholar & 2022 Berlin Prize winner Christopher Gibbs

November 16, 2021: New York, NY: Aspect Chamber Music Series presents Schubert’s Winterreise, performed by baritone Tyler Duncan and pianist Erika Switzer, on Wednesday, December 8 at 7:30pm at the Bohemian National Hall (321 E. 73rd St, New York). Tickets are $50 general admission or $70 general admission with post-concert reception, and can be purchased at www.aspectmusic.net. Christopher Gibbs, professor at Bard College Conservatory of Music, author of The Life of Schubert, and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Schubert and most recently awarded the Berlin Prize, among many other titles, will give an Illustrated Talk offering valuable context and insight into Winterreise.

Winterreise, Schubert’s second song cycle setting the poetry of Wilhelm Müller, is an essential component of the German Lied tradition. Composed during the last year of Schubert’s life, the character of the songs of Winterreise mirror Schubert’s somber and melancholic state of mind. Still, the composer himself said to his friends that “These songs please me more than all the rest, and in time, they will please you as well.” The protagonist, an unnamed young man jilted in love, wanders alone through a desolate winter landscape, encountering only one other person along the way — the titular organ grinder of the cycle’s final song. Winterreise is a heart-wrenching psychological journey, for performers and audiences alike.

Baritone Tyler Duncan and pianist Erika Switzer bring a history of collaboration to this performance. The duo have given recitals together around the world, and have premiered new works written for them by composers including Jocelyn Morlock, Jeffrey Ryan, and Andrew Staniland. One of these, Jeffrey Ryan’s song cycle Everything Already Lost, won first prize in the National Association of Teachers of Singing 2021 Art Song Composition Award.

Listing Information:

 Aspect Chamber Music Series Presents: Schubert’s Winterreise

Wednesday, December 8, 2021 at 7:30 p.m.

Bohemian National Hall (321 E. 73^rd Street, New York)

 Tyler Duncan, baritone

Erika Switzer, piano

 Illustrated talk by Christopher Gibbs

 Schubert – Winterreise

About Tyler Duncan

Baritone Tyler Duncan has performed at the Metropolitan Opera as Prince Yamadori in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly under Karel Chichon, and Morales in Bizet’s Carmen in Japan under Seiji Ozawa. At the Spoleto Festival he debuted as Mr. Friendly in the 18th-century ballad opera Flora, returning the next season as the Speaker in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Other appearances have included the role of the Journalist in Berg's Lulu and Fiorello in Rossini's Barber of Seville, both at the Metropolitan Opera, Raymondo in Handel’s Almira with the Boston Early Music Festival, Dandini in Rossini’s La cenerentola with Pacific Opera Victoria; and Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Princeton Festival.  Mr Duncan has a passion for new music; in the realm of new opera he recently performed the role of Raymond in Nic Gotham’s Nigredo Hotel with City Opera Vancouver and sang the world premiere of Jonathan Berger’s Leonardo at the 92st Y in NYC.

Frequently paired with pianist Erika Switzer, Tyler Duncan has given acclaimed recitals in New York, Boston, and Paris, and throughout Canada, Germany, Sweden, France, and South Africa, and together they have premiered many new works written for them by composers including Jocelyn Morlock, Jeffrey Ryan and Andrew Staniland. Mr. Duncan has received prizes from the Naumburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Munich’s ARD competitions, and won the 2010 Joy in Singing competition, 2008 New York Oratorio Society Competition, 2007 Prix International Pro Musicis Award, and Bernard Diamant Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts. He holds music degrees from the University of British Columbia, Germany’s Hochschule für Musik (Augsburg), and Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Munich).

About Erika Switzer

Erika Switzer is an accomplished collaborative pianist who performs regularly in major concert settings around the world, including at New York’s Weill Hall (Carnegie), Geffen Hall, Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, at the Kennedy Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Spoleto Festival (Charleston, SC). Her performances have been called “precise and lucid” by the New York Times, and Renaud Machart of Le Monde described her as “one of the best collaborative pianists I have ever heard; her sound is deep, her interpretation intelligent, refined, and captivating.”

Switzer has long been a leader in envisioning and promoting the future of art song performance. In 2009, in collaboration with soprano Martha Guth, she founded the organization Sparks & Wiry Cries, which commissions new works, presents the songSLAM festival in New York City, and publishes The Art Song Magazine. She is also devoted to new music, and has recently premiered new compositions in the 5 Boroughs Music Festival Songbook II; at the Brooklyn Art Song Society; and at Vancouver’s Music on Main.

About Christopher Gibbs

Christopher H. Gibbs is executive editor of The Musical Quarterly; editor of The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (1997); author of The Life of Schubert (2000), which has been translated into five languages; coeditor of Franz Liszt and His World (2006) and Franz Schubert and His World (2014); and coauthor of The Oxford History of Western Music, College Edition (2013; 2nd ed., 2018). He is a contributor to New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 19th-Century Music, Schubert durch die Brille, Current Musicology, Opera Quarterly, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Additionally, he has served as program annotator and musicological consultant to the Philadelphia Orchestra (2000– ); musicological director of the Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y in New York City; musicological adviser for the Schubert Festival at Carnegie Hall (1997); and artistic codirector of the Bard Music Festival (2003– ). Gibbs is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Dissertation Prize of the Austrian Cultural Institute (1992), ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award (1998), American Council of Learned Societies fellowship (1999–2000) and Berlin Prize (2022).

About Aspect Chamber Music Series

Aspect Chamber Music Series was established to introduce and promote a novel concert format – ‘Music in Context’. It’s aim is to transform a traditionally auditory experience into a fusion of various art forms, creating a thought-provoking amalgam of performance, lecture, and discussion, so as to present not only a recital, but an inspiring synthesis of music, art history and social culture. The central objectives of the series are to support and promote artists, to enlighten and inspire audiences through intellectually charged collaborations between musicians and speakers, and to forge meaningful and lasting connections between artist, audience and repertoire. For more information, please visit aspectmusic.net.

# # #