Spire Series – Sarah Chalfy, soprano | Michael Sheppard, piano

No Tickets Required | Free-will offering accepted

SARAH CHALFY, soprano | MICHAEL SHEPPARD, piano

Join us for an evening of unparalleled artistry. Sarah and Michael’s program spans generations and continents, weaving together songs from a colorful array of composers.

PROGRAM

Ariettes oubliées ~ Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

• C’est l’extase langoureuse
• Il pleure dans mon coeur
• L’ombre des arbres
• Chevaux de bois
• Green
• Spleen

from Brettl Lieder ~ Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

• Galathea
• Gigerlette
• Mahnung
• Der genügsame Liebhaber

from Cabaret Songs ~ William Bolcom (b. 1938)

• Amor
• Toothbrush Time
• George
• The Song of Black Max

Un petit cabaret – Songs will be announced

SARAH CHALFY’s work as a singer and actress encompasses many disciplines, styles, languages and traditions.  She is an avid recitalist, cabaret performer, and collaborator with living artists in developing new works. Notable recent premieres include: Artemisia: Light and Shadow, a new theatre piece on the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, with arias by Strozzi and Cavalli; Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger’s Requiem for Fossil Fuels in a rare live performance at the Galerius Rotunda in Thessaloniki, Greece; The title role in ADA, Kim D. Sherman’s opera about Ada Lovelace Byron; Nellie Bly in David Friedman/Peter Kellogg’s new musical Stunt Girl; Madeleine X in the LA world premiere of Michael Gordon’s opera What to Wear, conceived, designed, and directed by avant-garde theatre legend Richard Foreman.

Sarah did her MM studies at Manhattan School of Music and her BM at the Peabody Conservatory.  She was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Universität Mozarteum Sommerakademie, and the Académie internationale d’été de Nice. She studied acting/Meisner technique at the T. Schreiber Studio, and musical theater with Paul Gemignani and Carolyn Marlow. Sarah is recipient of numerous awards, including top prizes in the Lotte Lenya, Rosa Ponselle, Canticum Dominum, and Bach Society of Baltimore competitions, and study grants to the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg and the Académie internationale d’été de Nice.  More information: www.sarahchalfy.com

MICHAEL SHEPPARD is known as “a virtuosic soloist possessed of power, sensitivity, earthiness, and humor” (Whitney Smith, Indianapolis Star) with the “power to make an audience sit up and pay attention…thought-provoking for performers and listeners alike” (James Manheim, All Music Guide ), Michael Sheppard studied with the legendary Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory. He was selected by the American Pianists Association as a Classical Fellow. Sheppard has performed solo recitals and concertos around the world, as well as across the USA, including several solo Weill (Carnegie) Hall recitals and a solo Kennedy Center debut. As a funny little matter of fact, he happens to have given solo recitals in the hometowns of both Mahler (Jihlava, Czech Republic) and Elvis (Tupelo, Mississippi), and enjoys taking in the local culture wherever in the world he finds himself.

An improviser and composer since the single digits of age, he has worked closely with fellow composers John Corigliano, Christopher Theofanidis, Michael Hersch, Robert Sirota and the late Nicholas Maw, demonstrating a deep love of new music; his eclectic tastes also led him recently to musical-direct performances of Jason Robert Brown’s Broadway show “The Last Five Years” as well as “Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens” at the Brighton (U.K.) Fringe Fest, in which show he also made his stage acting debut as the character Dwight, an ex-dancer, even though Sheppard himself in real life has the physical grace of, approximately, a mailbox.

Anyway, to round this out, he is a native of Philadelphia and resides in Baltimore, where he works at both the Peabody Conservatory and the Baltimore School for the Arts, sharing his love and understanding of music and the artistic process with future generations. His hobbies include avoiding political discussions on Facebook, clumsily attempting to master certain bodyweight exercises so as to be able to eat and drink whatever he wants relatively without consequence (and to ameliorate the aforementioned mailbox situation), and reading. Recently he has also forayed into audiobook narration, because apparently he doesn’t have enough stuff to do.