Compelling Start to Schubert Club’s Summer Song Fest
By Rob Hubbard, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Jun. 10–A sense of place. Maybe that’s what the Schubert Club’s St. Paul Summer Song Festival has been needing.
This annual celebration of the human voice hasn’t drawn the crowds it’s deserved, despite boasting some world-class singers. So this year’s festival seems more like a regional affair. At least it did at Monday night’s opening concert at Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul. It felt like the Schubert Club had way too much music to fit into Friday’s 125th anniversary celebration, so they doffed their hats to other musical Minnesotans.
But this concert didn’t feel like the composers’ overflow room. It was a very entertaining evening of songs by composers whose work informed the Schubert Club’s early concerts and those who have emerged from Minnesota in recent years. And — thanks to the marvelous voice of soprano Carrie Henneman Shaw and the brisk and light-hearted narrative of composers Abbie Betinis and David Evan Thomas — it was a concert that was informative, fun and musically rewarding.
One could say that the first half of this concert was good for filling in historical gaps (in entertaining fashion), while the second half is where the revelations occurred. That’s when Shaw emerged as the concert’s major musical force. Coming out of intermission with a haunting, hypnotic work by Ernst Krenek, she transfixed listeners with her clear, brilliant high notes. She seemed to grow more confident in her material with each new song, making works by Juliana Hall
and Edie Hill her own.
A similar confidence filled soprano Karen Clift’s aria from Libby Larsen’s “Clair de Lune,” which used Debussy’s piano piece as a launching pad for a paean to flight.
Baritone Aaron Larson offered some fine performances — particularly on a gently delivered Stephen Paulus piece at evening’s end — and pianist Ruth Palmer was strong throughout this very varied program. But, just as past Summer Song Festivals have brought us exceptional singers on their way up, one may wonder if Carrie Henneman Shaw isn’t this year’s big discovery.
Rob Hubbard is an associate producer for American Public Media’s “Performance Today.”
What: The Schubert Club’s St. Paul Summer Song Festival When, where and tickets: Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, noon today through Friday, Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth St., St. Paul; free. Jazz with Judi Donaghy and friends, 7 p.m. today, the Commodore, 79 Western Ave., St. Paul; $15. Music of Dominick Argento, 7 p.m. Wednesday, James J. Hill House, 240 Summit Ave., St. Paul; $15. A recital by soprano Karen Clift, 7 p.m. Thursday, SPCO Center, 408 St. Peter St., St. Paul; $20. The Schubert Club’s 125th anniversary celebration, 7 p.m. Friday, SPCO Center, 408 St. Peter St., St. Paul; $20. Call: 651-292-3268 or schubert.org
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