USC Symphony Orchestra: Poems and Songs

The Washington Post called 16-year veteran of the New York Metropolitan Opera, Janet Hopkins, “angel-voiced.” Hopkins, associate professor of voice at USC, will sing Vaughan Williams’ “Four Last Songs” and Gustav Mahler’s “Rückert-Lieder.” Mahler brings Friedrich Rückert’s poems to life with his luxuriant melodic setting. He wrote beautiful examples of German lyric romantic poems that Mahler collected for this set of songs. The texts of “Four Last Songs” are poems written by Williams’ wife Ursula who penned several books of poetry throughout her lifetime as well as a biography of her late husband. “Procris” and “Menelaus” deal with figures from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and epic poetry while “Tired” and “Hands, Eyes, and Heart” depict images of love between a husband and wife. Also on the program: student winners of the USC Concerto–Aria Competition: Liangjun Zou, violin – Sibelius, Violin Concerto (mvmt. III) and Jake Mann, clarinet – Debussy, “Premiere Rhapsody.”