Stephen Paulus´ Voices from the Gallery at Vancouver, The Village Singer at Manhattan School of Music

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra performs Stephen Paulus´ visually evocative Voices from the Gallery Saturday, January 27. Voices from the Gallery is comprised of a series of movements, each of which serves as musical commentary and illustration of an individual work of art. Paulus´ subjects include works such as Leonardo da Vinci´s Mona Lisa, Hieronymus Bosch´s Garden of Earthly Delights and Andrew Wythe´s Christina´s World. To convey both the visual and auditory expression conveyed in Voices from the Gallery and the works from which it draws, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will also present projections of the art works simultaneously. Voices from the Gallery was commissioned by The Atlantic Sinfonietta in 1991 under the leadership at that time of Eleanor Eisenmenger. The world premiere was given by The Atlantic Sinfonietta on November 4, 1991 conducted by Andrew Schenck and featuring Janet Bookspan as narrator.

Stephen Paulus' one-act opera The Village Singer enjoyed three performances at the Manhattan School of Music in December, 2006.  Ned Canty, director of MSM's new production, describes the work as "a complex blend of comedy, sentiment and philosophy which becomes deeper and more meaningful upon every listen."  And Patrick J. Smith, writing for Musical America, called Paulus's first opera (composed in 1979 for Opera Theater of St. Louis) "a fully-formed entity—musically quite similar to his later work in its American folk orientation....it represents a deep and continuing undercurrent of much American writing (not least Charles Ives's), and, at its best, is both historically important and well worth rehearing.  It is a pity that, with few exceptions, operatic double bills of one-act works are such box office poison, because there are dozens of excellent such operas that could make up short and very satisfying evenings—as did this one."

For more information on Stephen Paulus, please visit www.schott-music.com.

For more information on the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra´s performance of Voices from the Gallery, please visit www.vancouversymphony.ca.

For more information on the Manhattan School of Music´s production of The Village Singer, please visit www.msmnyc.edu.