About the Show
Poetry, music, and live electronics make up Philippe Leroux’s VOI(Rex), an astounding acoustic spectacle. The one and only Lucy Dhegrae stars as the vocal soloist, with an expert band of CP’s finest conducted by Artistic Director Jacob Ashworth.
The whole program follows the path of virtuosic works, with a rare hearing of Jukka Tiensuu‘s Plus IV, Mauricio Kagel‘s single-minded Unguis Incarnatus Est, Simon Steen-Andersen‘s playful sonata for contact microphones, Difficulties Putting it into Practice, and a little bonus material from the 14th century by the greatest composer of poetry and music, Guillaume de Machaut.
Tickets also available for Cantata Profana Saturday, June 2nd at 7pm.
About the Artists
Jacob Ashworth
“A flat-out triumph for its two fearless performers” was the praise lavished by Opera News for violinist Jacob Ashworth’s 2015 fully staged, memorized performance of Kurtag’s Kafka-Fragments. Across the spectrum of classical music, Jacob has gained a reputation as a consummate stylist, from his “exacting and sensitive” interpretations of modern works (Boston Globe) to his “diligent attention to [baroque] period style” (NY Times). In 2012 at the Yale School of Music he founded Cantata Profana, an ensemble for vocal and instrumental chamber music, which received the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming in 2016, and for which he serves as Artistic Director. He is Co-Music Director of Heartbeat Opera, most recently conducting a “richly detailed yet delicate rendering” (NY Times) of Puccini’s Butterfly in 2017. And for their 2016 production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, the New Yorker noted, “Ashworth, leading from the violin, elicited a performance that was elegant, boisterous, and melancholy by turns.”
Jacob has been an artist at the Staunton Music Festival, New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas, Wellesley Composer’s Conference, Lake George Music Festival, and Music Mountain. He earned his doctorate from Yale under renowned violinist Ani Kavafian, and has also studied baroque violin with Robert Mealy as a member of the Yale Baroque Ensemble. Jacob has performed extensively on period instruments, including as concertmaster for Nicholas McGegan with Mark Morris Dance Group, and with Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Juilliard 415, Yale’s Schola Cantorum, and New York Baroque Incorporated. His first album, “Hermestänze,” featuring cycles for violin by composer Susan Kander appears on MSR Records.
www.JacobAshworth.com
Lucy Dhegrae
“Vocal versatility and an omnivorous curiosity” (New York Times) are the hallmarks of Lucy Dhegrae, a passionate vocalist with a flexible technique that fits a variety of styles. She has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Talea Ensemble, the Albany Symphony, among others, at such venues as Miller Theatre, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center.
Dhegrae, who is “everywhere new music is being sung” (New York Classical Review) regularly premieres new vocal works and operas, and has worked closely with such composers as Unsuk Chin, Jason Eckardt, Susan Botti, Alexandra Vrebalov, and Sky Macklay. Her opera premieres include Trillium J by Anthony Braxton, Andy: A Popera (Opera Philadelphia/Bearded Ladies Cabaret), A Marvelous Order by Judd Greenstein, and Ashley Fure’s The Force of Things. Dhegrae’s festival appearances include Darmstadt (Germany), Klangspuren (Austria), Mostly Mozart, Bard Music Festival, Gesher Music Festival (St. Louis), and Aldeburgh Music Festival (as a Britten-Pears Young Artist).
As “soprano and raconteur” (The New Yorker) she directs Resonant Bodies Festival, a festival of contemporary vocal music that takes place in NYC and beyond, which she founded in 2013. She graduated from the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program (MM in Vocal Performance ’12) as well as the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance (BM in Vocal Performance ’08) and is a core member of the new music ensemble Contemporaneous.
