Pre-Concert Talks
Pre-performance talks for the Toledo Opera, 2015-present
Four to six annual 30-minute pre-performance talks.
2015: Lucia di Lammermoor, Madama Butterfly
2016: Porgy and Bess, Roméo et Juliette, Il barbiere di Siviglia
2017: Le nozze di Figaro, Vanessa, Les pêcheurs de perles, Rigoletto
2018: I Dream, Die Zauberflöte
2019: Carmen, The Ballad of Baby Doe, Macbeth
2020: La bohème, Scalia/Ginsburg [cancelled due to the pandemic]
2021: Il Trovatore
2022: La traviata, Suor Angelica and Cavalleria rusticana
2023: The Merry Widow, La Cenerentola (Rossini)
2024: Roméo et Juliette (Gounod), Ragtime, Tosca
“Schubert’s Winterreise”
Pre-performance introduction, Christopher Scholl, tenor, Kevin Bylsma, piano.
Faculty Artist Series, College of Musical Arts, 9 October 2019
Music Marathon | “The Fanny and Felix Festival: A Musical Portrait of the Mendelssohns”
Introduction to chamber pieces performed by members of the Toledo Symphony Orchestra during the 2018 Music Marathon at the Toledo Museum of Art; co-sponsored by the TMA and the TSO. GlasSalon at the Toledo Museum of Art, 11 August 2018
“Mahler and Das Lied von der Erde”
Pre-concert talk; version for chamber orchestra of
Das Lied von der Erde, conducted by Maria Mercedes Diaz Garcia.
College of Musical Arts, Kobacker Hall, 19 April 2017
Pre-performance talk for an all-Tchaikovsky concert
Performed by BGSU’s Philharmonia Orchestra, with soloist Noah Bendix-Balgley, concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic.
College of Musical Arts, Bryan Recital Hall, 14 November 2016
Pre-concert talks for performances of Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, Brahms’s Deutsche Volkslieder, WoO 33, and Schumann’s Dichterliebe.
Special Guest at Evmelia IV Music Festival, Agria, Greece, March-April 2015
Bowling Green State University Festival Series, 2009-2014
Pre-concert presentations for over 12 performances,
by guest artists that included Anderson and Roe, Robert Levin, Chanticleer,
Jeremy Denk, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Turtle Island Quartet,
Christopher O’Reily, The New York Voices.
New Music Ensemble,
Bowling Green State University
Pre-concert talk for a concert of the New Music Ensemble, conducted by John J. Pearse. Works by Giacinto Scelsi, Michael Quell, Michael Kasinger.
College of Musical Arts, Bryan Recital Hall, 6 March 2014
“‘Freunde das Leben ist Lebenswert’”
Pre-performance lecture for performances of The Merry Widow,
directed by Ronald Shields.
Wolfe Center for the Arts, Bowling Green State University, March 2013
Chamber Music Cincinnati, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, 2006-2009
Pre-concert presentations for over 15 performances,
by guest artists and ensembles that included the Juilliard Quartet,
St. Lawrence Quartet, Miró Quartet, Daedalus Quartet (with
Awadagin Pratt, piano), Pro Arte Quartet, Artemis Quartet,
Trio con Brio Copenhagen, and more.
“Verdi’s Legacy, A Hundred Years Later”
Pre-concert lecture for ‘SeptemberFest’ at Longy, celebrating
Giuseppe Verdi’s Centennial.
Longy School of Music, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 2001
