Annual Liederabend to feature Robert Schumann’s song cycle Dichterlieb Oct. 9

Soprano Kiera Duffy and pianist Sandra Geary will present Washington University’s annual Liederabend at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9.

The recital, sponsored by the departments of Music and Music and Germanic Languages & Literatures, both in Arts & Sciences, will take place in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum’s Steinberg Auditorium, located in Steinberg Hall, near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards.

The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, call (314) 935-4841 or email staylor@wustl.edu.

Literally translated as “evening of song,” Liederabend is a German term referring to a recital given by a singer and pianist, particularly of works by 19th-century Austrian or German composers.

The Oct. 9 program will feature Robert Schumann’s beloved cycle of sixteen songs titled Dichterliebe, based on poems of Heinrich Heine. Translated as “Poet’s Love,” the cycle gained popularity when it’s first song, “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai,” was used as the musical and thematic “glue” for Jon Maran’s frequently performed play Old Wicked Songs, which played off-Broadway in the 1990s and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 1996. (The play’s title is a translation of the cycle’s final song, “Die alten, bösen Lieder.”)

Also on the program are five Lieder of Richard Strauss. Austrian composers represented on the program include Hugo Wolf (Lieder on texts of Eduard Mörike) and early works of two Second-Viennese School composers: the Opus 2 songs of Arnold Schoenberg and two songs from Opus 2 by Alban Berg.

A native of Philadelphia, Duffy received a master’s degree in voice from Westminster Choir College. She made her debut last year at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and sang the role of Fatmé in this year’s production of André Grétry’s Beauty and the Beast. She also took grand prize in the 2004 Marian Anderson Competition for Emerging Classical Artists.

Duffy currently resides in New York City and will appear later this season in the New York City Opera’s productions of Rossini’s Il vaggio a Reims and Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince. Last season she was soloist in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and sang the role of Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto for the New Jersey Concert Opera. Forthcoming operatic performances include leading roles in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Rossini’s La Cenerentola.