BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro Music Center presents a Faculty Recital featuring romantic works sure to warm winter-weary hearts.
“Messengers of Love: Duos and Solos,” is scheduled for Sunday, March 12, at 4 p.m., at St. Michael's Episcopal Church, 16 Bradley Ave.
Soprano Junko Watanabe and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Hansen will be accompanied by Evelyn Zuckerman at the piano. They will perform works by Robert Schumann, Hector Berlioz, Ernest Chausson, Henry Purcell, Johannes Brahms, and Gabriel Fauré.
In a news release, Hansen said the concert “will include tightly-woven vocal duets, such as Fauré's delicate 'Pleurs d'or' ('Golden Tears') and the driving energy of Brahms' 'Der Boten der Liebe,' or 'Messengers of Love.'”
These works are interspersed with solos from Berlioz' 'Les Nuits d'été,' or “Summer Nights,” some of the most beloved songs of Fauré, and the passionate Liederkreis, Op. 24 of Schumann.
Hansen has performed as a soloist throughout northern New England with choral societies such as the Manchester Choral Society and the Handel Society of Dartmouth College, among others. She is the cantor at St. Denis Parish in Hanover, N.H., is organist and choir director at Sacred Heart Parish in Lebanon, N.H., and is on the faculty of the Upper Valley Music Center and the Brattleboro Music Center.
Soprano Junko Watanabe has performed widely in operas, oratorios, and recitals in the U.S. and in her native Japan. She has been featured as a soloist with the Boston Lyric Opera, Chorus pro Musica, and the Masterworks Chorale, among others. She is on the faculty of Amherst College, Brattleboro Music Center, and Rivers School Conservatory.
A graduate of the Juilliard School, Pianist Evelyn Zuckerman has performed on piano and harpsichord with the Boston, San Jose, and Honolulu Symphony Orchestras, the Boston Pops, and the Hanover Chamber Orchestra. She has taught at Tufts University and at the New England Conservatory of Music. She teaches piano, coaches chamber music, and performs regularly in the Upper Valley with Camerata New England.