Performing Franz Schubert's Schwanengesang in it's entirety, with a brief intermission.

Schwanengesang, or Swan Song, was published in 1829 just a few month’s after Schubert’s death, and was advertised as the composer’s third major song cycle by the publisher. However, this collection of songs was not a true cycle, as the poems came from three different poets; Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine, and Johann Seidl and the texts do not tell a continuous story. Schubert composed the first 13, of 14 songs in a single sitting on consecutive manuscript pages.

Jonathan Lasch

Jonathan Lasch has been described by critics as possessing a voice of “arresting color and heft,” that is “smooth and flexible,” “thrillingly resonant and firm-lined,” a singer able to “balance a big, powerful sound with a light-handed facility with which he makes every note of the fast passagework perfectly clear, and a performer who is a “master of the stage” and “tour de force.” Most recently, Mr. Lasch performed the roles of Sam in Trouble in Tahiti with Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and Hannah Before in As One with Aepex Contemporary Performance at Kerrytown Concert Hall. Other recent roles include Leporello in Don Giovanni and Marco in A View from the Bridge with Michigan Opera Theater, Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore with Piedmont Opera, Scarpia in Tosca for Opera Saratoga’s Pasta and Puccini Night, Marcello in La bohème with Arbor Opera Theatre and Bar Harbor Music Festival, Masetto in Don Giovanni with Green Mountain Opera Festival, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly with Fargo Moorhead Opera, the title role in Le Nozze di Figaro for Princeton Festival, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte with Master Players Concert Series at University of Delaware and Fargo Moorhead Opera, and Ford in Falstaff with Aspen Opera Theater Center.

An accomplished concert artist, Lasch has sung the premiere of Rene Clausen’s Passion at Minnesota Orchestra Hall, Mozart’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall with Manhattan Concert Productions; Händel’s Messiah with Houston Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, and Calvin Orotorio Society, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with Adrian Symphony, Bach’s Ich habe genug with Trinity Lutheran Church Foundation Series; and performances of Fauré’s and Duruflé’s Requiem, Henry Mallicone’s Beatitude Mass, The Creation, The Five Mystical Songs, and Dover Beach with The Emerson String Quartet. He was also featured as a recitalist in Spain (Leon, Salamanca, Soria, and Baiona La Real). Mr. Lasch will sing his first performances of Orff’s Carmina Burana this season with Adrian Symphony in May and Wayne State University Ensembles at Orchestra Hall in Detroit in March. Jonathan will also perform Schubert’s Schwanengesang several times in venues across Michigan in September.

While earning an Artist Diploma in Opera at University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, Jonathan’s roles included the title role in Verdi’s Falstaff, Melisso in Alcina, Shrike in the Midwest première of Lowell Liebermann’s Miss Lonelyhearts, and Marcello in La bohème. Mr. Lasch performed Ford in Falstaff and Escamillo in La tragédie de Carmen with Seattle Opera’s Young Artist Program and Tarquinius in The Rape of Lucretia with Portland Opera. Jonathan was a Glimmerglass Opera Young American Artist for two summers where he performed Achilla in Giulio Cesare, and covered Scarpia in Tosca and Friedrich in Wagner’s comic opera Das Liebesverbot.

Robert Conway

Robert Conway is an associate professor of piano at Wayne State University, where he is also the director of the piano area. Since 1989, he has performed regularly as orchestral keyboardist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and has been a soloist with them on several occasions. In 2013, he performed the solo piano part to Symphony No. 4 by Charles Ives in Carnegie Hall as part of the Detroit Symphony’s presentation of the complete symphonies of Ives. He has served as a musical representative of the United States as an Artistic Ambassador of the United States Information Agency on a month-long tour of South Asia and the Middle East in 1997, as well as acting as a Department of State Cultural Envoy to Jamaica in 2005 and Azerbaijan in 2008. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has appeared at numerous national and international festivals, performed concertos with many orchestras, collaborated with prestigious composers, given countless premieres and is featured on several recordings on numerous labels. In 2009, he performed as part of the American Romanian Festival in Timisoara and Sannicolau Mare, Romania.

Conway received a bachelor's degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory and master's and doctoral degrees in piano performance from the University of Michigan. His principal teachers were Theodore Lettvin, Rudolf Kolisch and Eugene Bossart.

Schwanengesang (D957)

By Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

1. Liebesbotschaft

2. Kriegers Ahnung

3. Frühlingssehnsucht

4. Ständchen

5. Aufenthalt

6. In der Ferne

7. Abschied

~Intermission~

8. Der Atlas

9. Ihr Bild

10. Das Fischermädchen

11. Die Stadt

12. Am Meer

13. Der Doppelgänger

14. Die Taubenpost (D 965a)