"Wild & Tended" with Mary Mackenzie, soprano and Matthew Jaskot, piano

About the Program

The art song is a cultivated form that emerged in the early 19th century, as composers began to set poetry to music in a more deliberate and expressive way to convey the emotional and psychological depth of the text.

Art song was born as an intimate genre, written to be performed in people's homes — music for a room, for a gathered circle of friends, for a voice close enough to hear every detail. It continues to be a vibrant and diverse genre, and this program lives in that tension — between the wild and the tended — tracing art song from its Romantic roots to music written in our own time.

Clara Schumann       Selections from Sechs Lieder aus Jucunde, op. 23

Hugo Wolf                   Das verlassene Mägdlein

                                       In dem Schatten meiner Locken

                                       Die Spröde

                                       Ich Hab in Penna

Arnold Schoenberg   Galathea (1901)

                                        Ghasel, op. 6

                                        Selections from Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, op. 15

Lili Boulanger             Selections from Clairières dans le ciel

Francis Poulenc         Selections from Le Travail du Peintre

Charles Ives                Housatonic at Stockbridge

Aaron Copland           There Came a Wind like a Bugle

Samuel Barber           A Green Lowland of Pianos

John Frantzen            Three Frost Songs

About the Artists

Critically acclaimed as “a soprano of extraordinary agility and concentration” by The New York Times, soprano Mary Mackenzie has emerged as one of contemporary music’s most compelling storytellers. With a career that has taken her to performances in 11 U.S. States and Washington D.C., as well as a seasoned discography spanning eleven years, Ms. Mackenzie is particularly known for her evocative chamber music performances. For her efforts, she has earned praise for a “sensational, epically unsettling” rendition of George Crumb by the Boston Globe and her “mystifying” vocal effects by The Financial Times.

Examples of some of her most immersive work to date includes several “one-woman” performances, like the United States premiere of Héctor Parra’s monodrama Hypermusic: Ascension at the Guggenheim Museum, a highly technological experience which utilized Harvard professor of theoretical physics Lisa Randall as librettist. At the Bravo! Vail Festival, Ms. Mackenzie performed and designed the storyline for a cabaret-style, costumed and staged rendition of De Leeuw - Im wunderschoenen Monat mai, a Pierrot-style “recomposed” adaptation of works by Schumann and Schubert, with new music collective Le Train Bleu—she has since continued to perform the work with the Redlands Symphony and with The Knights ensemble. Elsewhere, she has performed chamber music with American Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Ekmeles, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Collage New Music, Fulcrum Point, and the Talea Ensemble, among many others.

Ms. Mackenzie’s discography includes five albums of collaborations with a bevy of modern composers. On Albany Records, she has frequently collaborated with the MacArthur Grant awardee composer John Harbison on albums such as Vocalisms: Songs of Daniel Crozier, John Harbison, James Primosch, and Ned Rorem; Closer to My Own Life with the Albany Symphony; Songs After Hours (a World Premiere). Her other album work includes Cathedral Music with The 21st Century Consort, Louis Karchin: To the Sun and Stars on Bridge Records, and The Opera America Songbook.

Originally from Madison, WI, Mary Mackenzie holds an education from The Manhattan School of Music (M.M.) and the Cleveland Institute of Music (B.M., Professional Studies Certificate). She lives with her husband Barry in Worcester, MA, where she enjoys running, baking, and photography. www.marymacksoprano.com

Matthew Jaskot is a composer, pianist, organist, concert curator, and a professor of music at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA where he teaches music theory, composition, and is the collaborative pianist for the College Choir. Matt is a versatile pianist who specializes in 20th and 21st century music, while being equally adept at performing traditional repertoire, jazz, and popular music. He has performed nationally and internationally at various festivals and conferences, most recently as guest performer in the Ecce Ensemble, premiering works at the Etchings Festival in Northampton, MA. Last spring, he organized a program, featuring a two-piano performance of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, with colleague Sonya Ovrutsky Fensome, a collaborative concert with the dance department at Holy Cross. His own music is organic and eclectic, draws from a variety of traditions, and often explores concepts related to the dichotomy between activity and stasis, the perception of time, and memory. Recent projects include By the Ocean in May, a double concerto for flute and bassoon, and his concert-length song-cycle Close and Apart, written in collaboration with poet Susan Elizabeth Sweeney and premiered in September of 2023. The premiere of the latter was supported by a grant from the Worcester Arts Council. Matt is currently working with Sweeney on a new major work inspired by the Blackstone River that will be premiered by soprano Mary Mackenzie and a chamber ensemble in February of 2027. Matt holds a DMA from the University of Maryland in College Park, and has studied composition with Osvaldo Golijov, Shirish Korde, Mark Wilson, and Tom DeLio, and piano with Gina Fredericks and Marian C. Hanshaw. For more information, please visit www.matthewjaskot.com