Eroica Ensemble Returns to Lambuth: Soprano Serena Benedetti Performs

Jackson, Tenn., Jan. 15, 2010:

Please join Lambuth University on Sunday, Jan. 24, for a concert by the Eroica Ensemble, featuring soprano Serena Benedetti, as they perform works by Claude Debussy, Samuel Barber and Gustav Mahler.

Winner of a Marian Anderson Career Grant for Emerging Classical Artists, Serena Benedetti's operatic appearances have included Susanna in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro with the Sarasota Opera, Musetta in La Bohème with the Palm Beach Opera, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan Tutte with the Utah Symphony and Opera, Violetta in La Traviata with the Lake Placid Sinfonietta, Marzelline in Fidelio with Virginia Opera and Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore with Lyric Opera Cleveland, in which Opera News proclaimed Benedetti "the evening's highlight, fulfilling the letter and the spirit of bel canto."

Benedetti joins conductor Michael Gilbert and the Eroica Ensemble in a program, which includes three masterpieces of early 20th century music: Debussy, Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun"; Barber, "Knoxville: Summer of 1915"; and Mahler, Symphony No. 4 (orchestration by Yoon Jae Lee).

Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" is an American classic. One of Barber's best-loved pieces for vocalists, it sets to music an autobiographical prose poem by Tennessee native James Agee. Born in Knoxville and schooled at St. Andrew's near Sewanee, Agee became an influential mid-century writer and journalist. He produced the path-breaking book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) and Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family (1957). In "Knoxville," Agee's idyllic childhood recollections are perfectly complemented by the nostalgic yet crystalline quality of Barber's music.

A Mahler symphony might seem an unlikely choice for the Eroica Ensemble. After all, the 25 members of Eroica do not resemble the huge orchestral forces normally required for Mahler's symphonies. However, Mahler's Fourth, already the smallest of the symphonies, is being presented in a lively chamber-orchestra version created by composer Yoon Jae Lee to suit the smaller instrumentation of the Eroica Ensemble.

Based in Memphis, the Eroica Ensemble is a non-profit organization, which brings together musicians from across the country for free public concerts in the communities of West Tennessee. Conductor Michael Gilbert, a Memphis native and a veteran of the New York Philharmonic, leads the orchestra. This year, Eroica is presenting 10 orchestra concerts in Memphis and Jackson. Audiences for Eroica concerts have been growing steadily since the orchestra's start in 2007. Performances this year at First Congregational Church have attracted as many as 500 concertgoers to Midtown's Cooper-Young District for evening shows. Typically, the orchestra gives two weekend performances of each program: a Memphis concert on Saturday evenings and an "out-of-town" concert in Jackson on Sunday afternoons. Please visit www.eroicamemphis.org for more information.

Lambuth University is affiliated with the United Methodist church and was founded in 1843. In the ensuing years, Lambuth has earned a reputation as one of the South's premier liberal arts universities and has received national recognition as one of the nation's Top 250 Liberal Arts Colleges by U.S. News & World Report and as one of the nation's "Top 100 Outstanding Colleges" by The Washington Post.