January 20th: An Evening of Song
A beloved Epiphany Festival tradition: our Saturday evening concert is dedicated to the wonder of song. Sopranos Amanda Densmoor and Laura Choi Stuart join baritone Collin Power and Andrew Jonathan Welch on piano for a program dedicated to the songs of Gustav Holst, his contemporaries and students, and the living American composer Reena Esmail.
Program
Chuti Hui Jagah | The Space Between Reena Esmail
Ek Shabd (One Word)
Joota (Shoe)
Avaaz (Sound/Voice)
Selections from Bredon Hill George Butteworth
and A Shropshire Lad
Loveliest of Trees
The Lads in Their Hundreds
On the idle hill of summer
O Fair Enough Are Sky and Plain
Look Not in my Eyes
Is My Team Ploughing?
Sun, Moon, and Stars Elizabeth Maconchy
Sun, moon, and stars
The Hill
Solitude
Clothed with the Stars
-A ten minute intermission-
Humbert Wolfe Songs Gustav Holst
Persephone
You Cannot Dream
Now in these Fairylands
A Little Music
The Thought
The Floral Bandit
Envoi
The Dream-City
Journey’s End
In the Street of Lost Time
Rhyme
Betelgeuse
Performers
Indonesian-American soprano Amanda Densmoor has delighted audiences across the United States and Southeast Asia. In the 2022/2023 season, Amanda joined Annapolis Opera as one of the bridesmaids in Le nozze di Figaro, performed in Bel Cantanti Opera’s Franz Lehár Operetta Gala, in the chorus of Opera Baltimore’s Faust. Looking forward to the 2023/2024 season, Amanda will return to Annapolis Opera to sing Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, join Manassas Ballet Theatre and Voce Chamber Singers as the soprano soloist in Carmina Burana, and perform a recital of chamber music for flute, voice, and piano with Matinee.M.
With the Maryland Opera Studio, Amanda performed the roles of the Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) and Valentina Scarcella (Later the Same Evening), and covered Dalinda (Ariodante) and Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro). Other roles include Servilia (La clemenza di Tito), Nella (Gianni Schicchi), Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica), Patience (Patience), Counsel (Trial by Jury), Second Woman (Dido and Aeneas), and Kate (The Pirates of Penzance). As a concert soloist, Amanda has sung solos in Carissimi’s Jephte, Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis, Fauré’s Requiem, and Mozart’s Requiem. Amanda is passionate about new music, and has premiered the roles of Mother in Joseph C. Phillip Jr.’s Four Freedoms, and Meera in Omar Najmi’s This Is Not That Dawn.
Equally at home as a choral singer, Amanda has sung many large choral works with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of her choral repertoire include Mozart's Requiem, Holst's The Planets, Rossini's Stabat Mater, Liszt's Dante Symphony, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Kaddish, and the world premiere of Roxanna Panufnik's Across the Line of Dreams.
Amanda earned her Master of Music from the Maryland Opera Studio, and earned her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, summa cum laude, from the University of Maryland.
A multifaceted musician equally at home on the organ bench and the stage, Collin Power is an active organist, conductor, and singer in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore areas. Collin serves as choirmaster and organist at the church of the Ascension and St. Agnes in downtown DC, where he conducts a sixteen-voice semi-professional choir and performs weekly on their Letourneau organ. He also enjoys a rigorous performing and conducting schedule ranging from playing with the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra and accompanying the D.C. based Lux Choir, to singing with such renowned groups as Opera Saratoga, and the Seagle Music Colony. A strong advocate for both early music and contemporary music, especially sacred works by living composers, Collin holds a deep belief in the pastoral role of music ministry to transform lives and bring people closer to God. He is an alumnus of the University of Maryland where he received his Bachelor’s and Master's degrees. Outside of his musical career, he enjoys obscure liturgical history, books about monks, long bike rides and big band music.
Hailed as “a lyric soprano of ravishing quality” by the Boston Globe, Laura Choi Stuart has appeared on the mainstage with Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Boston, Annapolis Opera, Lake George Opera, the In Series, and Opera North in roles including Musetta, Adina, Gilda, Pamina, and Frasquita.
Equally comfortable in recital and concert settings, Laura was honored for art song performance as 2nd prize winner at both the 2010 and 2012 National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards and as one of the 2009 Art Song Discovery Series winners for the Vocal Arts Society. Based in the Washington, DC area,
Laura appears regularly with the Washington Bach Consort and the Washington Master Chorale, in addition to solo appearances with many area ensembles. Solo highlights of recent seasons include Messiah and St. Matthew Passion at the Washington National Cathedral, Brahms Requiem, a holiday celebration featuring Bach Cantata 51 and Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with the New Orchestra of Washington, and works of Tavener and Mealor with Cantate. She received her training at The Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Program for Singers, Opera North, and Berkshire Opera, as well as The New England Conservatory and Dartmouth College.
Laura is Head of Vocal Studies at the Washington National Cathedral and maintains a private teaching studio, as well as sharing resources for adult recreational choral singers over at The Weekly Warm-Up.
Like Mozart, Fauré, and countless others before him, pianist Andrew Jonathan Welch is a musician whose career combines performance, composition, leadership and education. Andrew serves as the artistic director of the Falmouth Chorale, which celebrates its 60th season this year with seven different programs including works by Mozart, Handel, Lutoslawski, and Rosephanye Powell, among others. Other upcoming performances include with the Epiphany Festival, a music festival he founded and leads in Washington DC, and a conducting appearance with the Falmouth Chamber Players Orchestra. This summer he completed two piano-vocal reductions at the personal request of John Harbison and revised his 13-instrument reorchestration of Elgar’s The Music Makers, which will be performed by the City Choir of Washington this spring. Recent recording projects include a CD released on Tonsehen with trumpet player Luke Spence and with saxophonist, Noah Getz on Albany Records with whom he has premiered esteemed jazz saxophonist Chris Potter’s Sonata for Soprano Saxophone.
Additionally, Andrew is the director of music ministries at Allin Congregational Church in Dedham, MA, where he conducts the Allin Choir and performs weekly on the church’s historic 1912 Opus 197 E. M. Skinner organ. Andrew has written over twelve anthems for the Allin choir and has inaugurated an annual lessons and carols service alongside other concert performances for the group. He has also designed and instituted a young artist-in-residence program which has brought numerous high school students to Allin to study church music.
Andrew studied piano performance at American University, the University of Maryland, and the Aspen Music Festival. Currently, he teaches music theory and chamber music as part of the music faculty at Brown University and the New England Conservatory. He also maintains a private studio out of his home in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where he teaches piano and coaches professional singers.
Our inspiration comes from the countless experiences of beauty, both subtle and apparent, that surround us every day. Among the countless inspirational stewards with which Andrew has been privileged to traverse the frontier of music, he counts his principal teacher Rita Sloan, Yuliya Gorenman, Andrew Harley, Audrey Andrist, Carmen Balthrop, and his friend, Richard Giarusso, among the most influential.