Forget This Night: Reactions

Sam and I couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic response to our second album together, Forget This Night.

Two and a half years after first performing Lili Boulanger’s cycle Clairières dans le ciel together and knowing instantly that we had to record it, we were delighted that so many critics and friends loved it as much as we do—and that the musical and emotional connections with the gorgeous songs of Szymanowski and Bacewicz resonated strongly. The disc was the definition of a labor of love; we (Sam and I plus Frerik, our tireless producer, engineer, and champion) are grateful to everyone who has listened, written about the project, or supported it along the way.

If you haven’t listened yet, you can buy the physical CD (with my liner notes, texts and translations, and all the beautiful images and design) here (NL & Europe), here (UK), or here (United States). You can stream the album on Spotify, Apple Music, or your favorite platform.

The album was profiled (with interviews and live studio performances) on BBC’s In Tune with Sean Rafferty and NPO Radio 4’s Podium with Dieuwerte Blok. Lex Bohlmeijer chose the album for an extensive week-long exploration on his program Passaggio on NPO Radio 4 before the November 17th release, featuring an in-depth interview.

Below, a roundup of all the written press coverage (as far as I know). First, some highlights; further down, in order of appearance, is a full list. Non-English texts have been translated here, but are linked in their original languages.READ MORE

“boundless theater of the mind”: the fall 2021 concerts that could

I’m writing from my yellow couch, site of last year’s Covid stagnation, as a bunch of new regulations have just slammed hurriedly into place to protect the Netherlands against the Omicron wave. Our uncertain times aren’t over, and the rest of my winter is suddenly thrown into doubt again. So I’m feeling especially lucky that some lovely projects were able to go ahead in the fall with friends old and new. A roundup, so that I can look back later and remember:

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I performed Debussy’s ravishing La damoiselle élue with Holland Upper Voices, my dear friend Drew Santini conducting, and pianist Flore Merlin—listen to the broadcast of this piece, or the full concert, on the Radio4 website.READ MORE

Regards sur l’Infini: Reactions

Sam and I have been overwhelmed by the response to Regards sur l’Infini, our debut disc as a duo, the project that kept us both moving forward through the hardest months of 2020. We’ve heard from many friends, and critics (see below), and critics who are now friends because they sought us out to talk about what we made, that the album has helped others bear the uncertainty of the current moment, too, and has provided beauty and inspiration. We couldn’t have asked for a more sympathetic reception for our unusual and personal program of songs.

Here is a summary of the press response to the disc: reviews, radio programs, blogs, interviews. The album also made several best-of-2020 lists: Parool, Diskotabel, and Basia Jaworski all chose it as one of their top picks of the year.

Reviews

The Guardian (Erica Jeal’s Classical Album of the Week): “Glowing, intriguing French chamber music … Katharine Dain and Sam Armstrong have used lockdown to produce a memorable, effortlessly polished album. … An extraordinarily polished and thought-through disc. At its centre is a glowing performance of Messiaen’s 1937 song cycle Poèmes pour Mi, Dain’s voice crystalline yet powerful when required, Armstrong’s piano effortlessly propulsive.”

The Times (Geoff Brown): “You could try gazing into infinity with Katharine Dain, an American soprano with scorching top notes, based in the Netherlands, and the incisive British pianist Sam Armstrong. As a virus album, Regards sur l’infini is impressively elegant and thoughtful, featuring cunningly chosen French song settings presented in palindrome form. … Penetrating artistry … perfect in every way.” (pdf)READ MORE

Concertgebouw Orchestra debut on four days’ notice

I was honored to step in this week as soprano soloist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, one of the world’s greatest. A colleague had fallen ill just before the planned premiere of a piece by Bram Kortekaas. I was contacted on Sunday afternoon: could I learn the fourteen-minute score immediately? Would the piece be a good fit? Was my command of Dutch language good enough? I had worked once before with Antony Hermus, the wonderful conductor of this all-Dutch program, but the orchestra didn’t know me, and I know perfectly well what a risk it is for management to make a call like this at the last minute.

I looked through the score: some high Cs and Ds, some lowish notes, some quick tempi and big intervallic leaps, some lyrical passages, lots and lots and lots of Dutch. I called my friend Manoj, who promised to help with the text. Manageable. I took a deep breath and responded: Yes, I can do it.

The next few days were a blur.READ MORE

“merciless beauty”

Our album is out!! Regards sur l’Infini was officially born on November 27th, 2020. Sam and I performed a small CD release concert in the gorgeous concert hall in Nijmegen, the same space where we recorded, that night, and we are overwhelmed by the positive response to the disc so far.

The Guardian chose Regards sur l’Infini as their classical pick of the week: “a memorable, effortlessly polished album.”

MusicWeb International has given us a sublime review and one of their coveted “Recommended” labels.

Beautifully recorded, exquisitely performed. … Katharine Dain is perfection itself. Her tone is light but not insubstantial, flexible, expressive and colourful, with a natural vibrato that you can listen to forever. Sam Armstrong’s accompaniment is sensitive and equally expressively communicative, an ideal mirror to Dain’s voice. … A superbly curated programme of French music. … This is the kind of recording that reminds us that there is not only beauty in melancholy, but also a wealth of inspiration.

—Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International, 25 November 2020

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Wagner & van Veldhuizen with the NSO

I’m so grateful to have been involved in the 2020 Nederlands Studenten Orkest tour of a concert program fittingly titled “Extase,” which closed Sunday night to massive fervor in the Grote Zaal of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. The orchestra (made up of all university students, approximate ages 18-26, led by Manoj Kamps) worked for four weeks, I for three, with an intensive rehearsal period followed by 13 concerts in 15 days. It was exhausting, it was massively stimulating, and it was incredibly fun. It was my first time singing Wagner, the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde; the kids of the orchestra made that a safer, more exploratory, more joyful experience than it might have been in another context. (I’m definitely a lyric soprano, not a dramatic or Wagnerian voice, but with this group, and this conductor, I didn’t have to worry about balance or Fach or long-term implications: I could just focus on making the most sublime, rapturous music I could, with everyone in full support.Judge for yourself below, where I’ve posted the recording, if you’d like.) And we built an exciting new piece from scratch: Rick van Veldhuizen’s unde imber et ignes, which I loved discovering and singing. Keep your eyes on his name, everyone—Rick is a star.

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Boccherini and Mendelssohn in Brussels

In a very last-minute change, I will be replacing the Spanish soprano Nuria Rial tonight in a concert presented by Bozar Brussels with the Auryn Quartet and bassist James Munro. The repertoire is Boccherini’s lovely Stabat Mater for soprano and strings, as well as music by Bach and Mendelssohn. I wish Nuria a speedy recovery and am grateful to my new colleagues for their generosity and beautiful playing in our rehearsal today.

On the early trip down from Rotterdam this morning, I was also treated to a stunning winterscape from the train window. Perk!

several lovely reviews, plus the Choc de Classica!

I’ve been slow to post reviews this spring, but I’ve had particularly kind words about several recent performances, and I’m delighted to announce that Damask‘s debut album, O schöne Nacht, has received a prestigious award: the Choc de Classica.

Here is an excerpt of the glowing review of Damask’s disc (translated from the French): “Brahms’ writing, which weaves voices together so naturally that each seems born of the others, is a perfect fit for the spirit of Damask Quartet, an international vocal ensemble founded in 2014 in the Netherlands. Katharine Dain’s agile, round soprano, the voluptuous and vibrant mezzo-soprano of Marine Fribourg, Guy Cutting’s flexible and lustrous tenor voice, and the deep warmth of baritone Drew Santini are all portals to the composer’s shimmering sound-world. From pianist Flore Merlin’s first arpeggios, Brahms’s Vier Quartette Op. 92 envelop us in the warmth of the night, its romantic possibilities and its sensuality.” The review will be in the June 2019 issue of Classica magazine. We are so pleased that our hard and careful work has been consistently rewarded with great press since the CD was released in the winter; receiving such an award feels like a real milestone.

In April, I jumped in for an ill colleague in songs of Zemlinsky and Berg in Austria’s Osterfestival. It was an utterly beautiful experience—the meeting of musicians, repertoire, location, and concentrated atmosphere was inspiring, and I couldn’t believe that it was all put together on such short notice. The Kronen Zeitung agreed (translated from the German): “Alban Berg’s ‘Seven Early Songs’ [were] sung by soprano Katharine Dain, who made these strange melodies seem completely natural with her vocal coloring and soulful dynamics. In Zemlinsky’s ‘Six Songs after Maeterlinck,’ she and the musicians meshed the simplicity of the vocal line with sensual instrumental sound.”

And in May, I sang my first Brahms Requiem. The Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote a nice piece on the concert, including the following: “Brahms surely was thinking of his late mother while composing the fifth movement, Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit (You now have sorrow), a rare expression of tender consolation set for solo soprano with the chorus largely in an accompanimental role. The soloist’s very first phrase is a stern test of the singer’s breath control, a long ascending and descending melody that is entirely exposed over a silky cushion of muted strings. Katharine Dain was appropriately seraphic, seemingly beyond the tiresome bodily necessity of breathing, and the strings were equally ravishing. As with the earlier baritone solo, the interplay of soloist, chorus, and orchestra was handled sensitively, with exemplary balances and unanimity of expression. Dain had an especially radiant moment ascending to a high A at “[I] have found great comfort,” and the ending was sweetly maternal (“I will comfort you, as one whom his mother comforts”), capped by a celestial high pianissimo chord in the wind instruments.”