Songs composed by Richard Strauss will be featured during the Liederabend (evening of song) presented by Hope College music students on Wednesday, Nov. 12, at 7:30 p.m. in Semelink Lecture Hall of Western Theological Seminary.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The program has been developed in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Strauss was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany.
The college’s ninth traditional Liederabend will feature five singers who are or who have been enrolled in the German Diction class at Hope. Students in the class learn to transliterate German texts into the International Phonetic Alphabet, learn to pronounce German texts, and study the development of the German Lied.
A special feature of this year’s class is a series of Skype master classes with German tenor Goetz Schuricke in Munich, with whom course instructor Linda Dykstra sang when she lived in Germany. Each student performs via Skype for Schuricke during the class, receiving pronunciation and interpretive feedback from him.
The Liederabend tradition was begun by Dykstra in 1998 with the institution of the Diction for Singers sequence of classes. In keeping with the authenticity of the event, coffee and German cakes and tortes are served at a reception following the performance.
Western Theological Seminary is located at 101 E. 13th St., on 13th Street east of College Avenue.