The Oxford Song Network: Poetry and Performance
About
This network was funded from August 2015 to August 2017.
This network brought together academics from across a number of disciplines to explore the interaction of music and words in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century European song tradition. Refusing to see song as a simple form of direct translation from one artistic language to another, it instead interpreted song as a complex series of dynamic interactions between literature, music and – perhaps most crucially – embodied performance. It explored the role played by song in shaping the literary canon, but also in how poets drew on musical metaphors and techniques to comment on their own creative practice. Equally, it considered how song in performance represented a site where not only music and poetry met, but where various cultural traditions were conveyed across national and linguistic borders in acts of performance and reception. The network worked with practitioners, primarily through its collaboration with the Oxford Lieder Festival, but also with undergraduate performers across the university.
Convenors:
Alex Lloyd, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
Laura Tunbridge, Faculty of Music
Philip Bullock, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages
Contact:
Laura Tunbridge
People
Events
Past Events
The Oxford Song Network: Poetry and Performance Seminar (November 2015)
First seminar
The meeting consisted of a number of talks and presentations, and offered an opportunity for discussion for all participants.
French Song (February 2016)
Helen Abbott led a workshop for undergraduates and graduate students, designed to explore the interpretation, translation and performance of songs in different languages.
Opening discussion about the contexts and possible interpretations of the poems
Readings of the poems in the original language and comparison with submitted translations
Performance of key extracts which raise particular issues of translation and interpretation
Closing ‘recital’ of the songs (whether in the original or in translation)
Feedback and closing discussion
Performance of key extracts which raise particular issues of translation and interpretation
Closing ‘recital’ of the songs (whether in the original or in translation)
Feedback and closing discussion
German Song Onstage 1770-1914 (February 2016)
A collaborative conference organised by the Royal College of Music, the University of Oxford, and the German Historical Institute, London.
Conference Committee:
- Natasha Loges | Royal College of Music
- Laura Tunbridge | Oxford University
- Andreas Gestrich | German Historical Institute London
German Song (March 2016)
Natasha Loges led a workshop for undergraduates and graduate students
- Opening discussion about the contexts and possible interpretations of the poems
- Readings of the poems in the original language and comparison with submitted translations
- Performance of key extracts which raise particular issues of translation and interpretation
- Closing ‘recital’ of the songs (whether in the original or in translation)
- Feedback and closing discussion
Oxford Lieder Festival (March 2016)
2016 Spring Weekend of Song - Renowned recitalists, emerging talent, auditions for the next generation of star artists, masterclasses and more.
Song as Performance (March 2016)
An afternoon of talks dedicated to the topic of song as a form of performance.
Programme:
- Welcome, followed by two papers
- Eric Clarke (Oxford): ‘Being There: Voice, Body, Presence in Song’
- Mia Pistorius (Oxford): ‘Singing the Body Electric: Metaphor, Embodiment, Song’
- Second two papers
- Ceri Owen (Cambridge): ‘A Community in Song: Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel and The House of Life'
- Natasha Loges (Royal College of Music): ‘The Performance of German Song Cycles: Singers, Audiences and Concert Programmes in History’
- Q&A
Skippin' Reels of Rhyme: Bob Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man and America's Whimsical Dream (June 2016)
A concert featuring Allegra Giagu (mezzo-soprano), Nicole Panizza (piano), and Hannah Sanders (soprano).
Programme included folk arrangements of Bob Dylan's most famous poems.
Lyric and Lyricism Conference (September 2016)
A day that brought together academics and performers from different disciplines (including Classicists, English and German literary specialists, musicologists, musicians and poets) and centered around a lecture-recital given by renowned musicians Stephan Loges (bass-baritone) and Natasha Loges (piano).
Schumann's Friends and Followers (October 2016)
A two-week feast of song featuring Oxford Lieder's trademark progamming of related chamber and choral works, study events, artistic partnerships and world-class musicians.
Schumann's Song Cycle (October 2016)
Laura Tunbridge discussed Schumann and the song cycle, a form Schumann took from Beethoven and Schubert and developed in new directions. Part of the The Schumann Project from 14-29 October 2016.
Late Style and Legacy (October 2016)
Study Day: Laura Tunbridge led a study day on Schumann's later works and on his legacy. (Part of the The Schumann Project)
LATE STYLE & LEGACY I
- Laura Tunbridge introduced the 'problems' associated with Schumann's later works.
- Natasha Loges - talk about the arrival of Brahms in the Schumanns' lives in 1853, and both the creative inspiration and the difficulties that followed.
- ROBERT, CLARA & JOHANNES
- Lunchtime recital by Aoife Miskelly, Johnny Herford & William Vann
LATE STYLE & LEGACY II
- Laura Tunbridge talked to Dr John Spicer about Schumann's final illness and years in the asylum in Bonn.
- Ensemble ISIS, the University of Oxford's contemporary music ensemble, performed Robin Holloway's Fantasy Pieces on the Heine Liederkreis of Schumann, with pianist Maki Sekiya, which incorporates a performance of the Op. 24 Liederkreis. Introduced by the composer.
- Robert Saxton, Professor at the Oxford Faculty of Music, talked to composer Robin Holloway about their experiences of Schumann and the part his music has played in their own compositional lives.
Japanese Song (November 2016)
Songs by the composer Yamada Kōsaku (1886-1965) were performed and discussed. The aim was to present these songs to scholars working in other traditions, and to find out where they see fruitful points of connection or differentiation.
Hands, Gestures, Voices (March 2017)
A study event that looked at the relationship between songs and the experience of the people who perform them.
Contributions by Natasha Loges, Ceri Owen, Susan Rutherford and Laura Tunbridge.
Roderick Williams (Baritone) (April 2017)
The TORCH Oxford Song Network hosted 'Roderick Williams (Baritone)'
Programme
- Masterclass with young singers
- In Conversation with Professor Philip Ross Bullock (University of Oxford).
- Masterclass with Stephan and Natasha Loges (October 2017)
Baudelaire: From the Depths of Beauty (October 2017)
Helen Abbot led two sessions entitled "Baudelaire: From the Depths of Beauty" to explore the poet's appearances in the music of Berg and Debussy and looking more widely at the influence and dissemination of his work.
Mahler: Reader, Thinker, Composer (October 2017)
Session one
- Robert Samuels: Mahler’s Songs Without Words
- Richard Wigmore: From Innocence to Experience: Mahler’s Wunderhorn settings
- Anna Stoll Knecht: Military echoes in Mahler’s early songs
Session two
- Peter Franklin: ‘First I’ll sing you a song...’ When Mahler’s singer ‘sings’.
- Charlotte Lee: The poetry of grieving: Rückert, Mahler and the Kindertotenlieder
- Laura Tunbridge: ‘Auch kleine Dinge’: the scale of the fin-de-siècle Lied
Revolution in Russia (October 2017)
Study Day led by Philip Ross Bullock:
A day exploring Russian song in the centenary of the Russian Revolution.
- Rebecca Mitchell explored the lives of composers, performers and music-lovers in the decades running up to the collapse of the Russian Empire.
- Pauline Fairclough examined the dramatic impact of the October Revolution on music-making in Soviet Russia.
- Philip Ross Bullock looked at the relationship between Russia’s two greatest song composers around the turn of the twentieth century.
Concert schedule:
- Lunchtime Recital: Russian Romances (Katherine Broderick & Sergey Rybin)
- Rush-Hour Recital: 1917: The Last Flowering (Alexander Karpeyev)
- Evening Recital: Tchaikovsky (Andrei Bondarenko & Gary Matthewman)
- Late-Night: Rachmaninov (Ilona Domnich & Sholto Kynoch)
Recital of American Art-Song (November 2017)
Song Recital/Concert:
The primary theme - the healing power of music in times of turmoil, strife, loss and personal challenge.
Songs included:
- Juliana Hall's The Holy Sonnets of John Donne (2014)
- Two songs from Libby Larsen's Chanting to Paradise, featuring texts by Emily Dickinson.
- Songs by Kurt Weill (set to texts by Walt Whitman), and H.L Adams.
- The recital concluded with Ned Rorem's Aftermath (2001-2002), a song cycle commissioned by the 2002 Ravinia Festival in response to the atrocities of 9/11 in 2001.
Brahms and Beyond (March 2018)
An afternoon of talks by Natasha Loges, Laura Tunbridge, Jennifer Ronyak and Sophie Fuller. Inspired by Natasha Loges's new book, Brahms and His Poets (Boydell, 2017), as well as celebrating the hundredth anniversary of women's suffrage.
SESSION 1: Alex Lloyd (Chair)
- Natasha Loges (Royal College of Music, London): ‘Hearing Women’s Voices in Brahms’s Solo Songs’
- Laura Tunbridge (Oxford): ‘Robert Schumann’s Frauenleben’
SESSION 2: Alex Lloyd (Chair)
- Jennifer Ronyak (Graz): ‘Two Women, Three Poems, and Two Private Acts of Translation: Fanny Hensel’s Three Songs After Heinrich Heine from Mary Alexander’
- Sophie Fuller (Trinity Laban Conservatory of Music and Dance): ‘Songs and the Late Victorian and Edwardian Salon: The Case of Maude Valérie White (1855-1937)’
The Foxes of Oxford (March 2018)
Turtle Opera Project: a drama and music project for 10 – 14 year olds with Autistic Spectrum Conditions, meeting every Saturday between January and March creating a piece, with all the music and creative ideas coming from the participants.
Performance: Isolde (1903 / 2018) (April 2018)
Part of the Wagner 1900 Conference
The focal point was a performance based on the historic production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde directed by Gustav Mahler in Vienna in 1903.
- Artistic team:Isolde: Kirstin Sharpin
- Brangäne: Mae Heydorn
- Conductor: John Warner
- Stage director: Cecilia Stinton
- Stage designer: India Jacques
- Lighting designer: Jennifer Hurd
WINDRUSH: Race | Identity | Calypso (June 2018)
An event with leading calypsonians Tobago and d'Lime playing at the St John’s College Auditorium and including a discussion on the history of calypso music, the legacies of Windrush and Caribbean culture in the UK with a panel of experts.
Roberto Bolaño’s Novel the Skating Rink, Garsington Opera’s New Production (June 2018)
Garsington Opera presented a new commission
Composer David Sawer with playwright Rory Mullarkey and based on the novel by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño.
The event included a talk by Ben Bollig, Professor of Spanish American Literature, in discussion with Professor Philip Bullock, Professor of Russian Literature and Music, about the opera’s source text, Roberto Bolaño’s prize-winning 1993 novel La pista de hielo.
Chair: Julie Curtis
The Most Musical Nation (October 2018)
Philip Bullock and Barbara Henry discussed Yiddish poetry and music that originated in the Pale of Settlement.
Rosa Newmarch and the Music of Moravia (October 2018)
Philip Ross Bullock introduced the writer Rosa Newmarch, a passionate advocate of the music of Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia in Britain, and traced her friendship with Leoš Janáček.
Exploring Nordic Song (October 2018)
Oxford Lieder Festival 2018
Norway
- Eira Huse mezzo-soprano
- Olga Jørgensen piano
- Daniel Grimley speaker
- Edvard Grieg’s folk-inspired cycle Haugtussa and songs by Ludvig Irgens-Jensen
Denmark
- Mathias Monrad Møller tenor
- Dahl Laursen piano
- Leah Broad speaker
- Songs by Carl Nielsen, Peter Heise and Peter Lange-Müller
Finland
- Melis Jaatinen mezzo-soprano
- Juho Alakärppä piano
- Daniel Grimley speaker
- Songs by Jean Sibelius, Leevi Madetoja and Toivo Kuula
Iceland
- Oddur Jónsson baritone
- Somi Kim piano
- Hilary Finch speaker
- Songs by Atli Heimir Sveinsson, Jórunn Viðar and Sigfús Einarsson, and Icelandic folksongs
A Talk by Frances Watson (October 2018)
Talk followed by a discussion
“Between Music and Poetry: Reading Between the Lines of Kósçak Yamada’s Nursemaid’s Songs”
Wilfred Owen and Beyond (October 2018)
A conference to mark the centenary of Wilfred Owen’s death.
Keynote Speakers:
- Professor Douglas Kerr
- Dr Jane Potter
- Dr Kate Kennedy
- Dr Santanu Das
"Within my heart a blind bird is imprisoned" (November 2018)
UK Premiere of an Art-Song programme by composer Stella Lerner interpreting poems by Leah Goldberg (1911-1970).
Performers: Prof. Sharon Rostorf-Zamir (Soprano), Head of Vocal Department, Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Tel-Aviv University, Marc Verter (Piano), Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London.
The concert was followed by a panel-discussion.
Performance: Kokoschka's Doll / The Art of Love (April 2018)
Part of the Wagner 1900 Conference
The ensemble Counterpoise, with Sir John Tomlinson (bass) and Rozanna Madylus (mezzo-soprano) performs the following programme:
Kokoschka’s Doll by John Casken.
Nadine Benjamin and Nicole Panizza (February 2019)
Recital:
- Nadine Benjamin (soprano) and Nicole Panizza (piano) performed a selection of works by American composers.
- Samuel Barber, Knoxville: Summer of 1915
- Andre Previn, Honey and Rue
- Aaron Copland, 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson
Song Beyond the Nation: Translation, Transnationalism and Performance (March 2019)
A conference on the work of four major poets, the Persian Hafiz, the German Heine, the American Whitman, and the French Verlaine, and how their verse has been set to music by a wide range of composers.
2019 Spring Weekend of Song (April 2019)
Oxford Lieder Festival
Evening Recitals: Katarina Karnéus and Julius Drake, former Oxford Lieder Young Artist Alessandro Fisher with Sholto Kynoch, and Christopher Maltman and Graham Johnson.
The event included a study led by Laura Tunbridge, based around her acclaimed book ‘Singing in the Age of Anxiety’.
The Young Artist Platform auditions were adjudicated by Katarina Karnéus, Julius Drake and John Mark Ainsley.
John Mark Ainsley gave a public masterclass.
Humanities Cultural Programme Live Event: Till it has loved - American Art (Septmber 2021)
Song in Recital (Septmeber 2021)
Live Event - Concert with Nadine Benjamin and Nicole Panizza
An exploration of American art song
Programme included:
Lori Laitman / Mary Oliver - Early Snow (2003)
Peter Child - Emily Dickinson Songs, excerpts (1998)
Luigi Zaninelli /Emily Dickinson - Seven Epigrams of Emily Dickinson (excerpts) (2003)
3 Songs by Black American Composers
1. Night - Florence B. Price / Louise C. Wallace
2. Watch and Pray - Undine Smith Moore / Trad.
3. For You There Is No Song - H. Leslie Adams / Edna St. Vincent Millay
Libby Larsen / Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard - Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives of Henry VIII (2002)
Luigi Zaninelli/Emily Dickinson - Till It Has Loved' (from Seven Epigrams of Emily Dickinson) (2003)
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