PSC Recital Delves Into Songs, Poetry Inspired by the East

Songs and poetry inspired by Eastern culture will be at the center of the upcoming Pittsburgh Song Collaborative (PSC) performance, Looking to the East: Orientalism in Song.

An interactive, interdisciplinary recital featuring the art song genre, Looking to the East will be held on Saturday, Sept. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in the PNC Recital Hall and will feature:

  • Soprano Sari Gruber, an adjunct professor of voice and mainstage artist with the Pittsburgh Opera
  • Pianist Dr. Benjamin Binder, associate professor of music and founder of the PSC, which is an ensemble in residence in the Mary Pappert School of Music
  • Tenor Joe Dan Harper, chair of voice at the SUNY Fredonia School of Music.

According to Binder, selecting the theme was easy because the art song repertoire includes numerous songs on the topic due to the popular fascination with the East in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

“There wasn’t any sense of needing to be fully accurate in the depiction of exotic, foreign cultures, like China or the Middle East, for example,” said Binder. “Much was left up to the imagination. European song composers and poets filled that void with sumptuous melodic evocations of those faraway lands and peoples. In their songs, the East became an exotic and colorful realm where one could taste of forbidden pleasures, even as danger lurked around every corner.”

The concert will be comprised for four portions, including:

  • Five songs by German Romantic composer Franz Schubert that are settings of poems by German Romantic poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Rückert and inspired by the ancient Persian poets Rumi and Hafis
  • Six Chinese Poems by French late-Impressionist composer Albert Roussel, who discovered the translated ancient poems in a literary journal in Paris
  • The song cycle Songs of an Infatuated Muezzinby Polish composer Karol Szymanowski, which features text written by poet Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz
  • Five late-19th century songs about romance and intrigue on the sands of the Sahara by French composers, including Georges Bizet, Gabriel Fauré, and Camille Saint-Saëns.

A $10 donation is suggested for admission to the recital, which will be followed by a reception during which audience members can meet the performers.