This weekend, three of Trinity's senior Music majors will showcase four years worth of effort in their senior recitals. Lila Claghorn, Alex Dancho, and Natalie Davidzon will perform individually in a roughly hour-long show featuring a number of songs varying in style and composition, highlighting their diverse musical backgrounds. Claghorn's recital will be held Thursday, May 1, Dancho's show will be Friday, May 2, and Davidzon's recital will be held Saturday, May 3. All of these recitals will be held in Goodwin Theater at Austin Arts Center.
Claghorn, a double major in Theater and Dance as well as Music, will be showing off her dual roles as a classically-trained singer - she has had five years of training under Betty Lee of the Taft School, Watertown, Conn. - and a musical theatre performer. The first half of her recital will be primarily classical music from composers such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, W. A. Mozart, and Maurice Ravel. Since most theatergoers on campus have only seen Claghorn perform musical theatre pieces, this should be an interesting contrast to her previous work. The second half of the recital will show Claghorn, accompanied by Christine Melson on piano, in a more familiar light, performing contemporary musical theatre pieces ranging from smaller works like independent New York-based composer Alicia Mathewson's Love According to Luc (featured in the Fall 2007 Musical Theater Revue) to big-name Broadway shows like Stephen Schwartz's Wicked. Claghorn will also perform three duets during this segment; two with Liz Sharpe '08 ("What Is This Feeling?" and "For Good" from Wicked) and one with Dancho ("Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind" from the Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater collaboration, Spring Awakening).
On Friday night, Dancho will take the stage with several other student performers who will variously sing and play his compositions. A few of these are from the Fall '07 Composers' Concert - Seven Selections from Debut et Fin de la Neige by Yves Bonnefoy, for soprano Sharpe and Professor Douglas Johnson on piano - and two pieces from the Spring '08 Chamber Ensembles Recital: "When It Rains in Connecticut" and "Nothing to Say," performed by Professor Johnson, Justin Hallquist '11 and Dancho. His recital will start with four selections from a musical theater production titled I'm a Panic Bomb, Baby!. Several of his co-stars from the spring musical Little Shop of Horrors are performing in this section: sophomores Ben Feldman, Kat Lawlor, Caroline Newhall, and Brittany Price, as well as Brad DeBiase '11, and fellow senior Accidental, Matt Sahlin. Another segment of his recital will be a small four-part choral section (sopranos Sharpe, Angelica Castaneda '08, and Christine Gilbert '11, altos Leanne Kinter '08, Brooke Powell '10, and Claire Talcott '10, tenors Sean Delaney '11, Pat Greene '07, and Michael Magdelinskas-Vasquez '11, and basses Dan Klin IDP '08 and Jeremy Zimmerman '10), all of whom will sing selections from "Adonais" by Percy Bysshe Shelley and "Sleep, Sleep, Beauty Bright" by William Blake, set to music. The final portion of Dancho's recital will be "Sonatina #1," performed by Matt Phinney on piano.
The final recital on Saturday night will showcase Natalie Davidzon, an aspiring opera singer, whose recital repertoire also acts as a portfolio for her post-grad conservatory auditions. Davidzon will be performing 16 songs in six languages: English, Italian (her second major), French, German, Russian (her native language), and Latin. I was able to attend one of her dress rehearsals, so I can safely say that she can fill an auditorium with her voice. Davidzon will also be accompanied by Christine Melson, and flautist Hallie Blejewski '11 will be playing on two pieces, "Süsse Stille, Sanfte Quelle" by George Frideric Handel and "Ave Maria" by Franz Schubert. Davidzon will also perform her solo from the Fall 2007 Concert Choir performance, "Pie Jesu" from Gabriel Fauré's Requiem. Another popular piece she'll be singing is "Musetta's Waltz" from Giacomo Puccini's famous opera La BohÂme. (If you've ever seen Rent, you know the tune.) She performed this during her rehearsal while I sat in the back of Goodwin Theater, and the high notes that she hit at the end of the aria were loud and clear. Davidzon is a talented performer and her recital will be a treat for audiences.
Overall, all of these recitals are worth attending, if not to see the musical achievements of these young performers, then at least to support their efforts in gaining a larger following in their future musical careers. All recitals are at 7:30 p.m., from Thursday, May 1 to Saturday, May 3. You won't want to miss them.
Editor's Note: After the publication deadline, the Tripod learned that Lila Claghorn had canceled her recital due to vocal cord hemorrhage.
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