-By Diana Nollen
CROpera singers, area instrumentalists performing acclaimed composer’s song cycles
CEDAR RAPIDS — Most people blow out candles on a cake to celebrate their birthday. Composer Jerry Owen of Cedar Rapids is celebrating his 80th birthday by blowing new life into vintage texts, creating song cycles nestled between some of his established works.
Cedar Rapids Opera vocalists and area instrumentalists will present six of Owen’s song cycles in a free concert Sunday afternoon, Oct. 27, in the intimate Daehler-Kitchin Auditorium at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.
“Jerry has always been a really important musician in the Corridor and in the community,” said Daniel Kleinknecht, Cedar Rapids Opera’s founder and artistic director. “We’re really happy to be able to support and be a part of this celebration.”
He’s also happy to be serving as one of the pianists for the program, especially suited for Daehler-Kitchin Auditorium.
“It’s what I would call a little chamber room,” he said. “ … The piano in there is a delicious one. It is one of the greatest instruments in the city, if not the greatest — a big, wonderful piano. It’s a room that was built for this kind of concert.”
Vocalists include soprano Jessica Pray Patel, mezzo soprano Olivia Vote and baritone Thaddeus Ennen, with pianists Abbie Brewer, Kleinknecht and Miko Kominami; flutist Rose Bishop; and cellist Carey Bostian.
The Program
Owen explained song cycles as having “a commonality of topic” or using the lyrics of one poet “from piece to piece to piece, so there’s a continuity of text … revolving around the meaning of the poetry.”
This concert includes:
“Four Songs on Poems by William Blake,” composed in 1984 and based on Blake’s poetry from the 1790s, which Owen first encountered in a college freshman English class. He noted that the archaic language lends them “an air of antiquity approaching a kind of biblical imperative.”
“Haiku Suite,” which Owen wrote in 1968 for wife Marilyn’s master’s degree recital at DePauw University in Indiana, strings together 17-syllable Japanese haiku poems into full songs he titled “The Dream,” “The Moon,” “The Death” and “The Firefly.”
He described them as “precious little texts that can be expressed so many different ways. Haiku is meant to be read silently, but as a song text, there are lots of different avenues into understanding what the text means and how it’s put together. I had a great time writing those.”
“Czech Folk Song Set” is a new vocal adaptation of a 2003 instrumental piece Red Cedar Chamber Music commissioned from Owen for a Czech Republic tour. They’re based on folk songs his late colleague Alma Turechek curated in the former Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. (Owen holds the title of Alma A. Turechek Professor Emeritus of Music at Coe College.)
“Library” is the only “solitary song” in the grouping of song cycles, and as such, Owen quipped that perhaps it should be called a “unicycle.” The work is based on a “sometimes sardonic” poem by Paul Engle, a Cedar Rapids native and Coe College graduate who directed the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa from 1936 to 1965. The piece, exuding a tango flair, is from a 2001 collection Owen wrote for Coe’s 150th anniversary.
“Five Songs on Poems by Ann Struthers” is based on the late poet’s “Stoneboat” collection. It celebrates the strength, courage and fortitude of America’s pioneer women, who Owen said were “vital to the settling of the American West in the 18th and 19th centuries.”
“Childhood Songs” is a grouping Owen wrote in 1977-78, dedicated to the couple’s daughter, Erin Elizabeth, as she began her school years. Some are instrumental only, with flute, cello and piano, and others have lyrics he penned.
“The atmosphere of the songs is often intentionally humorous,” Owen said, “with a bit of inconspicuous parental advice folded in conspicuously.” He’s thrilled to have Olivia Vote on vocals. Based in New York, she performed in Cedar Rapids Opera’s 2023 production of “Cosi fan tutte,” and stayed with the Owens while in town. “It’s a role for a soprano who can really ham it up, and I think Olivia can really do it,” Owen said.
Owen, born June 9, 1944, in Miller Beach in northwest Indiana, has been celebrating his milestone birthdays with a concert in various locations, beginning with his 40th in Brucemore mansion’s Great Hall, then moving to Coe for his 50th, 60th, 70th and 75th.
The latter was at the urging of his friend and fellow composer Harvey Sollberger. “He said, ‘You better do a 75 — you just never know if you’re going to make 80.’ And I’m glad I did, because that got us in about a month before COVID started,” Owen noted.
Now that he’s made it to 80, is Owen looking ahead to 90? He has something in mind for that, but isn’t ready to go public with that just yet.
For now, he’s looking forward to this birthday program, hearing how these stellar musicians interpret his music.
“There’s so much enjoyment that comes with another artist performing your music that what’s not to enjoy,” he said, “especially when you have wonderful artists like the ones that are on this program. It’s scintillating. It’s thrilling. It reaches down deep.”
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