Two members of the Baylor University music faculty and a guest vocalist will combine their considerable talents to present a recital on Friday, March 18, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Roxy Grove Hall. Lecturer in Piano Paul Sánchez will be joined by his wife, soprano Kayleen Sánchez, and Associate Professor of Violin Eka Gogichashvili to perform a program of three works by contemporary American composer David M. Gordon (b. 1976), including the world premiere of Mysteria Incarnationis.
Opening the recital will be a piece for solo piano, with Dr. Sánchez playing Dr. Gordon’s Nocturne. This brief work comes from the composer’s Murmurations and is dated 2005.
Then Kayleen Sánchez will sing Fader, stilla våra andar (“Father, Give a Tranquil Spirit”) from 2002, with Paul Sánchez at the piano. Composer David M. Gordon has praised the Sánchez couple’s previous performances of this work as “both deeply moving and extraordinarily precise. I couldn’t have asked for a better rendition.” It will be sung in the original Swedish, with words by Eric G. Hawkinson.
The program will close with the world premiere of Mysteria Incarnationis (“Mystery of the Incarnation”), a song cycle that was written for Kayleen Sánchez and Paul Sánchez in 2015. The trio of performers are asked to play a whole battery of instruments, both traditional and exotic. Playing the violin and autoharp will be Dr. Gogichashvili. In addition to singing the challenging soprano line, Ms. Sánchez will play the Thai button gongs, vibra-tone, toy piano, glass globe, and finger cymbals. Dr. Sánchez will play prepared piano, wine glass, and harmonica. Words are by Saint Ephrem the Syrian, a fourth-century Christian theologian.
This recital is free of charge and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor University School of Music at 254-710-3991.