Ellen Schwindt: May 2011

About me

I am an active composer, music teacher, and organizer of music events. I share an occasional Music as Meditation concert with listeners and fellow musicians and I organize several concerts of new music each year. I use this blog to tell people about my musical endeavors and as a home for my virtual busking basket. If you want to support my musical efforts financially, please look for the donate button on the right-hand side of this page. You can find pages about The Davis Hill Studio on this blog. Look for the orange links on the right-hand side of the page.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

A Portrait of Romance--Syzygy returns to Salyards June 13th

Ellen Schwindt, Mary Edes, and Dana Cunningham ponder Romance in the next Syzygy—Monday, June 13^th at SalyardsDownload Romance Poster

Robert Schumann fell deeply in love with Clara Wieck. In the year when their love bloomed he wrote more than 100 songs. Robert Schumann sued Clara Wieck's father for the right to marry her. When the judgment finally came from the bench allowing Robert and Clara to consummate their love, Robert Schumann poured his feelings into a masterpiece of song—Frauenliebe und Leben. It is a setting of 8 poems describing the arc of a woman's love for her husband. The couple in the poem meet on the way to church and fall in love. The songs describe the woman's feeling through the whole arc of her life; they are rich, luscious, and poignant.

This song cycle, sung by Mary Edes and played by Ellen Schwindt, anchor the next Syzygy—a performance series the two have created along with Dana Cunningham. The shows in the series explore a theme,and this time the theme is Romance. What is Romance? Do we choose it? Does it choose us? Does it help us or hinder us as we seek the right path for our lives?

Mike Sakash, saxophone, and Anna Jones, dancer, join Mary, Ellen, and Dana in an public pondering of these questions through poems by Mary Oliver, Robert Schumann's romances for oboe (saxophone?!) and piano, and the humorous result of coping with the storm of romance through avoidance. The show takes place on Monday, June 13^th at 7:00 PM at Salyards Center for the Arts. Admission is $10 or $5 for students.

The Syzygy performance series takes its name from a term denoting the alignment of three or more celestial bodies in a straight line. Used in the fields of astrology, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, biology, and even poetry, syzygy denotes the coming together of disparate parts—however briefly—to form some new thing. The shows seek to use art to create a new and meaningful (if not entirely serious) experience. For more information about this show or about the series, ask Ellen at ellen.m.schwindt@gmail.com.