February 24, 1997Arts and events
Guest artists for the Schubert Festival will be soprano Penelope Jensen, associate professor of the practice of music at Duke University, Durham, N.C.; pianist Michael Zenge, professor of music at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and musicologist Mary Wischusen, associate professor of music history at Wayne State University, Detroit.
Wischusen, a nationally known Schubert specialist, will present a lecture at 3:30 p.m. Monday, March 10. At 7:30 p.m. that evening, Jensen and Zenge will perform a joint recital of Schubert works.
All three artists will discuss the composer during a student convocation at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 11. Jensen and Zenge will hold master classes for KU voice students from 7 to 10 p.m. Tuesday and from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 7 to 10 p.m. Wednesday, March 11. All events are in Swarthout Recital Hall in Murphy Hall and are free to the public.
For their recital, "Schubertiade," Jensen and Zenge will perform a five-part program of Schubert art songs with texts by such writers as William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, Goethe and Stolberg. The program will include movements from Funf Klavierstucke, D. 459a, and Drei Klavierstucke, D. 946. Zenge will play a piano own by J. Bunker Clark, professor emeritus of music history, which was made in London in 1830.
Soprano Jensen has performed with such major orchestras as the Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Cleveland, San Francisco and Pittsburgh symphonies and was selected by Robert Shaw as soloist with the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus for the 250th anniversay performance of Handel's "Messiah." She has sung with Ars Musica, the Bach Ensemble and the Smithsonian Players and received the Franz Schubert Prize for excellence in the singing of German art songs by the Franz Schubert-Institut in Austria.
Zenge, a frequent piano soloist and accompanist, is known for his work with art-song literature, especially German art song. He is a former artist in residence at the Franz Schubert-Institut, where he received the Schubert Prize for outstanding lieder accompanying.
Wischusen received her doctorate in musicology from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., where her dissertation centered on the Schubert's stage works. She has been a KU music history faculty member, was a music editor at Garland Press in New York City and has also taught at Montclair State College, Upper Montclair, N.J.; Rutgers; and Fordham University, New York City.
Story by Charla Jenkins, (785) 864-3381