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Nationally
acclaimed concert pianist, scholar and recording artist Claudia
Stevens
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Renowned performer Claudia
Stevens to present musical drama on Holocaust. Nationally acclaimed concert pianist, scholar and
recording artist Claudia Stevens will present the musical drama An
Evening with Madame F, Tuesday, February 1, 2005, at 7:30 p.m., in
Seeger Chapel on the Milligan College campus.
Stevens, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, meditates on the issue of
treating the Holocaust as the subject for artistic expression in An
Evening with Madame F. Created for her own performance as pianist,
singer and actor, she adopts the persona of an elderly concentration
camp musician who performed at Auschwitz. She uses music that was
actually played and sung by women inmates as well as first-hand accounts
to depict the struggle and moral dilemma of those who survived by
prostituting their art.
Commissioned to create An Evening with Madame F by the Richmond (Va.)
Jewish Federation, Stevens has performed the work in over 100
communities, including New York, Houston, Cleveland, Atlanta, Boston and
Washington, D.C., as well as numerous universities across the nation.
The work also was produced for television by PBS and was broadcast over
Voice of America.
A native of California, Stevens graduated summa cum laude from Vassar
College. She holds a masters degree in musicology from the University of
California at Berkeley and a doctor of musical arts from Boston
University. She has held academic conducting and performing arts
positions at Williams College, the University of Richmond and the
College of William and Mary.
As a pianist and composer, Stevens was presented in concert at Carnegie
Recital Hall and was the featured artist on several Performance Today on
NPR broadcasts. She has recorded for and published compositions in
Perspectives of New Music and is a recognized scholar of Robert
Schumann, as well as 20th century American music.
An Evening with Madame F is sponsored by the Milligan College Arts
Council and is free and open to the public. For additional information
contact the music office at 423.461.8723.
In
addition to the evening program, Stevens will also give a presentation for
students from 11 a.m. to noon in Seeger Memorial Chapel.
The talk will incorporate the pivotal scene
where "Madame F" must audition for her life. This will give rise to
discussion about music - and expression itself - as a potentially
"life-giving" and affirming activity.
But I will also talk about the circumstances of the concentration camp,
in which the moral universe we normally inhabit has broken down - and
such ideals as "redemption through art" no longer apply. The audience
and I will go on to contemplate the ultimate function of, and need for,
expression in any form as a path to spiritual connection, sense of
"identity" and realization of common humanity as well as, for some of
us, vocation.
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