”With her ravishingly beautiful voice and openhearted expressiveness, Kathleen Roland makes every song sound as if it were written just for her. She has an uncanny ability to establish a direct line of communication with each and every member of her audience. I hope I am blessed with many more performances of my songs by Kathleen Roland.”
Mark Carlson, composer and director of Pacific Serenades Chamber Music of Los Angeles
Look for Kathleen’s upcoming anthology of Swedish art song, which will include composer and poet information, phonetic and word for word translations, and selections from some of Sweden’s greatest composers of 19th and 20th century romanser, or art song.
Read my article, “Romancing the Romanser: Exploring the Art Song of Sweden”, in the November issue of The Journal of Singing, the official journal of the National Association of the Teachers of Singing. Romancing the Romanser: Exploring the Art Song of Sweden
Upcoming concerts:
Jacaranda-Music on the Edge concert series, January 2012
Boston Court, October 2012
University of Santa Barbara, May 2012
Southwest Chamber Music, May 2012
and in Stockholm, Sweden!
The Swedish romans has been, until recently, a little known facet of the world of art song. These songs unite the best of Swedish poetry and the unique musical sensibilities of the Nordic sound. They are beautiful, unique and a rewarding source of new repertoire choices for the adventurous singer or pianist.
My introduction to romanser was a happy accident, and largely a result of my own curiosity and the help of a network of incredibly generous and knowledgeable people. All these serendipitous factors ultimately led to my research, teaching and performing of romanser, and my recently completed anthology.
My research into this beautiful genre of art song began with my first trip to Stockholm in 1999, where, for a period of six months, I began my study of the Swedish language with Kerstin Larsson of Stockholm Universitetet and Svenska Nu, a Swedish language study organization. I have returned to Stockholm every year, twice supported by scholarly research institutions, first for five months as an American Scandinavian Foundation grantee in 2003, and then for five months in 2007 as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Kungliga Musikhögskolan (the Royal Conservatory of Music) in Stockholm.
My anthology will be the first of its kind, a scholarly compilation of songs by the important Swedish composers of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It will contain the following;
Twenty-five songs by Swedish composers, representative of the best of the genre, and the most frequently recorded by world-class artists
- Word-for-word English translations from the original Swedish texts
- Phonetic and poetic translations
- Guide to Swedish diction
- Information about the composers and poets
I have chosen songs that are appropriate repertoire choices for the student singer as well as the professional concert singer, by the following composers:
- Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960)
- Gunnar de Frumerie (1908-1987)
- Hilding Hallnäs (1903-1984)
- Maurice Karkoff (b. 1927)
- Lars Erik Larsson (1908- 1986)
- Ingemar Liljefors (1906-1981)
- Bo Linde (1933-1970)
- Ingmar Milveden (b. 1920)
- Gösta Nordquist (1886-1949)
- Gösta Nyström (1890-1966)
- Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (1867-1942)
- Ture Rangström (1884-1947)
- Wilhelm Stenhammer (1871-1927)
To listen to just a few of the songs featured in the anthology, please click on the following links. I’ve included a line from each song text as it will appear in the book, showing the original text with the phonetic and literal translation. I hope these gems will prove to be a förätt, or appetizer, inviting further exploration of this rich genre.
Äppelträd och päronträd
by Bo Linde
Performance: “Watercolors” with Anne Sofie Von Otter, mezzo soprano
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ˈɛ̀pːəl͜ tɾɛːd ɔkː pæ̀ːɾɔn͜ tɾɛːd ˈplʊ̀mːɔn͜ tɾɛːd ɔkː ˈbɪ̀ɡːaˈɾoː
Äppelträd och päronträd, plommonträd och bigarå,
Apple tree and pear tree plum tree and cherry tree
Du är min Afrodite
by Gunnar de Frumerie
Peformance: “Watercolors” with Anne Sofie Von Otter, mezzo soprano
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dʉ æːɾ mɪnː afːɾɔdɪ́tɛ
Du är min Afrodite,
You are my Aphrodite
Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings möte
by Wilhelm Stenhammar
Performance: “Nordic Romance” with Karin Ingebäck, soprano
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kɔm meːd ˈɾø̀ːda ˈhɛnːdəɾ
komː med röda händer.
Comes with red hands
Pan
by Ture Rangström
Performance: “Soul and Landscape” with Miah Persson, mezzo soprano
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ɔkː mɪtː ˈsɔ̀mːaɾ͜ bluːd ˈʃɵŋːəɾ
och mitt sommarblod sjunger!
And my summer blood sings
Read my upcoming article, “Romancing the Romanser: Exploring the Art Song of Sweden”, this fall in the November issue of The Journal of Singing, the official journal of the National Association of theTeachers of Singing.
You can also read more about my research here:
www.pepperdine.edu/pr/stories/2007/silverstein.htm.