Adolphus Hailstork  Essay for Strings

Benjamin Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings

Franz Schubert  Death and the Maiden

Hailstork’s “Essay for Strings” brings a beautiful spirit of memoriam and celebration while Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”, his famous 14th String Quartet arranged here for string orchestra, is the composer’s almost programmatic working through his own impending death. Filled with driving rhythms, lyrical beauty, and a deadly tarantella, this work stands as one of the greatest masterpieces of all nineteenth-century chamber music. Tenor John Matthew Myers, declared an “artist to watch” by Opera News, performs Britten’s formidable Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings – a both sinister and serene rumination on the nature of nighttime and mortality written alongside his opera Peter Grimes after a serious illness.