Baritone James Newby sings songs of wandering

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

English baritone James Newby has just released a debut CD (BIS-2475)  on the BIS label. Titled I wonder as I wander the album features an unpredictably varied collection of Lieder thematically linked by the themes of an uprooted and restless sort of wandering and of searching often to no avail for a loved one all in an unquiet escape from loneliness.

Thus Beethoven with his Adelaide and An die ferne Geliebte and Schubert with Der Wanderer – both the lyrical Myrhofer setting and the intensely dramatic and better known Schlegel one are included, along with three somber Mahler songs: Revelge, Urlicht, and Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz.

Newby opens and ends his recital with a brace of songs by Benjamin Britten:  I wonder as I wander, There’s none to soothe, At the mid hour of night, The Last Rose of Summer, and  Sail on, sail on. Whether in the English or German languages, whether in the intimately Romantic Beethoven and Schubert or in the more operatic Mahler songs, James Newby displays full command of the musical and vocal challenges. He is capable of spinning a seamlessly long cantilena in The Last Rose of Summer and equally adept at a kind of jagged, semi-spoken delivery in certain moments of the Mahler Lieder. Throughout his vocal emission is even at full volume from several top F’s and G’s in Revelge to a full-voiced low E at the end of Der Wanderer.

This is, in short, an immensely promising young talent to be on the lookout for.

Pianist Joseph Middleton collaborates with James Newby throughout the more than a dozen selections in this CD with utmost attention to the pianistic and musical challenges presented by the music, achieving great results, most notably in the Mahler selections meant  originally created to be performed with orchestra.

Rafael de Acha

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”