UT Concert Hall brings you excellent performances that were given at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, spotlighting faculty, guest artist, and graduate student recitals, as well as student ensemble performances. Join local host and producer, Melony Dodson, for this hour-long program, as she transports you to Cox Auditorium and/or the Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall to hear these world class performances. Thursday night at 8pm and Sunday evenings at 7pm.
UT Concert Hall, May 21 and 24, 2026
Graduate Recital
Jenna Moynihan, mezzo-soprano
with Dustin Lin, piano
Saturday, March 29, 2025 at 1:30 p.m.
Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall
Natalie L. Haslam Music Center
PROGRAM
Qui sedes ad dexteram patris
from Gloria
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Amore e morte
from Nuits d'Été à Pausilippe
La Conocchia
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Why Do They Shut Me Out of Heaven?
The World Feels Dusty
Heart, We Will Forget Him
from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Wie du Warst!
from Der Rosenkavalier
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Am I in your Light?
from Dr. Atomic
John Adams (b. 1947)
Dein blaues Auge
from Acht Lieder und Gesange
Wie Melodien zieht es mir leise durch den Sinn
from Fünf Lieder
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Die Lorelei
Clara Schuman (1819-1896)
Fêtes galante
Si mes vers avaient des ailes
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947)
Una voce poco fa
from Il barbieri di Siviglia
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Music in Vocal Performance.
Jenna Moynihan is a student of Renée Tatum.
Program Notes
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Born in Venice, Italy, Antonio Vivaldi was a composer famous for his mark on Baroque music. While some of his most notable works are instrumental music, Gloria in D is often regarded as Vivaldi’s best known sacred work. His Gloria moves cohesively through many emotions including great joy and immense sadness. “Qui sedes ad dexteram patris” is the tenth movement of twelve in the piece in which the singer pleads for God to take pity on them.
Qui sedes ad dexteram patris
from Gloria
Qui sedes ad dexteram patris,
miserere nobis
Who sits at the right hand of the Father,
take pity on us
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Born in Lombardy, Itay, Gaetano Donizetti was the leading composer of the bel canto style during the first half of the 19th century. Donizetti found great success throughout Italy, including Naples, Rome, and Milan.
Amore e morte
How precious it is
You should fully understand;
On the day you were mine
I stole it from your heart.
Once symbol of love,
Now pledge of sorrow;
Place once more on your heart
This wilted flower.
And you will have engraved in your heart,
If that heart is not hard,
How it once was stolen,
And how it came back to you.
La Conocchia
from Nuits d'Été à Pausilippe
When I want to speak to the one I love,
because often I want to do that,
I sit down spinning at my window
when I want to speak to the one I love
When he passes by I break the thread a bit
and with grace begins to ask
handsome one, please get it back to me
he bends down and I stand watching him
and so is lit in me a fire (which will burn)
forever!
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson
Known by many for his famous ballet Appalachian Spring, Aaron Copland was an incredibly prominent American composer of the 20th century. Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson is a song cycle composed by Copland in 1950. Throughout the cycle, Copland marries Dickinson’s themes of love, loss, and the divine with a beautifully complex piano accompaniment and contemplative melodic line.
Why Do They Shut Me Out of Heaven?
The World Feels Dusty
Heart, We Will Forget Him
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Richard Strauss was a German composer of the Romantic era, most famous for his operas and “tone poems,” a boundary-pushing form of program music which highly incorporated realism into the piece. Strauss adapted the comic opera Der Rosenkavalier loosely from Louvet de Couvrai’s novel Les amours du Chevalier de Faublas (The Loves of Chevalier de Faublas). First performed in 1911, the opera was unique in that it featured female voices as the leading characters. “Wie du Warst!” is sung by Octavian, the young lover of Princess Marie Thérèse von Werdenberg (referred to as The Marschallin) at the beginning of the opera after the two have finished an intense romantic encounter. Likely due to his youth, Octavian feels incredibly deep and confusing feelings for The Marschallin, who is much older and of a much higher status than him. Octavian is a male character that is often played by female mezzo-sopranos; a concept known as a “pants role.”
Wie du Warst!
from Der Rosenkavalier
How you were! How you are!
No one knows that, no one suspects it!
Angel! No! Blessed is I
That I am the only one
Who knows how you are!
Nobody guessed it!
You, you, you!
What does that mean–you?
What “you and me?”
Does that make any sense?
These are words, mere words, are not they?
You say!
But still: there is something in them;
A dizziness, a drawing
A yearning, and an urge,
A languishing and burning:
How my hand now comes to your hand,
This wanting you, this clinging to you
That’s me, that wants you;
But this I is lost in this you
I am your boy,
But when hearing and seeing pass me by–
Where is your boy?
John Adams (b. 1947)
Born in Worcester Massachusetts, John Adams is a conductor and composer of numerous modern operas including Nixon in China and A Flowering Tree. Adams composed his third opera Doctor Atomic in 2005 which surrounds the events of the Manhattan Project. The aria “Am I in your Light?” takes place during the second scene of the opera as Kitty, the wife of Robert Oppenheimer, teases her husband who is hard at work in their Los Alamos home. Throughout the aria, she displays her intellect, which is true of her real-life counterpart (Katherine Oppenheimer Vissering), as she questions her own place in her husband’s life and work.
Am I in your Light?
from Dr. Atomic
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Johannes Brahms was a prominent composer of the mid-Romantic period, receiving guidance and approval from Franz Liszt, as well as both Robert and Clara Schumann. He is known for his unique rhythmic vivacity and use of dissonance in his compositions. Brahms notably remained quite close to Clara while Robert was institutionalized and after his death, causing many to suspect a romance between the two. Regardless, Brahms never married and remained lifelong friends with Clara.
Dein blaues Auge
from Acht Lieder und Gesange
Your blue eyes keep so still
That I can gaze upon their very depths.
You ask me what I want to see? --
I see my own well-being.
A glowing pair burned me once;
The after-effect still hurts.
Yet your eyes are like the sea so clear,
And like a lake, so cool [and detached].
Lieder.net
Wie Melodien zieht es mir leise durch den Sinn
from Funf Lieder
It moves like a melody,
Gently through my mind;
It blossoms like spring flowers
And wafts away like fragrance.
But when it is captured in words,
And placed before my eyes,
It turns pale like a gray mist
And disappears like a breath.
And yet, remaining in my rhymes
There hides still a fragrance,
Which mildly from the quiet bud
My moist eyes call forth.
Clara Schuman (1819-1896)
Clara Schumann was a gifted musician from an early age, and earned her fame through her concert career; revolutionizing the piano recital of the Romantic era. Similar to her husband, Robert Schumann, Clara was a gifted composer and wrote a variety of works during her career. However, she reportedly gave up composing later in life, saying:
“I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose – there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?”
She began composing when she was eleven and released at least one composition every year until 1848. Most of her compositions were not played until a resurgence of interest in her works around 1970. “Die Loreley” is an intense song in which Schumann sets Heinrich Heine’s poem about the famous myth of The Loreley, a siren infamous for flipping ships on the Rhine River. This myth originated from a real rock formation found along the river itself in Europe.
Die Loreley
I do not know what it means
That I should feel so sad;
There is a tale from olden times
I cannot get out of my mind.
The air is cool, and twilight falls,
And the Rhine flows quietly by;
The summit of the mountains glitters
In the evening sun.
The fairest maiden is sitting
In wondrous beauty up there,
Her golden jewels are sparkling,
She combs her golden hair.
She combs it with a golden comb
And sings a song the while;
It has an awe-inspiring,
Powerful melody.
It seizes the boatman in his skiff
With wildly aching pain;
He does not see the rocky reefs,
He only looks up to the heights.
I think at last the waves swallow
The boatman and his boat;
And that, with her singing,
The Loreley has done.
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947)
The Venezuelan-born French composer, Reynaldo Hahn, was best known for his composition of “melodies,” or “french songs,” of which he wrote over 100. He traveled to Paris as a child and later studied at conservatory with another well-known composer, Jules Massenet. Hahn earned great success from his song “Si mes vers avaient des ailes,” composing the piece at only age fourteen. The song is a beautifully mesmerizing setting of a poem by Victor Hugo, and has been well-loved by listeners for decades.
Si mes vers avaient des ailes
My verses would flee, sweet and frail,
To your garden so fair,
If my verses had wings,
Like a bird.
They would fly, like sparks,
To your smiling hearth,
If my verses had wings,
Like the mind.
Pure and faithful, to your side
They’d hasten night and day,
If my verses had wings,
Like love!
Fêtes galante
The gallant serenaders
and their fair listeners
exchange sweet nothings
beneath singing boughs.
Tirsis is there, Aminte is there,
and tedious Clitandre too,
and Damis who for many a cruel maid
writes many a tender song.
Their short silken doublets,
their long trailing gowns,
their elegance, their joy,
and their soft blue shadows
Whirl madly in the rapture
of a grey and roseate moon,
and the mandolin jangles on
in the shivering breeze.
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
Gioachino Rossini was an Italian composer of the late Classical to early Romantic musical periods. Of his 39 operas, Il barbieri di Sviglia (The Barber of Seville) is often regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of operatic comedy, even two centuries after its creation. “Una voce poco fa” is sung by the female protagonist of the opera, Rosina, who is being courted by the charming Lindoro. In order to show his affection without alerting her guardian, Lindoro delivers a letter to her with the help of Figaro, a famous barber and matchmaker. In this aria, Rosina swoons over the letter and expresses her feisty personality.
Una voce poco fa
from Il barbieri di Siviglia
The voice I heard just now
has thrilled my very heart.
My heart already is pierced
and it was Lindoro who hurled the dart.
Yes, Lindoro shall be mine,
I've sworn it, I'll succeed.
My guardian won't consent,
but I will sharpen my wits,
and at last, he will relent,
And I shall be content.
I am docile, I am respectful,
I am obedient, sweet and loving.
I can be ruled, I can be guided.
But if crossed in love,
I can be a viper, and a hundred tricks
I shall play before they have their way.
Graduate Recital
Andrew Beiter, trumpet
with Dr. Bernadette Lo, piano
Saturday, April 26, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
Sandra G. Powell Recital Hall
Natalie L. Haslam Music Center
PROGRAM
Trumpet Concerto in C Minor, Op. 113 "Poème"
Sergei Vasilenko (1872-1956)
I.Allegro dramatico
Pavane for a Dead Princess
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
tr. G. Orvid
ed. Robert Nagel
Someone to Watch Over Me
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
arr. Joseph Turrin
This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Artist Certificate in Trumpet Performance.
Andrew Beiter is a student of Dr. Arthur Zanin.