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Pin Cushion Wit in the Drawing Room: Songs of Social Satire by Nineteenth-Century Women Composers
Music at Noon Series
Janet Youngdahl, soprano; Vivian Montgomery, fortepiano and harpsichord (Bard College)
12:15 pm, November 24, 2015

Soprano Janet Youngdahl and pianist Vivian Montgomery bring together skills as researchers and performers to explore repertoire by 19th century women composers.  The concert includes footage of work the duo has done at the Schubert Club in St .Paul, Minnesota, using historical pianos. Satirical songs were often an avenue for expressing dissatisfaction with contemporary gender issues; tracing the appearance of these works allows us to see how women’s concerns and ideas gradually gained acknowledgement beyond the domestic arena.

Janet Youngdahl is active as a soprano, academic and choral conductor. She has toured with the ensemble for medieval music Sequentia throughout Europe and North America. She appears as a soloist on many recordings on the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG label. In concert, she has appeared at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City, the Proms in London, the Melbourne Festival, and in concerts in Amsterdam, Paris, Florence, Cologne, Stockholm, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago.  Recent recordings include several discs of 17th century Italian music by Kapsberger and Castaldi for Toccata Classsics and a recording with Vivian Montgomery and Cecilia’s Circle for Centaur Records featuring cantatas by Elizabet Jacquet de la Guerre. Appearances in Baroque operas include Dido and Aeneas with Christopher Hogwood, Acis and Galeatea with Julianne Baird, and The Fairy Queen with both the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Calgary Philharmonic. Appearances in standard works as solo soprano include numerous performances of Handel’s Messiah, the Brahms’ Requiem, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, the Mozart Requiem and Haydn’s Creation. Dr. Youngdahl is an Associate Professor at the University of Lethbridge, where she teaches voice, conducts the U of L Singers and teaches music history. 

Vivian Montgomery, DMA, is an award-winning harpsichordist and fortepianist who has just completed residence as a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at the University of Southampton in England. Recipient of Solo Recitalist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, she has been praised for her "…exquisite music-making...exceptional for its precision, blend and stylistic unity...sprightly and charming" (Music in Cincinnati) whose “…gestures flowed like harmonious rivulets, building into swift cascades, and even torrents...grabbing the listeners with its ebb and flow” (Boston Musical Intelligencer).

As a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Vivian taught early keyboards and historical performance from 2003 through 2013. Having earned her Masters in Early Keyboards from the University of Michigan and the DMA in Early Music from Case Western Reserve University, she has served as Director of the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition since 2009.Recipient of First Distinction in the Warsaw International Harpsichord Competition, among other competition prizes, Vivian’s performing life encompasses concerto solos, solo recitals, chamber music performances, and vocal accompanying work throughout the United States. She has been heard widely in recent performances of 19th-century American and women’s music, well represented on her new CD release Reviving Song: Spirited Works by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Hélene Montgeroult, and Louis Spohr (Women and Music Project, Brandeis University WSRC). Vivian’s work on little-known piano music for domestic use, especially in Antebellum America, is exemplified by the upcoming Centaur Records release entitled Brilliant Variations on Sentimental Songs.