The Department of Music presents two enthralling concerts this week in the world-class Earl and Darielle Linehan Concert Hall featuring guest artist Matthew Sharp, an internationally recognized classical artist. Sharp is a multidisciplinary artist and will perform as cellist, bass-baritone and actor over the course of his engagement at UMBC. Both concerts are free for UMBC students with their ID.
On Thursday, September 7, Sharp sings Schubert’s Der Erlkönig and Jacques Brel’s Chanson des Vieux Amants and will be joined by UMBC string faculty for the celestial and unsurpassed chamber work, Schubert’s Cello Quintet.
“Jacques Brel found Schubert’s C major Quintet inspirational – he listened to it when he wrote,” comments Matthew Sharp. “I’ve always felt that their music shared a raw, unguarded, ‘leap from the precipice’ quality. So, we’re including two of their iconic songs — one where terror and death rips through the veil between fantasy and reality, the other in which love is both chains and salvation — as both a context for this late masterpiece and as a prelude to the cabaret concerto on Friday, September 8, Death’s Cabaret — A Love Story.”
Death’s Cabaret — A Love Story is a concerto for the 21st century: a unique and thrilling marriage of the 19th century concerto form with the grime and sensuality of cabaret — both an innovation and a re-invention of an ancient tradition. Dangerous, intimate, raw and virtuosic, it promises to be an unforgettable night!
Matthew Sharp is recognized as as an innovative artist working in music and across disciplines. He studied cello with Boris Pergamenschikow in Cologne, voice with Ulla Blom in Stockholm and English at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was taken to Jacqueline du Pré when he was 12, Galina Vishnewskaya when he was 18, and studied chamber music with the Amadeus Quartet. Sharp has appeared as solo performer with the RPO, LPO, RLPO, CBSO, Orchestra of Opera North, SCO, EUCO, ESO, Manchester Camerata, Orchestra of the Swan, Orchestra X, Arensky Chamber Orchestra, and Ural Philharmonic. He has recorded for Sony, EMI, Decca, Naxos, Somm, NMC, Avie and Whirlwind and has appeared in recital as both cellist and singer at Wigmore Hall, SBC and Salle Gaveau.
Thursday, September 7, 8 pm: Death, Love and Terror in Music of Schubert
Friday, September 8, 8 pm: Death’s Cabaret — A Love Story
