Three colleagues from the School of Music at Arizona State University, soprano Carole FitzPatrick, baritone Robert Barefield, and pianist Eckart Sellheim, will present a concert titled “TWO PLUS ONE!” at 7:30 p.m. March 6 in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building.
Featured repertoire includes art songs and duets from a wide range of composers including Donizetti, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Debussy, Chausson, and Stephen Foster. Also included will be a new duet titled “Listening into Night” by leading American composer James DeMars. The three artists have enjoyed a longstanding collaboration that has culminated in the upcoming CD recording to be released by Cavalli Records of Bamberg, Germany. The recording is also titled “TWO PLUS ONE!” and features many of the duets that will appear in the live program.
FitzPatrick received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas and two master’s degrees from Yale, then moved to Europe in 1988. After engagements in Dortmund and Osnabrück, Germany, she joined the ensemble of the State Theater in Nuremberg. Her extensive opera repertoire during her seven years in Germany included Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and Wagner, having sung more than 60 major roles in German opera houses, including Hannover, Mannheim, Duesseldorf, Essen and Berlin. Her concert work has been extensive as well, including concert tours in France and Spain, and performances in Finland, Austria, Holland, the Czech Republic, Luxemburg, and Russia. She was selected by the city of Osnabrück as “Citizen of the Year” and was named by the professional magazine OpernWelt as one of its “Singer of the Year” candidates. In 2005 she participated in the premiere performance of Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” in Beijing, and in sang “Donna Anna” in “Don Giovanni” in Hong Kong. Since August 2005, she has been a professor of voice at Arizona State University. Recent performances include appearances with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Arizona State Lyric Opera Theater and Symphony Orchestra, Prager Sinfoniker, the Austin Chamber Music Society, and the Berliner Cappella. In 2008, she created the role of La Malinche in the world premiere of James DeMars’ opera “Guadalupe, Our Lady of the Roses,” which was recorded and released by Canyon Records.
Baritone Robert Barefield has performed as soloist with organizations throughout the United States and in Europe, including the New Orleans Opera, the Mississippi Symphony, the Arizona Opera, the Dorian Opera Theatre, the Central City Opera, the Ohio Light Opera and Operafestival di Roma in Italy. Operatic roles have included “Don Giovanni,” Danilo in “The Merry Widow,” Figaro in “Il Barbiere di Siviglia,” Sid in “Albert Herring,” Eisenstein in “Die Fledermaus,” the title role in “Gianni Schicchi” and John Proctor in Robert Ward’s “The Crucible.” As an oratorio soloist, Barefield’s performances have included “Carmina Burana,” the Fauré “Requiem, The Sea Symphony” and “Dona Nobis Pacem” of Vaughan Williams and Handel’s “Messiah.” An accomplished recitalist, Barefield’s wide-ranging repertoire has encompassed works such as Schubert’s “Winterreise” and “Die Schöne Müllerin,” Vaughan Williams’ “Songs of Travel” and premiere performances of works by contemporary composers such as Simon Sargon, Lowell Liebermann, Robert Maggio and David Conte. His European recital performances have included venues in Austria, Germany and Spain. Barefield received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where he was a Corbett Opera Scholar. He is currently a member of the voice faculty at Arizona State. His current and former voice students are active as performers and educators throughout the country. In 2008, he performed the role of Bishop Zumarraga in the world premiere of James DeMars’ opera “Guadalupe – Our Lady of the Roses.” These performances were recorded and released on CD by Canyon Records.
Eckart Sellheim received his musical training in Germany and Switzerland; Adolf Drescher and Jakob Gimpel were among his teachers. He was appointed to the faculty of the two major conservatories in Cologne and con- tinued his academic career as an assistant professor of piano and chamber music at the University of Michigan. From 1989 until 2008 he was professor and director of collaborative piano at Arizona State University. He also served as a guest lecturer of fortepiano and performance practice at various music academies in Germany, most notably at the Musikhochschule in Trossingen, and taught numerous master classes in the United States and in several European countries. Sellheim maintains an active performance schedule, having concert tours in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, and throughout Europe. He appears regularly on radio programs in the United States and abroad, and Sellheim has made more than 20 recordings as a piano and fortepiano soloist and collaborative pianist, among them a great number with his late brother, celebrated German cellist Friedrich-Juergen Sellheim.
Updated 2.11.2010
Jensen, chair of UALR’s Department of Rhetoric and Writing, grew up thinking his family’s history was simple and straightforward: father drank, mother asks father to leave, children hurt by father’s drinking and departure.