Dawn Upshaw Explores New Music at Bard and Abroad

In a career spanning 30 years, the American five-time Grammy award winning mezzo-soprano Dawn Upshaw has carved out a distinctive niche for herself, especially as a champion of modern, contemporary and, most particularly, American music. For that reason, her latest album of song cycles, “Winter Morning Walks” by Minnesota-born composer Maria Schneider is not exactly a departure, but certainly it is an interesting exploration. Schneider’s jazz-inflected compositions, a bit like Phillip Glass, stand somewhere on the periphery of contemporary classical music. The songs here are a mixed bag, some with a distinctly Paul Winter-ish flavor, others with a touch of Sondheim. At their best, as sung by Upshaw, the songs are evocative and atmospheric, with the soprano bringing her characteristic clarity and precise diction to the project. The collaboration was Upshaw’s idea, as she told me in a recent interview. “We hear things and we just sort of flip out. That’s what happened to me when I heard Schneider’s ‘Concert in the Garden.’ That must have been 2002 or 2003, and I began listening to lots of her other disks and going to hear her and her band at the Jazz Standard in New York City. I was crazy about her music and felt that she was a real craftswoman, musically speaking, in terms of her contrapuntal technique, harmonic language and melody.” A few years later, Upshaw asked Schneider to write music for her. The result was the song cycle, “The Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories” based on the works of the Brazilian poet. That piece is also on the new album. “Winter Morning Walks,” drawing on poems by former United States Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, features the Australian Chamber Orchestra and three members of Schneider’s band. Upshaw resists categorizing Schneider’s music. “It’s not strictly jazz, though it definitely comes from that world. I think it has elements of lots of different musical worlds. “In terms of my own experience as an American who has sung the Great American Song Book and musical theater, I never had sung any jazz before this, What Maria created was music that could sort of live in both worlds, classical and jazz.” Next month, Upshaw will tour Australia with Schneider and her orchestra, performing the new songs. When she is not performing, Upshaw is based nearby at Bard College in Red Hook, NY, where she is the director of the Conservatory’s Vocal Arts master’s program. “I love my work at Bard more and more each year,” she says. “The opportunity for really creating strong bonds with young musicians has been a really extraordinary experience for me. I try to offer the students guidance and expertise, but they’re also teaching me.” “Winter Morning Walks” is available in music stores and from Amazon and iTunes. On March 14 and 16, singers from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard will perform it with Benjamin Britten’s “Turn of the Screw.”Information, go to fishercenter.bard.edu.