$20; $10 Students and Arts Workers

Crossing poetry with music, Danie Friesen (soprano) and Monique De Margerie (piano) perform Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis Opus 39, twelve songs on texts by Joseph von Eichendorff, and Francis Poulenc’s Fiançailles Pour Rire, a song cycle based on the poetry of Louise de Vilmorin.

Program

Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856) Liederkreis Opus 39

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Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963) Fiançailles Pour Rire

Actor/Singer Danie Friesen’s experience on the performance stage ranges from Shakespeare to Mozart to Woody Allen. A graduate of the Randolph Academy for Performing Arts, Friesen works as an actor and producer for Art & Lies Productions, an independent theatre company she co-founded in 2010. Selected credits include: No Exit (Theatre Passe Muraille), In Adagio (Winnipeg Art Gallery), Killing Game (Annex Theatre), Antony and Cleopatra (Buddies in Bad Times), Smile (Bathurst Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (Young People’s Theatre), Strike! (Theatre in the Park), The Mikado and The Gondoliers (Pantages Playhouse). Friesen will appear in Cavalli’s La Calisto in Sulmona, Italy this summer as a part of COSI’s Opera Ensemble.

Merging her experience in theatre with her artistry as a soprano, Friesen endeavours to interpret art songs and arias through the eyes of an actor, presenting poetry and music through fully formed, poignant characters.

Monique de Margerie is an accompanist at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music, the University of Toronto, and at the Young Voices Toronto choir. She is frequently heard in recital as a chamber musician with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra. From 2003 to 2012, she was on the faculty at Université Laval de Québec where she taught piano and accompanied both students and faculty. She also teaches at the Cammac Music Centre each summer, and is frequently invited to adjudicate and teach throughout Canada.

In March, 2013, Monique toured Cambodia with bassoonist Fraser Jackson, giving recitals and masterclasses throughout Phnom Penh. In 2012, she toured Canada as a judge for the Canadian Music Competition. In November 2011, she was featured as a soloist with l'Orchestre symphonique de Québec in four performances of Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals and performed with the Molzan de Margerie Trio in Beauce, Québec. She has performed in recital at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre in Toronto and at the Royal Conservatory of Music. She was also a featured artist at the 2010 Licht in Sicht music festival in Quebec City where she appeared with members of the Quatuor Artur Leblanc, clarinettist Jean-François Normand and bassoonist Fraser Jackson.

Originally from Sherbrooke, Québec, Monique graduated from the Montreal Conservatory where she was a student of Anisia Campos. After four years as a scholarship student at the Munich Hochschule für Musik, Monique obtained, with special distinction, her Master’s degree in Piano Performance in 1990. From then until 2003, she pursued her European career as pianist and teacher in Freiburg, Germany, and in Paris, France, where her recital partners included violinists Linus Roth and Nicholas Chumachenco. She has given numerous concerts as a soloist and chamber musician in Canada, Japan, Switzerland and India. She has several recordings with the national radios in Germany, Switzerland and Canada and a solo CD recording on the GEMA label.