Heinrich Heine Far and Near

“New Songs for an Old Poet” is a series of four concerts that will span the remainder of 2025. Organized by long-time Valley vocalist Peter W. Shea, who is also the principal performer, the series presents a very wide variety of songs, all of them musical settings of the great nineteenth-century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, whose verses have been set to music more than any other poet. All are works that Peter has in some way helped to bring into the world, either by suggestion, commission, or premiere, as part of his thirty-year project on Heine and the music he continues to inspire. All but one of the sixty-plus songs have been composed since the turn of this century, with two-thirds of the composers being from New England.

This first concert, “Heinrich Heine, Far and Near,” features sixteen songs by thirteen composers who hail from as far away as Germany and as close at hand as the Pioneer Valley. The songs range in style from cabaret to classical, in mood from witty to tragic, and in tonality from Baroque to twelve-tone. Nearly all display some aspect of Heine’s characteristic irony, and several will be sung in English translation. Peter will be joined by mezzo-soprano and guitarist Justina Golden, pianist Brenda Moore Miller, pianist and guitarist Clifton J. Noble, Jr., and soprano Junko Watanabe.

Later concerts in the series:

“The Noble Heine,” Sunday, July 6, music by local pianist and composer Clifton J. Noble, Jr., including his 2016 song cycle written in tribute to Robert Schumann, and four new works composed for the vocal sextet Cantabile, of which Peter is a member.

“The Parting Summer,” Saturday, Sept. 13, music by pianist and composer Kaeza Fearn, presently of Cape Cod, featuring her 2009 song cycle of the same name, sung by Peter with pianist Monica Jakuc Leverett, plus a few of Kaeza’s piano works.

“Seas, Birds and Trees,” Saturday, Dec. 13 (Heine’s 228th birthday), an evocative potpourri of works by a dozen composers, with several sea-related solo songs, a suite for piano four-hands, and four pieces for voice and multiple instruments, with a cast of thousands (well, nine really).