Baritone Stephen Swanson and pianist David Gompper will perform Animal Songs: Bestiaries in English, French and German, including The Animals, a song cycle Gompper composed to poetry by Iowa’s first poet laureate, Marvin Bell, at 2 p.m. Sunday, July 8, in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol on the University of Iowa campus.

Swanson and Gompper

Swanson is a member of the voice faculty of the UI School of Music; Gompper is the director of the UI Center for New Music; and Bell is an emeritus faculty member of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

The free concert is both a preview of the release of the Animal Songs recording later in July and preparation for the Aug. 10-14 performances by Swanson and Gompper at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. The festival is an especially appropriate venue for songs to Bell’s poetry, because Iowa City and Edinburgh are two of the Cities of Literature in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

The preparations for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe will continue with performances at the Oaknoll Retirement Residence on July 9, and at the Lisbon Public Library at 7 p.m. on July 11.

The 25 animal songs also include works by Maurice Ravel, Max Reger, and Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, telling of peacocks, mice, chickens, bees, warthogs, and buffalo; an armadillo, cricket, swan, kingfisher, guinea fowl, sloth, wild boar, spider, hedgehog, fly, cat, rooster, stork, horse, polar bear, camel and vulture; as well as other denizens of the barnyard, jungle, and ocean.

Swanson and Gompper premiered the Animal Songsduring the 2009 Center for New Music series at the UI. The program, notes, and bios from that concert are online at the Center for New Music website.

For accommodations at the live event, call 319-335-0548.