Muriello, Gompper to go 'Beyond the Great American Songbook'

The University of Iowa School of Music will present “Beyond the Great American Songbook,” a free concert featuring baritone John Muriello, UI professor of voice and opera, and David Gompper, UI professor of composition and music theory, on piano, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, in Riverside Recital Hall on the UI campus.

Inspired by that body of songs called “The Great American Songbook,” Muriello and Gompper celebrate the genre with cabaret songs by Stephen Sondheim, William Bolcom, Richard Pearson Thomas, Marc Blitzstein, and Gompper himself. While these five composers have forged significant bodies of repertoire in musical theatre, solo song, chamber and symphonic music, their approach couldn’t be more different.

Sondheim is one of the most influential American musical theatre composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Bolcom is a living composer of opera, song, chamber, and orchestral music, in particular his groundbreaking setting of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience, as well as his operas A View from the Bridge, Casino Paradise, McTeague, and A Wedding. Pearson Thomas’ opera, A Wake or a Wedding, was commissioned and premiered by the California State University at Fullerton Opera Theatre, and his musical Parallel Lives was produced Off-Off Broadway by the Riverside Opera Ensemble.

Blitzstein won national attention for his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, and for his Off-Broadway translation/adaptation of The Threepenny Opera. Other works include his opera Regina, the Broadway musical Juno, and a translation/adaptation of Brecht and Weill’s musical play The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Finally, from Gompper, two songs from his Five Love Songs set to poetry of Marvin Bell. Tony Arnold and Muriello premiered this composition in a concert of works by the composer on texts of the poet Marvin Bell on Feb. 19, 2012, at the UI.

David Gompper

Gompper has lived and worked professionally as a pianist, conductor, and composer in New York, San Diego, London, Nigeria, Michigan, Texas, and Iowa. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Jeremy Dale Roberts, Humphrey Searle, and Phyllis Sellick. After teaching in Nigeria, he received his doctorate at the University of Michigan, taught at the University of Texas, Arlington, and since 1991 has been professor of composition and director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. His compositions have been performed in such venues as Carnegie and Merkin Halls (New York), Wigmore Hall (London), Konzerthaus (Vienna), and the Bolshoi Hall (Moscow).

John Muriello

Muriello has carried on a varied performing career in opera, operetta, musical theater, and concert work. Stage credits include Tartuffe in Kirk Mechem’s Tartuffe, the Lecturer in Argento’s A Water Bird Talk, Ko-Ko in The Mikado, Marcello in La Bohème, Voltaire in Candide, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, and Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Muriello has concertized in London at The Wigmore Hall and in Moscow at the Moscow Conservatory, as well as throughout the United States. His directing credits include H.M.S. Pinafore for Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, and The Fantasticks, She Loves Me, and A Little Night Music for the University of Iowa School of Music.

The School of Music is part of the Division of Performing Arts in the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to attend this concert, contact the School of Music in advance at 319-335-1603.

For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events visit the Arts Iowa website.