Soprano Sarah Ashcroft VandenBrink will present a lecture and recital at Williams Baptist University on Tuesday, February 24th. It will begin at 7:00 pm in the Magee Choral Room of WBU’s Maddox Center.
The presentation, which is part of WBU’s Vaughn Lecture Series, will feature works by Emilie Mayer and other female composers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
VandenBrink is an American performer, educator, researcher, and music director. A native of Holland, Michigan, she has recently returned to West Michigan after completing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance and Literature and a minor in Vocal Pedagogy from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where she also received her Master’s of Music.
Her research is dedicated to forgotten women composers, and she has focused her energies on reviving the vocal works of Mayer, a 19th century German composer. VandenBrink has written an anthology of Mayer’s Lieder, which included newly engraved copies of 12 of her songs in tandem with word-for-word translations, poetic translations, and IPA transcriptions. The book is under contract and will be published with the Hildegard Publishing Company.
Pianist Dennis Hay of Jonesboro will by joining VandenBrink for the performance. The event is free and open to the public.
The Vaughn Lecture Series is funded by an endowment from the late Jim and Wanda Lee Vaughn of Delaplaine, Ark. Presentations in the Vaughn series deal with the humanities, including drama, history and literature.
Williams is a private, Christian university in Walnut Ridge.
