Reimer presents ‘Fields of Wonder’ Feb. 1
calendar icon17 Jan 2024
Lincoln, Neb.--Jamie Reimer, the Richard H. Larson Distinguished Professor of Music (voice) in the Glenn Korff School of Music, presents a faculty recital on Thursday, Feb. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in Westbrook Music Building Rm. 119.
The concert is free and open to the public. The concert will also be live webcast. Visit https://music.unl.edu/webcasts the day of the performance for the link.
The concert is titled “Fields of Wonder” and features words and music by Black composers and poets. Reimer will be joined by Stacie Haneline, piano, and Professor of Violin David Neely.
“The recital opens with an unpublished song by Robert Owens [“I wandered lonely, Op. 5], which I discovered in his archival papers in the UNL Libraries Robert Owens Collection,” Reimer said.
The program also includes the world premiere of “Fields of Wonder” by B.E. Boykin featuring text by Langston Hughes.
“It is the second song cycle in my project to commission rising Black composers to finish the settings of Langston Hughes’ volume of lyrical poetry by the same name,” Reimer said.
The commission was made possible, in part, with support from the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Endowment Fund.
Also on the program is “Sonnets of Love, Rosebuds, and Death” by Dorothy Rudd Moore.
“It is a beautiful, complex story of human love and loss,” Reimer said. “Moore set poetry by acclaimed Black American poets including Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen and Gwendolyn Bennet. UNL faculty violinist David Neely joins us for this portion of the program.”
Finally, the program concludes with “Shoe Jazz,” arranged for Reimer by Gwyneth Walker. Reimer and Haneline were recently selected by blind peer review to perform the piece on the International Alliance for Women in Music annual concert at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp in Belgium on Nov. 4.
“The poetry by Nikki Giovanni is thoughtful, funny, and speaks to the human experience of belonging,” Reimer said.
Reimer and Haneline have been collaborators for more than a decade. In 2017, the two were honored performers at the African-American Arts Song Alliance featuring Robert Owens’ “4 Sonnets to Duse.” The team’s CD, “The Last Songs of Robert Owens,” was released in November 2020 by Centaur Records.
Active recitalists, Reimer and Haneline perform throughout the U.S. and internationally. The duo is also dedicated to cutting-edge research on collaborative partnerships between singers and pianists. Reimer and Haneline have been invited to present their findings at numerous conferences in Europe and the U.S.
Recognized for her rich tone and sensitive storytelling, Reimer has performed in opera, oratorio and recital venues around the United States, Italy, Germany, Brazil, and Australia. With a particular interest in contemporary American art song, Reimer’s research focuses on the life and work of composer Robert Owens for which she was recognized with a Special Judges’ Citation from The American Prize in 2021. She is also artist-faculty at the Orfeo Music Festival in Vipiteno, Italy.
In 2012, she gave the world premiere of Owens’ “4 Sonnets to Eleonora Duse,” composed for her voice, and performed the role of Ursula in the North American premiere of Owens’ opera “Culture! Culture!” in 2015.