Award-winning Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, artistic director of Bard Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, joins TŌN for an all-Brahms concert. She performs his Alto Rhapsody, based on a Goethe poem and composed as a wedding gift for the daughter of Robert and Clara Schumann, whom Brahms greatly admired. The program also features tenor Joshua Blue in the cantata Rinaldo, inspired by another Goethe poem about a knight enchanted by a cunning sorceress. Blue recently appeared as Tamino in the Met’s 2023 production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The performance concludes with Brahms’ First Symphony, over which the composer toiled for 14 years before its debut.

Leon Botstein, conductor
Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano
Joshua Blue, tenor
Bard Festival Chorale
James Bagwell, choral director

All-Brahms Program
Rinaldo, Op. 50
Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53
Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68