Night and Day

FORCES: Sara Couden, contralto | Jenny Lin, Piano

“Couden and Lin make a first-rate case for all this music….this disc shows that when as well-performed as they are here, his songs have something to offer that goes beyond his exceptional keyboard prowess.”

— Dr. Mark Estren, Transcentury

“This recital of Schnabel’s complete Lieder partners Steinway Ambassador Jenny Lin with one of the Twenty-First century’s rarest vocal commodities—a true contralto. Sara Couden engages her own formidable abilities….Lin discerns the appropriate atmosphere for each Lied, listening carefully to the metamorphosing colors of Couden’s singing….Compelling in every selection, Couden’s expressivity in the Notturno is incredible. In each of Schnabel’s songs, Couden and Lin exhibit the manner in which the interactions between voice and piano parallel the marriage of music and words.”

—Joseph Newsome, Voix des Arts

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Biography

American contralto Sara Couden is a premiere interpreter of opera, oratorio, chamber music, and art song. Praised by Opera News for her “unusually rich and resonant” voice, Sara has thrilled audiences worldwide on stages including the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and St. Petersburg Opera. Her vast operatic and concert repertoire encompasses works spanning six centuries of musical history, ranging in style from terrifying to tragic, sacred to sacrilegious, commanding to comedic.

Sara is an indefatigable champion of art song repertoire and sought-after recitalist. She brings a profound love of language and a deep respect for the intimate conversation between singer and pianist to every song she interprets. A true collaborator, Sara relishes any opportunity to explore, reflect upon and respond to the piano’s broad range of expressive possibilities, bringing art songs to life with her own palette of colors and vocal effects. She has been featured in recital at Lincoln Center, the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, the Staunton Music Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and the Brooklyn Art Song Society, among others.

This recording marks Sara’s debut interpretation of the music of Arthur Schnabel. “The tonality Schnabel employs in his art songs is complex and often challenging for both singer and pianist, but I find his approach to his texts to be extremely delicate and beautiful. The range of feelings he evokes in the poems he sets about nature, love, and memory is incredible: the subject matter is narrow, but the nuance he finds in each poem, and then illuminates so specifically in each setting, makes his songs both richly varied and very human – an extremely impressive poetic and musical achievement. It isn’t every composer who works so intimately with the essence of his or her text. He always tells the story of the poem with directness, power, and a creativity stemming from sensitive comprehension. Despite the developing sophistication of Schnabel’s compositional style and harmonic language as his life and career progressed, his intense dedication to his texts ensures that the heart of his songs never falters.”

Sara is a graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Program at the Metropolitan Opera and earned a master’s degree with Honors in Opera from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Sara is also an early music enthusiast and holds an A.D. in Early Music, Chamber Music, and Oratorio from the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music.

Pianist Jenny Lin is an artist of keen musicianship, brilliant technique, and a compelling perspective shaped by a deep fluency in global culture. Born in Taiwan, raised in Austria, educated in Europe and America, Lin has built a vibrant international career, notable for innovative collaborations with a range of artists and creators.

In this most unusual season, Lin has performances – both digital and in person – at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Washington Performing Arts, Winnipeg New Music, the Morris Museum, St. Olaf College, and elsewhere.

Jenny Lin also continues her collaboration with Philip Glass, performing his Etudes in concerts around the globe.  This experience inspired Lin to create The Etudes Project, in which she works with a range of living composers to create new technical piano etudes, pairing each new piece with an etude from the classical canon. The results are featured on Sono Luminus albums; Volume 1 showcases Lin’s work with ICEBERG New Music, and Volume 2 will be released in 2021.

Jenny Lin is the featured pianist in Elliot Goldenthal’s original motion picture score for Julie Taymor’s 2020 film, The Glorias and recently recorded an album with accordionist Guy Klucevsek (created in “contactless” fashion) featuring the music of Giya Kancheli. Her catalogue (which includes more than 30 albums, on Hänssler Classic, eOne, BIS, New World, Albany, et al) includes the music of Arthur Schnabel, Chopin’s Nocturnes, Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues, transcriptions of the songs of Chinese pop singer Teresa Teng, and Melody’s Mostly Musical Day, an album, picture book, and multimedia children’s concert.

Lin has performed with orchestras throughout the world, including the American Symphony Orchestra, NDR and SWR German Radio Orchestras, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, and others. She has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, at BAM Next Wave, Spoleto USA, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and elsewhere.

Fluent in English, German, Mandarin, and French, Jenny Lin holds a bachelor’s degree in German Literature from The Johns Hopkins University and studied music at the Hochschule für Musik, and at the Peabody Conservatory. Jenny Lin currently resides with her family in New York City.