On October 2, the United Presbyterian Church on Chenango Street hosted a faculty recital as a part of Downtown Binghamton’s First Friday. Five members of the Binghamton University music department — Thomas Goodheart, baritone; Stephen Zank, piano; Jean Goodheart, soprano; Mary Burgess, soprano and Joel Harder, piano — performed German and French selections from artists Henri Duparc, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, as well as the featured piece: Robert Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39.
The church was vast and carpeted, with excellent acoustics, and the event itself drew in a substantial crowd with people of all ages. Impressively, the performers engaged with the audience using much more than just their voices. Enthusiastically giving their all to each song, you could see the passion that they had for their craft.
Burgess, a soprano, seemed to steal the show. She sang with a soft voice that somehow projected at impressively high pitches. Burgess has a background in operatic performance, and it showed. Additionally, she used the show as an opportunity to show off a newer member of the department.
“I chose songs by Franz Liszt because they are very pianistic and I wanted to introduce to our community our new faculty member, Joel Harder, assistant professor of collaborative piano, an absolutely outstanding player,” Burgess said. “The Liszt songs I chose tell interesting, dramatic stories which intrigue me, so that’s another reason I chose them. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to learn and perform this repertoire and to share it with others. No one could love their work more than I do.”
Harder accompanied parts of the program for Ms. Goodheart, Burgess, and Mr. Goodheart. Although each of the pieces were different in style and language, he handled them all with deft emotion that could connect with the audience. Harder joined the music department faculty just this fall, and found it easy to acclimate to the department.
“Tom [Goodheart] approached me at the beginning of the term about joining him in this concert, and I feel it has provided me a warm welcome from the faculty as well as a way to introduce myself as a collaborative pianist through collaboration on stage,” Harder said. “Working directly and creatively with my colleagues, as I have the privilege of doing here, is a truly unique way of establishing connections and building relationships, and it has certainly been an important part of my transition to the Binghamton community.”
I was struck throughout the performance by the enthusiasm each performer conveyed, despite how long the songs were and the fact that it was the Friday evening of what seemed like a very long week.
This concert was part of a fall series sponsored by the music department. The next production, called “Roomful of Teeth: Music Now!” will be on October 11 at 3 p.m. in the Anderson Center.