Three Elon adjunct faculty of music come together to present a recital filled with incendiary music, performed by three fiery women, about the emotions and dimensions of love.
In an event sponsored by the Department of Music, the Gender & LGBTQIA Center and El Centro, three Elon adjunct faculty of music present “Her Incendiary Love.” The faculty recital offers different dimensions of love – all from the feminine perspective.
Gretchen Bruesehoff, soprano; Dora Cardona, soprano; and Suzanne Polak, piano, all come together as a powerhouse trio for the performance. They bring to their songs the feminine voice of love – young, fiery, timeless, unrequited, secret, revengeful and lusting – in all her glory.
According to Bruesehoff, the idea for the recital represents how she and her colleagues view themselves as fiery women. “We wanted to present a recital together of works we felt represented the many different emotional stages of love, from being in love to losing it, to death or divorce, to passion to contentment,” she said.
Since all three performers are adjunct faculty and artists, this presented as a challenge to match each other’s rehearsal schedules at times.
Polak was able to work separately with Bruesehoff and Cardona on their vocals as a pianist in between group sessions. Polak loves rehearsing with her colleagues, Bruesehoff shares. She says Polak finds the emotional music makes her tear up while playing.
That exact emotion is what the group hopes the audience will gain from this recital.
“At its heart, a recital is a presentation of music in a concert fashion, so maybe it’s just a little over an hour’s break from university study, but we hope that it also gives each person a moment to smile, to feel some shades of similar emotions in their life and to walk away having reflections of love and it impacts on each of us,” Bruesehoff said. “Also as it’s incendiary, we hope all feel the feminine power from us and our performance!”
“Her Incendiary Love” is set to take place in Whitley Auditorium this Thursday, Feb. 16 at 6:30 p.m. It will also be live-streamed on the Elon University Music Department Facebook page.