Music Northwest presents
Music for the Hopeful Soul

Megan Renae Parker, soprano
Darrell Jordan, baritone
Mara Finkelstein, cello
Jane Harty, piano

November 16th, 2025 3:00 pm; First Lutheran Church of West Seattle

Please consider a donation to the Ron Marshall Fund for Music Education to support our Chamber Music Camps for Youth and Adults.

Duetto: Wie soll ich dich Liebster der Seelen, umfassen? (How shall I embrace You, lover of souls?) J.S. Bach
from Cantata BWV 152 (1685-1750)

Liebesprobe (Love’s Test), Op. 6 #1 Peter Cornelius
(1824-1874)

Sonata for Piano and Cello in C Major, Op. 102 #1 Ludwig van Beethoven
Andante; Allegro vivace (1770-1827)
Adagio; Andante; Allegro vivace

Morgen! (Tomorrow!), Op. 27 #4 Richard Strauss
(1864-1949)

The Monk and his Cat, Op. 29 #8 Samuel Barber
From “Hermit Songs” (1910-1981)
I Bought Me a Cat Aaron Copland, arr.
(1900-1990)

The Faces of Love Jake Heggie
(1961- )
I shall not live in vain Text: Emily Dickinson
My True love hath my heart Text: Sir Philip Sydney
Mitten Smitten Text: Frederica von Stade
A Route to the Sky Text: Frederica von Stade

Sure on this Shining Night Morten Lauridsen
Dedicated to Dana Gioia (1943- )
Text: James Agee

Homage to Søren Kierkegaard WORLD PREMIERE Paul Salerni
(1943- )(1951- )
Text: Dana Gioia
This premiere performance is dedicated to Pastor Ron Marshall (1948-2021) who commissioned the text.

Please join us for a Reception in the Lounge

We are grateful for the use of the beautiful space at First Lutheran Church of West Seattle.

PROGRAM NOTES by Jane Harty
The brilliant and widely misunderstood existentialist theologian, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55), [SK], wrote
about the three life stages of the human soul: the aesthetic, the ethical, [both in his Either/Or], and the
religious [in his Stages along Life’s Way]. Although highly critical of the national church in his homeland,
Denmark, he felt that the religious stage of the soul was paramount.
SK’s aesthetic stage is connected to the individual’s enjoyment of the pleasures of life: the love of nature, of
stars and animals, of first romantic love, and of beautiful and energizing music—the joys of existence which
ultimately are fleeting. (A song ends!) But nonetheless, the human soul has hope that an unexpected pleasure
will again come, just for them. In our recital today, it is found in the romantic duet of Cornelius and Strauss’s
sensuous expression of love; the delightful songs of Copland, Barber, and Heggie about animals and
childhood; and Lauridsen’s gorgeous paean to walking alone under the stars, dedicated to poet Dana Gioia.
Beethoven’s late Sonata for Piano and Cello is one of the great masterpieces in the instrumental duo
repertoire. Full of “all the feels” from thoughtful tenderness to bursting energy, it pulls the listener deeply into
an intense internal life, as did Kierkegaard’s prolific writings which emerged in the same time period.
Beethoven’s Symphony #9 was played at the fall of the Berlin Wall because of the hopeful joy it offered to the
burdened soul. His response to his own increasing deafness was “I will seize fate by the throat; it shall
certainly not bend and crush me completely.”
SK’s ethical stage is about the commitment to community, to understanding right and wrong, to care and
understanding of the neighbor. Certainly a core value in both secular and religious faiths of various kinds,
“ethical music” might be found in anti-war and freedom songs which offer hope to the oppressed and
alienated, as well as the moving Heggie setting of Emily Dickinson’s I shall not live in vain.
SK’s religious stage is heard in both the Bach Duetto from Cantata 192, and in the premiere of Paul Salerni’s
Homage to Søren Kierkegaard. This stage is about SK’s “leap of faith,” profoundly connecting the individual
soul to God with the hope beyond death of a better life to come. Bach’s Duetto is a dialogue between the
individual soul and God about self-denial and sorrow leading to eternal joy. In Salerni’s transcendent new
work, the grief in SK’s difficult life is transformed into the hope of finally becoming himself, with God’s help.

Composer Paul Salerni writes: “The great American composer George Crumb has said that a composer spends
a life trying to find a poet. Thanks to my spouse showing me a poem from the New Yorker in 1987 and
suggesting that I set it, I was lucky to find my poet relatively early on. That setting of Dana Gioia’s “Garden on
the Campagna” led to a lifelong collaboration that includes art song settings of 17 of Dana’s poems, three
Italian fables for narration and orchestra, a one-act opera in ten scenes, two one-act dance operas, and finally
today’s premiere of my 18 th  setting of a Dana Gioia poem.
 
When Jane asked me to set this poem, Dana chimed in and suggested there be two singers. I hope it is clear
from the setting that the soprano is the narrator of Kierkegaard’s life, and that the baritone sings what Dana
imagined would have been Kierkegaard’s own words. After the intoning of the epitaph that introduces the
poem, the cello and piano play a passage that is my depiction of Kierkegaard’s journey to faith. That passage
returns as we hear about his final moments.”
The text for Homage to Søren Kierkegaard by Dana Gioia was commissioned by Pastor Ron Marshall for First
Lutheran Church of West Seattle in 2013. Ron was also the treasurer of Music Northwest, and widely
published as a specialist in Kierkegaard and Luther. He is deeply missed.
BIOS
Megan Renae Parker, Lyric Coloratura Soprano and cross-over artist, graces operatic, musical theatre and concert
stages alike. Hailed for her “superb showmanship” this two-time NW Regional Metropolitan Opera National Council
Finalist’s recent roles include Violetta – La Traviata with Vashon Opera, Francesca Johnson- The Bridges of Madison
County with Showtunes Theatre, Alice- in the Broadway bound revival of The Secret Garden with 5 th  Avenue Theatre, and
Peaches/Baby Jane- Jerry Springer the Opera with Balagan Theatre.  Megan also premiered the song cycle, In Sleep the
World is Yours by Lori Laitman, commissioned by the Music of Remembrance, and recorded on the Naxos label. 
Seattle-based lyric baritone Darrell J. Jordan has been praised for his “shining, beautiful voice” (Broadway World), his
"expressive baritone and facial expressions" (The SunBreak), and has been called “the star of the show” (Columbia Heart
Beat). Dr. Jordan has performed over 40 operatic roles. Opera credits include Opera West Santa Fe, Tacoma Opera,
Wilmington Concert Opera, Music On Site, Inc., Baroque Opera Workshop-Queens, Lawrence Opera Theatre, the Puget
Sound Concert Opera, Northwest Opera In Schools Touring Company, Operamuse, Seattle Modern Opera Company,
Pacific Northwest Opera, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Seattle, OperaBend, Barn Opera, Vermont Opera, Vashon
Opera, Opera Idaho, and Seattle Opera.
Mara Finkelstein studied cello at the Gnessin College of Music and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, Russia.
She moved to the US in 1989. An active freelance musician, she has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Seattle
Opera, Fear No Music 20 th Century Ensemble, and the Music of Remembrance Chamber Series. She is the principal cellist
with the Northwest Sinfonietta Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Finkelstein has been featured at the Paley Music Festival in
France and has toured Germany with the New European Strings. She is a very dedicated private teacher.

Jane Harty, pianist, holds a D.M.A. degree from the University of Southern California, and studied at L’Ecole Normale
de Musique in Paris. Her teachers have included Blanche Bascourret de Gueraldi, a student of Cortot; Johanna Graudan,
a student of Schnabel; and Nadia Boulanger in composition. As the Artistic Director of the Music Northwest Concert Series in Seattle, she has enjoyed many collaborations with members of the Seattle Symphony, as well as jazz, and world
music musicians. She is the grandniece of Sir Hamilton Harty, the “Irish Toscanini,” and is a specialist in his songs and chamber music.

Paul Salerni is a widely performed and commissioned composer whose one-act opera Tony Caruso’s Final Broadcast (libretto by Dana Gioia) won the National Opera Association’s Chamber Opera Competition and whose recording is distributed on Naxos. Salerni’s second opera on a libretto by Gioia (Haunted) and other works by the pair were released on a Navona CD in September. Salerni’s chamber music and songs appear on the Albany, Bridge, and New Focus labels, and he is published by Presser, Alfred, Fischer, and North Star. Salerni received a Ph.D. in composition from Harvard University where he studied with Earl Kim; as an advocate for Kim’s music, he has given numerous
performances and lectures about Kim’s music around the world and appears as interviewee and performer in the award-
winning documentary about Kim called Earl. Salerni is the NEH Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Professor of Music at Lehigh University.

Please consider a donation to the Ron Marshall Fund for Music Education to support our

Chamber Music Camps for Youth and Adults.
Music Northwest is proudly sponsored by:

JohnsonCN Bunsow De Mory LLP Arts Fund