FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Verne Moberg
E-mail: vam1@columbia.edu
Telephone: 212-854-4015
 
 
COMING IN SPRING 2009 TO DEUTSCHES HAUS,
420 West 116th Street, New York City

SONGS BY SWEDEN’S TOP TROUBADOUR AND
A CANDID VIEW OF STRINDBERG’S 3rd MARRIAGE
SLATED FOR COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THIS SPRING
 
An exhilarating evening of early music by Carl Michael Bellman, sung and played by gifted musicians, and a new play about August Strindberg’s turbulent third marriage — seen from the point of view of his wife — will be presented this spring by the Swedish Program of Columbia University.

Both events will be presented at Deutsches Haus, at 420 West 116th Street, between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive in New York City. The public is invited, and admission is free.
 
Bellman’s Music in February
 
On the first evening, a concert of exuberant 18th-century songs by Sweden's beloved troubadour Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795), will be performed by Swedish bass and counter tenor Staffan Liljas and American soprano Brett Umlauf. They will be accompanied on the lute by Daniel Swenberg, on baroque violin by Chern Hwei, and on piano by Amber Youell-Fingleton. The songs, which are familiar to many Swedes, will be sung in Swedish, with translations available to the audience.

The program will begin at 7 p.m., on Wednesday, February 25. It is sponsored by the Columbia Swedish Program with the assistance of the Swedish Institute in Stockholm, the Swedish Consulate of New York, and Columbia's European Institute.

Staffan Liljas, who primarily performs early music, lived for a decade in New York, where he performed as a soloist as well as in a number of ensembles, including New York Ensemble for Early Music, Vox Vocal Ensemble, Trio Eos, and Prometheus. Recently he returned to Sweden, where he performs regularly in concerts and oratorios.

Brett Umlauf is a regular oratorio soloist who also sings with the NYC-based ensemble Musique de la Reine and holds the position of soloist at 10th Church of Christ, Scientist. She is an original member of the female trio Charites, specializing in performing baroque music and poetry with period gesture.

Daniel Swenberg is a lutenist who works regularly with many ensembles in North America and Europe. Recently he accompanied Renée Fleming at the MET, Carnegie Hall, and on Live from Lincoln Center, with the Mostly Mozart Festival.
 
Strindberg's Third Marriage in April
 
August Strindberg (1849-1912) was notorious for his harsh criticism of professional women, yet he married two actresses and a journalist. Harriet Bosse, his third wife, was a Norwegian actress who appeared in a number of his plays, and her several years with the playwright were no less tempestuous than his earlier relationships but may be less familiar to American readers. This story of the marriage is told from the point of view of Ms. Bosse in this new play by Stockholm author Helena Sigander. Entitled After the Last Curtain: Candid Reflections of Strindberg's Third Wife, the drama opens as Harriet Bosse, while awaiting her turn at St. Peter’s Gate, looks back on her life with Sweden's acclaimed playwright. In Sweden the two-character play (featuring Mr. and Mrs. Strindberg) is being presented this Spring as "lunch theater" in Gothenburg and Stockholm.

The play was translated into English by Verne Moberg and will be directed at Deutsches Haus by Robert Greer.

In addition to her dramatist’s role, Sigander is known as a prolific mystery writer who conducts a mystery writers' school on the Internet. The main theme of several of her crime novels is how to maintain democracy and human rights in the fight against terrorism. A number of her main characters are female detectives or police commissioners, and her interest in women's rights is reflected in her fiction.

Sigander often gives talks at schools and libraries, and from 2001 to 2008 she directed a program called "Stockholm Reads," which encouraged all Stockholmers to read the same novel that year (e.g., Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg).

She also directs plays for the theater and in 2008 became the cofounder of a radio theater project, on local radio for the Stockholm suburb of Lidingö. Sigander has academic degrees in drama and literature.
 
For information about these programs, telephone: 212-854-4015 or e-mail: vam1@columbia.edu
 
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