Download 2010.03.27.stevens.flyer_.pdf

an
evening
Performed by Claudia Stevens
Department of Music,
College ofWilliam & Mary
8:30 p.m. Saturday,
March 27, 2010
School of Music
Recital Hall
ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Created by Claudia Stevens for her performance as pianist, singer and actor, the piece draws on
first-hand accounts to depict and mirror the struggle of women - and in particular the French
cabaret artist Fania Fenelon - who survived Auschwitz as musicians. Stevens performs, and the
musical score incorporates, music that was played and sung by concentration camp inmates. And,
as a daughter of Holocaust survivors, she also meditates - in the performance and in remarks
afterwards - on the dilemma of using the Holocaust for artistic purposes.
Sponsored by:
Department of History, Jewish Studies Program, department of Theatre & Dance,
Women’s & Gender Studies program, and the School of Music
March 27, 2010 School of Music Recital Hall
Created, written and
performed by
Claudia Stevens
ABOUT An Evening with Madame F
An Evening with Madame F, created and written by Claudia Stevens for her solo performance as musician-actor, with additional original music by Fred Cohen, stands among a handful of Holocaust-related artistic works, performed live, that give artistic expression to
a catastrophe that overwhelms comprehension. The piece draws on several first-hand accounts, including that of cabaret artist Fania
Fenelon, to depict and mirror the struggle of women who survived Auschwitz as musicians. Stevens performs as pianist and singer, and
the musical score incorporates music that was played and sung by concentration camp inmates. And, as a daughter of Holocaust survivors, she also meditates - in the performance and in remarks afterwards - on the dilemma of using the Holocaust for artistic purposes.
An Evening with Madame F was produced for television by PBS affiliates WCVE and WHTJ.
A major article about Claudia Stevens, this play, and other Holocaust-related works by her, appears in the Winter, 2009 issue of “Reform Judaism” magazine.
Since 1990, An Evening with Madame F has been programmed at venues in Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, New York,
Fort Worth, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Cincinnati, New Orleans, West Palm Beach, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San
Antonio, Spokane, Oakland, Salt Lake City, St. Paul, Albany, Louisville, Dayton, Baltimore, Birmingham, Virginia Beach, Richmond,
Providence, Boston, Charleston, Washington, DC, and many other cities. Presenters have included Holocaust centers, Jewish Federations and Foundations, JCC cultural arts series, lectureships in Jewish Studies, etc.
Additionally, the piece has been presented by many leading educational institutions. Recent engagements include: Lehigh University,
Claremont McKenna College, Rider University, Haverford College, Stanford University, the Toronto Holocaust Education Center,
Swarthmore College (as Cooper Artist in Residence), Dartmouth College, University of Puget Sound (as Chism Visiting Lecturer),
Univ. of Calif., Santa Barbara, Brandeis University, Pacific Lutheran (as Raphael Lemkin lecture on Holocaust), Davidson College;
Denison University, Holy Cross, Carleton College, Western Michigan Univ., the Univ. of Mississippi, Clemson University, Whittier
College (the Feinberg lecture), the Univ. pf South Carolina, Christopher Newport University and others.
ABOUT CLAUDIA STEVENS
Claudia Stevens creates unique and complex interdisciplinary pieces, now a body of a dozen original plays, for her
solo performance as musician-actor. Several of her published solo plays encompass topics including bio terrorism,
hate crimes and reconciliation. Earlier work draws from literature, history, hidden family past, and issues of identity.
She also has become a recognized thinker and speaker about ethics and the arts.
Trained as a pianist, musicologist, conductor and composer Claudia holds degrees in music from Vassar College
(summa cum laude), the University of California at Berkeley and the Doctor of Musical Arts in piano from Boston University. Her academic positions include the College of William and Mary, as Assoc. Prof. of Piano, Adj. until 2007,
where she now is a Visiting Scholar. As a composers’ pianist in the 1980’s she was associated with Aaron Copland,
Roger Sessions and Elliott Carter, presenting their works and those of emerging younger composers at Carnegie Recital Hall (produced
by the New York Composers’ Forum) and other leading venues, and was the featured artist on several “Performance Today” on NPR
broadcasts. Many works she commissioned have been published. The Aaron Copland House in New York and several other libraries
now house collections devoted to her projects in new music advocacy and to her own career.
For the last twenty years, as an interdisciplinary performing artist, playwright and composer, Claudia has been supported by grants
from the International Theater Institute and from the Virginia Commission for the Arts (every year from 1994 to 2005); a “New Forms”
grant from the NEA, and residencies including the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and RS9 Szinhaz in
Budapest. She created and performed three major works during residencies at the Baltimore Theater Project. And in 2004 she brought
her own works to Rangoon, Burma at the invitation of the American diplomatic and struggling arts community there. From 2005-7 she
was a Visiting Scholar/Artist at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, which produced several of her works.
Her solo plays have been staged in Houston (“Stages Repertory”), at the Baltimore Theater Project, at Williams College (Center Stage
Theater), the Sandglass Theater, the Sands Theater, and the Kravis Arts Center, among numerous theater venues.
Claudia Stevens also has become a librettist, collaborating with San Francisco area composer Allen Shearer in several works of chamber
opera, one of which, The Dawn Makers, premiered at the Herbst Theater, San Francisco on Feb. 4, 2009, produced by ‘Composers,
Inc.’ the Bay Area new music presenters in celebration of their 25th season.