Events & Calendars "Fresh Inklings: New Words, New Works"

Soprano Kristen Watson will join violinist/composer Francine Trester and pianist/composer and Eric Sawyer of the Amherst music faculty in a performance of original music and lyrics. The free concert will take place on Sunday, Aug. 26, at 3 p.m. in Buckley Recital Hall at Amherst College. The composers will play premieres of two duos, Sawyer’s "Young Inklings" and Trester’s "Israfel." Two new song cycles with lyrics by the composers will also be introduced, Trester’s Artsonia and Sawyer’s Thirteen Popular Songs (selections). Rounding out the program will be a new piano work written for Sawyer by John McDonald, recently a visitor to Amherst College.

Trester is a prolific composer of vocal and instrumental music, whose recent works include the chamber opera 334 Bunnies and At the River, a vocal/orchestral work performed at the Hatch Shell on Boston’s Esplanade. She is on the music faculty of Berklee School of Music.

Sawyer is known to area audiences through the performances of his operas The Scarlet Professor, The Garden of Martyrs and Our American Cousin.

Kristen Watson is a member of the acclaimed Emmanuel Music, and performs widely in New England as a soloist and in stage roles, including recently as the Doctor in The Scarlet Professor.

Projected images are creations of Trester’s 8-year-old daughter, Chloë Carrano. Trester’s song cycle provides a commentary on Chloë’s paintings and the master paintings on which they are based.