Mezzo-soprano Bella Adamová and pianist Michael Gees invite you to a song recital entitled There is Home — a sensitive musical journey dedicated to the search for home in its various forms. The program will feature songs by Pavel Haas, Gustav Mahler, Modest Mussorgsky, Benjamin Britten, as well as original improvisations on texts by world poets and the singer herself. For Bella Adamová, a native of Chechnya, music is the right place where she feels truly at home.

Pavel Haas
Four Songs on Chinese Poetry, HW IV/28

Gustav Mahler
Rückert Songs

Modest Mussorgsky
The Nursery

Benjamin Britten
Folksong Arrangements

Bella Adamova – mezzo-soprano
Michael Gees – piano

Home — a word whose meaning is often tied to an intimate feeling of love and safety, and whose significance is unique for each individual. The song recital of mezzo-soprano Bella Adamova and pianist Michael Gees, titled There is Home, will explore the search for and discovery of home in its many meanings and forms.

The program connects Four Songs on Chinese Poetry by Czech composer Pavel Haas, written in the agonizing environment of the Terezín concentration camp in 1944 as an emotional confession of his separation from home, Gustav Mahler’s Rückert Songs, composed at the turn of the 20th century, Modest Mussorgsky’s song cycle The Nursery from 1868–1872,

Benjamin Britten’s Folksong Arrangements from the British Isles, and improvisations on the poetry of Marie Howe, Klára Goldstein, Heinz-Albert Heinrichs, Pablo Neruda, Anna Akhmatova, and the singer herself, Bella Adamova.

For Adamova, the theme of home carries a deeply personal dimension. Born in Chechnya, her mother tongue is Russian, yet she grew up in Prague, studied in London, and today often performs on German stages. As she says:

“My true home, the place where I feel most myself, is in my songs — in my improvisations.”