Ensemble LPR and the American Irish Historical Society proudly announceLUNAIRE: A Vocal Salon for the New Moon at the American Irish Historical Society. 

Ensemble LPR, following their Deutsche Grammophon recording earlier this year and an acclaimed Central Park performance this summer, will make their debut at The American Irish Historical Society performing Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 featuring soprano Mellissa Hughes.

Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire remains a vanguard work. First performed in 1912, it was not only the precursor to twelve tone technique but its instrumentation became so standard for 20th century composers that it is still the instrumental basis for many groups formed today. 

The program will also include the world premiere of Ricardo Romaneiro's “Lamplighting,”featuring mezzo-soprano Naomi O’Connelljoined by narrator Tom Schubert and vocalist Hannah Sumner. Romaneiro’s latest is a work for voice and ensemble with poetry by Christopher Cahill.  Inspired by Pierrot Lunaire’s theme and orchestration (with added percussion and electronics), “Lamplighting” takes the listener on a journey of rhythm and counterpoint expressing a fundamental connection made by the unconscious between feelings that are normally poles apart: life and death, pleasure and pain, ecstasy and melancholy. This will be the fifth premiere Ensemble LPR has given this year.

The setting for this performance is worth noting: The American Irish Historical Society is a landmark building in New York City, beloved for its historically preserved turn-of-the-century stylized interior. On the location for the event, Ensemble LPR’s Founding Executive and Artistic Director David Handler remarked: “It is a privilege to bring Ensemble LPR to The American Irish Historical Society. The building's exquisite and otherworldly charm make it the perfect place for a chamber concert, and the Society's commitment to language and its countrymen's gift for the written word make the vocal salon an ideal fit. Alongside Pierrot, the piece that defined this now classic instrumentation, the premiere of Ricardo Romaneiro's “Lamplighting” inspired by and set to the poem of Christopher Cahill offers a new perspective to not only on the “Pierrot ensemble” but also its subject, the moon, on this moonless Autumn night.”