Alumna performs free recital

April 12, 2016 | Alumni

Alice-Anne Light ('07) hosted a lecture and recital showcasing her dissertation April 18 at 7 p.m. in Reynolds Recital Hall. Light successfully defended her dissertation “From Stone to Sound: Revealing Art Through Musical Motives in Jake Heggie’s  ‘Camille Claudel: Into the Fire’” at the University of Missouri at Kansas City earlier this month.

Light presented a brief lecture summarizing her dissertation followed by a performance of Heggie’s “Camille Claudel: Into the Fire.”

“This particular song cycle tells the story of French sculptor Camille Claudel; her relationship with her mentor Auguste Rodin, sculptor of ‘The Thinker;’ her descent into mental instability and dysfunction; and her 30-year incarceration at Montdevergues Asylum outside of Avignon, France,” Light said. “Each one of the seven movements, save the Prologue and Epilogue, are named after one of her most famous sculptures.”

Light’s recent concert engagements include mezzo-soprano soloist for Beethoven’s “Choral Fantasy” with the Utah Festival Opera, an appearance as mezzo-soprano soloist for the University’s production of Mozart’s “Requiem” at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, as well as various solo appearances with the William Jewell Cardinalis Vocal Ensemble and the William Baker Singers in Kansas City, Missouri.

Light was accompanied by her coach and mentor Natalia Rivera. Rivera was a soloist with Puerto Rico Symphony at age 14, and she has studied at the New England Conservatory, the University of Minnesota, and the Julliard School of Music. She has performed recitals in Italy, Austria, Japan and Alice Tully Hall in New York.