Portland opera couple Jocelyn Clare Thomas and Zachary Lenox will be featured in wide-ranging show at SOU Music Recital Hall
By Lee Juillerat for Ashland.news
When Jocelyn Clare Thomas and Zachary Lenox sing the song “One Hand, One Heart” at the Sunday, Feb. 18, performance of “The Meaning of Love,” the music and the words will come from their hearts.
That because it’s a song the couple sang to each other when they were married in 2017.
An operatic romance
Thomas, a soprano, and Lenox, a baritone, live in Portland where they frequently perform with the Portland Opera and Oregon Symphony along with the Eugene Opera, Opera Bend, Harmonia Seattle, Symphony Tacoma and other opera companies. Fittingly, the couple met singing opera, and they have performed opposite each other as romantic leads in “La Boheme,” “Pagliacci,” “The Magic Flute,” ”Don Giovanni,” ”The Marriage of Figaro” and Anima Mundi Productions’ “Tango of the White Gardenia.”
“The Meaning of Love,” which will be performed at 3 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Southern Oregon University Music Recital Hall, will also feature pianist Jodi French, said Ethan Gans-Morse, Amina Mundi’s resident composer and executive director. Along with classical solo and duet songs, the show will include a variety of offerings, including Broadway show tunes and new works by local creators, including Gans-Morse, Tiziana DellaRovere and Michael Silversher.
“We always try to add our own unique, boutique touch,” Gans-Morse said of Anima Mundi programs, emphasizing that building on a sense of community is a constant goal. He added, “Our take on the Valentine’s concert is: What are the issues facing our community? We begin with songs of love. How we are in love with humanity and the world.”
‘Unique duo recital’
He said presenting “The Meaning of Love” “continues our commitment to bringing exceptional talent to our region to explore artistic, environmental and societal themes that touch the lives and hearts of our community.” He described the performance as a “unique duo recital that celebrates love in its different forms — romantic lovers, love for humanity, love for the Earth and our natural world and love in its mystical and spiritual dimensions — through a rich variety of musical styles.”
Resident poet Tiziana DellaRovere, Anima Mundi’s co-artistic director, echoed Gans-Morse’s thoughts, saying, “This is an exciting concert because Valentine’s Day usually refers only to romance, but here we have a chance to extend our expression of love to include the Earth, spirituality and all of humanity.”
Unusually, the program will be presented mostly in English and the few songs with poetry in other languages will be read by a native speaker of each language with English translations projected on an overhead screen.
Longtime favorites and new works
What Gans-Morse describes as an “eclectic program” will combine music and songs from classical composers such as Antonín Dvořák, Richard Strauss and Ralph Vaughan Williams and from popular TV shows and movies like “West Side Story” and “The Music Man,” along with new works by Gans-Morse, DellaRovere and Silversher.
“We’ve commissioned a song for this program” from Silversher, Gans-Morse said. “Michael moved to Ashland before the pandemic after a long and brilliantly successful L.A. career in film and television, where he wrote hundreds of songs for the biggest names in young audience programming, such as Disney, Jim Henson, Warner Brothers and PBS.”
Likewise, Thomas and Lenox have performed for a mix of audiences at a variety of venues. Along with opera halls, the couple has sung the national anthem three times at Portland Trail Blazers NBA games and delighted audiences of all ages with show tunes, Disney songs and the Great American Songbook.
While “The Meaning Love” is intended to expose audiences to local and regional talent, Gans-Morse said the program has a deeper meaning.
“Past seasons,” he said, “have featured multiple Grammy-winning and Grammy-nominated artists and premieres of over 15 new commissions. Now in our fifth season and inspired by the sold-out success of our Uptown String Quartet concert last November, the Heart of Humanity Series continues its mission of turning the concert hall into a space for renewed hope, communal healing and mutual understanding. As with all our programs, we try to connect our audiences with local and global themes of societal and environmental healing.”
For ticket information, visit HumanityTickets.com, call 541-833-3066 or email tickets@animamundiproductions.com.
Reduced-price tickets are available at the door for students under 25, SOU faculty and staff, and Oregon Trail cardholders. People purchasing discounted tickets are asked to arrive 30 minutes early.
Email freelance writer Lee Juillerat at 337lee337@charter.net.
Jan. 30: Name of song corrected in the first sentence. Ethan Gans-Morse’s name and role corrected in a photo caption.
