Actor Anthony Heald and acclaimed guitarist David Leisner will weave music and Shakespeare’s words in concert Saturday

By Jim Flint for Ashland.news

A good movie soundtrack can greatly enhance the viewing experience, helping to create atmosphere and underscoring important moments. Imagine the famous “Jaws” scene without composer John Williams’ ominous two-note “da-DUM!”

It’s a device as old as Shakespeare. And at 4 p.m. Saturday, June 8, stage and screen star Anthony Heald and acclaimed guitarist David Leisner will offer an afternoon of Shakespeare and guitar at the Southern Oregon University Music Recital Hall, 450 S. Mountain Ave., Ashland.

“Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On” is the closing program of the Chamber Music Concerts’ 40th season.

During the Bard’s time, musicians were an integral part of Elizabethan theater companies. Incidental music served certain scenes and characters sang songs.

Heald and Leisner will celebrate that heritage with readings from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, interspersed with guitar music.

The Tony Award-nominated Heald, who acted for OSF for 11 seasons, is best known for his performance as the doctor in “Silence of the Lambs” and his popular television roles on “The Practice” and “Boston Public.” Guitarist Leisner is a recording artist, distinguished composer and master teacher.

Idea sparked at dinner

The two friends had discussed working together before, but the idea jelled during a night out just before the pandemic.

“When I brought it up again over a memorable dinner we shared with our spouses at a great Indian restaurant in New York City, the dream became a reality,” Leisner said.

Heald was intrigued, to say the least.

“When he approached me with the idea of putting together a program of Shakespeare’s speeches and sonnets, and guitar music, I said, ‘That would be thrilling!’”

Heald got to work.

“I put together a list of some of the great Shakespearean speeches I love — pieces I’ve used for auditions, parts I’ve played, parts I’ve dreamed of playing — and I sent the list to David. He, in turn, suggested some guitar pieces he felt might be included, and I listened to dozens of recordings,” he said.

Program an artful weave

“Eventually, we found a shape emerging for the recital,” Heald said. “We came up with an order of what we would like to include, and how the spoken pieces and the guitar pieces would be interlaced.”

The two decided that after an initial musical statement of Leisner’s playing a John Dowland piece from Shakespeare’s time, Heald would present Jacques’ monologue from “As You Like It,” the “Seven Ages of Man” speech, to give the audience a sense of where they were going with their presentation.

Leisner focused on the pairings, looking for similarity of content, character or mood.

“I wanted to choose music from different eras,” Leisner said, “to help emphasize the universality of this great author.”

For example, Leisner paired Romeo’s speech to Juliet on her balcony with Schubert’s “Ständchen.”

“It is the perfect parallel,” he said, “a song sung by a young man, strumming his guitar, attempting to woo his potential lover as she listens at her window.”

Leisner had a lightbulb moment when he saw Heald’s choice of Stefano’s drunken tirade from “The Tempest.”

A drunken dance

“It immediately suggested the only ‘drunken’ classical guitar piece I know,” Leisner said. “It’s a short character piece by Ferenc Farkas, the teacher of György Ligeti, which imagines a drunken dance after drinking too much of a fine Austrian wine.”

One of Heald’s recitations will be Shakespeare’s sonnet, “Weary With Toil,” which ends with “Thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind / For thee and for myself no quiet find.”

To follow that, Leisner turned to a piece considered by some the greatest yet written for the guitar, “Passacaglia and Theme,” the last section of Benjamin Britten’s “Nocturnal.”

“The piece alternates between yearning for sleep and yearning for death,” Leisner said.

In addition to various pairings, variety was achieved with original pieces written by Leisner, including music that is incorporated within speeches.

Heald calls them “guitar and speaker duets.”

Fine tuning in Ashland

Leisner visited Heald in Ashland for a few days last August to fine-tune the program.

“Then we performed it in November for the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society at the American Philosophical Society’s intimate chamber space across from Independence Hall,” Heald said. “And it was terrifying!”

The form was new to Heald, he didn’t know the space, and he felt under-prepared.

“But we got a good response, learned a lot, and now we’re going to do it again,” he said.

What do they hope the audience will get from the performance?

“I would be thrilled if people felt the combination of music and the spoken word deepened and enriched both.”

“I hope they will be moved by this program as we are,” Leisner added.

For more information and to purchase tickets, go to chambermusicconcerts.org.

Reach writer Jim Flint at [email protected].