New Jersey Symphony: Neruda Songs and Poulencs Gloria
About This Event
Live event at NJPAC
About Neruda Songs(song)
Peter Lieberson’s *Neruda Songs* is a five-part song cycle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, built from poems by Chilean writer and diplomat Pablo Neruda. Written for the composer’s wife, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, the work treats love as lived experience rather than literary pose, letting the voice move in and out of the orchestra’s changing light. It has circulated widely in New York’s classical ecosystem since its early-2000s arrival, even when not billed as a formal “NYC premiere.” Now heard live at NJPAC with the New Jersey Symphony, it sits naturally beside Francis Poulenc’s French song lineage.
About the Artists
New Jersey Symphony
The New Jersey Symphony is a professional orchestra based in New Jersey, known for performing a wide range of classical and contemporary music.
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems such as the ones in his collection Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924).
Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc, a luminary in the realm of classical music, captivates audiences with his evocative compositions that span operas, ballets, and orchestral works. With a rich legacy that includes celebrated pieces like "Dialogues des Carmélites" and "Les biches," Poulenc's music is a staple in the classical repertoire.