Spotlight on Diversity
Kathleen Roland-Silverstein
Romanser: 25 Swedish Art Songs with Guide to Swedish Lyric Diction
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My experience with the beautiful romanser repertoire of Sweden has been a wonderful resource for me as a performer and scholar, and for my students who look to add varied and unusual repertoire to their performances. Sweden’s literary and cultural dominance of Scandinavia continued to strongly influence the art song of the entire region, resulting in gorgeous art song in languages easily accessible to American singers who are already familiar with lyric diction throughout the European languages. Thanks to the research and publications of a handful of American scholars, Scandinavian art song has become a rich motherlode of beautiful repertoire that speaks of the region’s fascination with nature, the sea, and the all-important seasons of midsummer and midwinter. -Kathleen Roland-Silverstein
Kathleen Roland-Silverstein is a highly regarded concert soloist well known for her interpretation of the music of the 20th and 21st century. She has been a featured singer with many music festivals, including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Britten-Pears Institute and the Tanglewood Music Festival, and has performed with many prominent conductors, including James Conlon, Kent Nagano, Reinbert de Leeuw and Oliver Knussen. Dr. Roland has been a frequent soloist with the Grammy award-winning Southwest Chamber Music Society of Los Angeles, with whom she has garnered critical acclaim for her performances. Recordings include a CD created with American composer Libby Larsen of her song cycle, Songs from Letters, from Calamity Jane to her daughter Janey, and Aura, for orchestra and soloists by award-winning Cambodian composer Chinary Ung. International appearances include performances in Cambodia, Vietnam, Germany and Sweden.
Her 2007 Fulbright award and two American-Scandinavian Foundation grants (2003 and 2016) have made possible continued research on the vocal music of Scandinavia, as well as performances and master classes of American art song in Sweden. As a result of this research, her anthology of Swedish art song for English-speaking singers, Romanser: 25 Swedish Art Songs with Guide to Swedish Lyric Diction, was published in 2014 by Gehrmans Musikförlag. Roland has been a lecture-recital presenter for NATS, the College Music Society, the National Opera Association, and the International Congress of Voice Teachers. The soprano holds a doctorate in voice from the University of Southern California, is assistant editor for the Opera Journal, and serves as the music reviewer for the Journal of Singing. She joined the faculty of the Setnor School of Music at Syracuse University in the fall of 2012, where she teaches voice, diction, vocal pedagogy, vocal literature and the opera workshop.
