A second annual benefit program for the Amagansett Life-Saving Station, “The Cozy Side of Beethoven: An Intimate Concert,” will be performed tomorrow, featuring some of the master’s well-loved favorites and some of his less-well-known vocal works.
The 5 p.m. concert will highlight the quartet “Mir ist so wunderbar” (“A Wondrous Feeling Fills Me”) from the opera “Fidelio,” the soprano aria “Ah, perfido!” (“Ah, Deceiver!”), and the Finale from the Piano Trio in E flat, Op. 70, as well as folk song settings and other lieder, performed by four singers and three instrumentalists.
“As it happens, next year is the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, so it seems like a good time to do a concert in his honor,” Deborah Carmichael, the mezzo-soprano for the concert, said last week. “As for the specific musical choices, every year we do a series of house concerts in New York called Cozy Concerts. We were not going to do the Fifth Symphony in a living room, so, with some input from the other members of the group, my colleague Kinga Cserjési put together a more intimate program that includes Scottish and Welsh folk song arrangements, which some people may not have heard before, as well as more familiar pieces.”
Speaking of the room in the Life-Saving Station where the concert will be held, Ms. Carmichael said, “We are very lucky, because the boat room turns out to have wonderful acoustics, as well as a warm, inviting atmosphere.
In the summer, we can open the big doors, so that the sea air comes in. The room has four columns, which adds something to its special character. It’s a place full of charm and history, and it’s just the right size for a concert to be open to the general public but still cozy and intimate.”
Ms. Carmichael has sung in Europe and the United States, with Lea Bracher as the Duo Delizioso, and with Ms. Cserjési as La Compagnia Amarilli. She has taught singing in New York and Vienna since 1992, including workshops in Austria, Budapest, and New York. In 2012, she initiated the Il Cuore Canta workshop series for young opera singers.
Ms. Cserjési, who will be singing soprano, has a postgraduate degree in early vocal music from Fontys University in the Netherlands, has sung internationally as a soloist and with ensembles, and is a founding member of the Hungarian group Bartok’s Roses. She has taught singing in Budapest and New York since 1994.
The other singers are Berry Jones, tenor, and Peter Ludwig, bass-baritone. Joining them will be Nikita Morozov, violin, Valeriya Sholokhova, cello, and Douglas Martin, piano.
Ms. Carmichael explained that for her there is special family connection to the location of the concert. “My father, Joel Carmichael, who had an adventurous streak, bought the Life-Saving Station in 1966 for $1, when the Town of East Hampton was considering tearing it down. He moved it off the town land near the beach to a piece of property on Bluff Road, and until his death in 2006 it was his house, and my family spent summers there, and also many weekends in the winter. My father had goats running around on the lawn for several summers in a row! There is a wonderful documentary called ‘Ocean Keeper’ by Eileen Olivieri Torpey about the house, its history, and my family’s relationship to it.”
After Mr. Carmichael died, the family gave the house to the town. It was moved back to its original location and was inaugurated as a museum in 2017. “At the inauguration ceremony, a captain of the Coast Guard told us what an important part of the Coast Guard’s history this building represents, and how grateful they were that it had been preserved,” Ms. Carmichael said.
“Last year, in June 2018, my colleagues and I sang a concert in the boat room for the first time. It was very moving for me to spend time in the house again. Rehearsing and performing there, I felt as if I had come home. I’m grateful to be able to sing in the boat room again.”
The four singers in the concert follow the Libero Canto approach to singing. The name is taken from “la via al libero canto,” or “the path to free singing,” a process developed by Lajos Szamosi in Budapest in the early 20th century. The approach is based on letting go of excess tension and effort so that singing can become freer and more spontaneous.
“We don’t claim to be models of free singing, but that is the goal we are working toward,” Ms. Carmichael said. “We see every lesson, rehearsal, and concert as a step on this path.”
As far as future projects go, the ensemble is planning to do a program of opera scenes from the Baroque to the Romantic in December. They are also working on a program of traditional Hungarian music and a cappella ensemble pieces by Bartok, which they hope to record in January.
Tickets for the hourlong program are $20 in advance at amagansettlss.org or $25 at the door. Seating is limited, and all seats are general admission. A reception will follow the concert.