Chamber Series — Zemlinsky’s World: Brahms, Berg, Schoenberg, and Korngold
Sunday, November 7, 2025 | 7 PM
Follen Church, Lexington
The Program
Chamber Series —
Zemlinsky’s World: Brahms, Berg, Schoenberg, and Korngold
Allison Voth, Chamber Series Director
Step into the richly expressive sound world of turn-of-the-century Vienna in this intimate chamber recital exploring the influence and legacy of Alexander Zemlinsky. A composer of deep lyricism and emotional depth, Zemlinsky stood at the crossroads of Romanticism and Modernism, both shaping and reflecting the evolving musical language of his time.
This program surrounds Zemlinsky with music by his mentors, contemporaries, and protégés—Johannes Brahms, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Erich Korngold—offering a rare glimpse into the interconnected artistic circles of fin-de-siècle Vienna. From Brahms’s Hungarian-inflected Zigeunerlieder to the youthful effervescence of Korngold’s songs, and from Schoenberg’s early lush Lieder to Berg’s evocative Sieben frühe Lieder, this recital illuminates a singular era of innovation, passion, and transformation.
Join us as we celebrate these voices in the spirit of our 2025–26 mainstage season, which culminates in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—another work born of revolution and human expression.
Meet the Chamber Series Director
Allison Voth, piano
Allison Voth is an associate professor of music at Boston University’s School of Music, and principal coach at Boston University’s Opera Institute. She widely concertized with Lucine Amara of the Metropolitan Opera. She is widely known as a diction coach in Boston and throughout the U.S. She has worked as diction coach and/or répétiteur with such companies as Opera Boston, Boston Lyric Opera, Emmanuel Music, Chautauqua Opera, Providence Opera, Granite State Opera, the Verismo Opera of New Jersey and Opera North. Festivals include Opera Unlimited, The Florence Vocal Seminar and the Athens Music Festival. Ms. Voth is well recognized for her supertitles, which have been used in both national and international opera productions including Washington Opera, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Barbicon Festival in London, Opera Boston, Palm Beach Opera among many others. For several years she had a unique, ongoing collaboration with John Conklin as supertitle co-writer and designer for Boston Lyric Opera. Since 2023, Ms. Voth has been the pre-performance lecturer for Boston Lyric Opera. As a champion of new music, she has performed and assisted in many premieres with ALEA III, Collage New Music, The New Music Consort, The Group for Contemporary Players and The National Orchestra Association New Music Project. She is a specialist in the music of Paul Bowles and was on the cutting edge of the Paul Bowles revival movement in the 1990’s when she produced and performed in a multi-media production of music and readings entitled Paul Bowles: One Man, Two Minds at Merkin Hall in New York. The EOS Ensemble consequently invited her to participate in its Paul Bowles Festival in New York where she premiered a set of piano preludes. In 2011 as part of the Boston University Fringe Festival, she co-produced and music directed a Paul and Jane Bowles centennial celebration which included a multi-media performance entitled Two Stars in the Desert (also performed at BU’s yearly Incite Festival in New York), as well as a fully staged Boston premiere of his theatre work Yerma. Ms. Voth, recognized for her innovative programming, is the Chamber Series Music Director for the well-known Cantata Singers in Boston. She can be heard on CRI recordings.
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Approx. 70-80 minutes. There will be no intermission.
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755 Massachusetts Ave, Lexington, MA 02420
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Parking lot across the street
On Massachusetts Avenue or Follen Road
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MBTA 62 and 76 buses from the Alewife T station
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Fully accessible; elevator access inside church
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Wear what makes you feel comfortable!