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MILLIGAN COLLEGE, TN (January 24, 2005) — Nationally acclaimed concert pianist, scholar and recording artist Claudia Stevens will present the musical drama “An Evening with Madame F,” Tuesday, Feb. 1, at 7:30 p.m., in Seeger Chapel on the Milligan College campus.
Stevens, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, meditates on the Holocaust through artistic expression in “An Evening with Madame F.” Created for her own performance as pianist, singer and actor, she adopts the persona of an elderly concentration camp musician, Fania Fenelon, who performed at Auschwitz. Stephens uses music that was actually played and sung by women inmates as well as first-hand accounts to depict the struggle and moral dilemma of those who were forced to provide musical entertainment to the Nazis in order to survive.
Commissioned to create “An Evening with Madame F” by the Richmond (Va.) Jewish Federation, Stevens has performed the work in over 100 communities, including New York, Houston, Cleveland, Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C., as well as numerous universities across the nation. The work also was produced for television by PBS and was broadcast over “Voice of America.”
As a pianist and composer, Stevens is a recognized scholar of Robert Schumann, a classical German composer of romantic orchestra and chamber music, as well as 20th century American music. Stevens studied piano with renown musicians, Leonard Shure, Leon Fleischer and Arie Vardi and composition with David del Tredici and Leon Shidlowsky. She championed the works of American composers, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions, performing concerts in their honor at venues including Carnegie Recital Hall, the National Gallery and Boston’s Jordan Hall.
A native of California, Stevens graduated summa cum laude from Vassar College. She holds a master’s degree in musicology from the University of California at Berkeley and a doctor of musical arts from Boston University. She has held academic conducting and performing arts positions at Williams College, the University of Richmond and the College of William and Mary.
“An Evening with Madame F” is sponsored by the Milligan College Arts Council and is free and open to the public. For additional information contact the Public Relations Office at 423.461.8764.