School of Music and Department of Sport and Entertainment Management are joining forces again, but this time to bring an evening of Swedish National-Romantic Music to the Swedish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Armen Shaomian and Janet Hopkins will present a lecture-recital on the music of Swedish composers Wilhelm Peterson-Berger and Wilhelm Stenhammer at the Alfred Nobel Hall in House of Sweden.
Dr. Shaomian is a native from Stockholm, Sweden. He has a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Wayne State University. He has a Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in piano accompanying and chamber music from University of Miami. In 2012 he joined USC as an associate professor of Sport and Entertainment Management at the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management. He found faculty in the School of Music to collaborate on various projects from his education in music. He met Hopkins in 2012 and they have performed more than twenty concerts together at national conferences and invited performances at venues and universities.
Hopkins is a native from Whitney Port, New York. She has a Bachelor of Music in Education and a Masters in Vocal Performance from the State University of New York in Potsdam, N.Y. Hopkins performed at The Metropolitan Opera in New York for sixteen years. In 2008 she joined UofSC as an associate professor of Voice, mezzo-soprano at the School of Music.
The recital will have Swedish vocal pieces by Hopkins and Swedish solo piano works by Dr. Shaomian. The lecture will also educate the audience on each performed piece including why the piece was chosen, the history of the piece and the era it was composed.
“Both Peterson-Berger and Stenhammar had a major influence on the national-romantic movement during the early 1900s in Sweden,” said Dr. Shaomian. “As most of Europe was undergoing a transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy, many composers and artists felt the need to hark back to their Swedish roots, using a lot of folkloric motives and Scandinavian themes and creating a sense of belonging for the population. Music really led this movement, with poetry and visual arts closely following.”
The performance will take place at the House of Sweden in Washington, DC on May 20 from 6 to 9 p.m. The event sold out within a week. Dr. Shaomian and Hopkins have four more performances planned for this year.
Topics: Dr. Armen Shaomian, Janet Hopkins, College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Managament, Sport and Entertainment Management, House of Sweden, The Metropolitan Opera