composer

"The Sake Of You" is an artsong by Jake Landau, a setting of Appalachian folk text collected by Jean Ritchie.

Commissioned for Devony Smith and Danny Zelibor's album "In This Short Life" (Lexicon Classics), the song for mezzo, drone, and piano is being released as a single on May 16th, available to stream on all platforms.

The album "In This Short Life" releases June 13th and features an additional artsong by Landau, "Sew My True Love (Jubilee)".

Scores for both songs are available for purchase at Just A Theory Press.

Join soprano Emily Brown Gibson, composer Jake Landau, and more for a recital in the historic Holywell Music Room, the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Europe.

The recital's program celebrates a quality unique to music among all artforms: the need to perform a work in order for it to be communicated to an audience. A painting by Van Gogh is deliverable to an audience on its own, ready to be viewed and felt, but a symphony by Beethoven exists only as ink on the page until performers bring it to life in sound. This idea of having to "realize" older, written work is the feature of this program, expored through the following:

• translation (Monteverdi's "Lamento della ninfa" into contemporary English)
• original composition resetting lyrics from the Elizabethan lutesong tradition
• continuo realization on both harpsichord and piano

and more. The recital will also feature a performance of "Fragment 96: Atthis", a monodrama on poet Emily Garber's translation of "Fragment 96", by Sappho.

This event is supported by the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford.

More info and ticket release soon.

This summer The New Voice Festival is held in New York City, featuring a concert of new works including artsongs by Landau and excerpts from his operas (& Aeterna and Pietà) and musical Rosie.