Texans In Tune is a segment of Marfa Public Radio’s Monday classical music program In Tune, featuring live performances with students at the University of Texas Butler School of Music.
In this segment — which originally aired on Monday, February 24th — host Nick Hurt speaks with mezzo-soprano Page Stephens. Hurt and Stephens talk about new music, dance and using the body and movement to inform interpretive musical decisions.
For this show, Stephens performs works of Jules Massenet and Mark Kilstofte. The recording of the Massenet was made at the Butler School of Music on UT campus.
Talking about new music and working with a living composer, Stephens says, "new music is important because classical music will not live on anywhere if we don't keep making it. We like, as a society, to replay the 19th century and backwards and awful lot - and its not that that music isn't fantastic. However - part of what is enjoyable to me about new music is it makes me feel freed up... I can sing it however I want, and I have the brain of the creator in the room with me to help sort it out."