Where Should This Music Be? - Songs of Lola Williams

Sarah Moulton Faux, soprano; Ted Taylor, piano with Heather Johnson, Laura Krumm, mezzo-sopranos; Nicholas Tamagna, countertenor Growing up in the South in the first half of the 20th century, Lola Williams (1913-2013) exhibited great musical talent at a time when women rarely were encouraged to compose, and those who did struggled to hear their works performed publicly. Williams was a serious Shakespearean scholar as well as music educator, but it was not until her retirement that she was able to fully dedicate herself to writing and composition. She quietly created a large body of art songs, mostly inspired by Shakespearean texts, for female voices－solos, duets, and trios－which she seldom shared outside of private clubs. In their melding of vernacular musical forms with classical techniques, her lyrical and tonally lush compositions are reminiscent of the music of Frederick Delius and Gustav Mahler. The immense work of Williams's later years languished, untouched, in boxes in her son