Featuring Florence Price's Spring and Your Leafy Voice, featured on Steve Spinelli's 2025 Grammy Award-winning Album Beyond the Years
Josef RHEINBERGER: Kyrie
Johannes BRAHMS: Wie Lieblich from Ein deutsches Requiem
Frederick CONVERSE: Chorus from Job
Florence PRICE: Resignation
Florence PRICE: Spring
Johannes BRAHMS: Schicksalslied
Frederick CONVERSE: Chorus from Pipes of Desire
Florence PRICE: Song of Hope
Florence PRICE: Your Leafy Voice
The connection between Florence Price and Johannes Brahms can be traced right to this very city, and nowhere is this connection more vivid than in Price's Song of Hope. From 1902 to 1907, Price was a student at the New England Conservatory, where reverence for “the long 19th century” ruled compositional practices. Both Song of Hope and Schicksalslied grapple with the tension between the struggles of earthly existence and an idealized vision of coexistence rooted in faith.
Also on the program are works by Frederick Converse, Florence Price's harmony and counterpoint teacher at New England Conservatory, and Josef Rheinberger, with whom Converse studied in Munich. Rheinberger was greatly influenced by Johannes Brahms.
Among his many accomplishments, Frederick Converse, a native of Brookline and later resident of Westwood, Mass., holds the distinction of being the first American composer to have a work performed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (The Pipe of Destiny, which premiered in 1910).
Laura Santamaría-Mendez
Soprano
Laura Santamaría is a dedicated soprano currently pursuing a master’s degree in opera performance at the esteemed Boston Conservatory at Berklee under the tutelage of Dr. Rebecca Folsom. She recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in voice performance with an emphasis in opera and a minor in creative entrepreneurship from Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Recognized for her exceptional talent and dedication, she was honored with the Presidential Scholar of Music scholarship and studied under the guidance of Patty Thom.
She has participated at the Seagle Festival where she excelled in the lead role of Young Juana in With Blood, With Ink, and also contributed her talents to the ensembles of Roméo et Juliette and Fiddler on the Roof. She returned to the Seagle Festival to sing as the title role of Lucinda y las Flores de la Nochebuena for over 1,400 students in the Lake George area. Laura is currently participating in Opera Theatre of St. Louis's "Opera on the Go" program of Pirates of Penzance, where she is singing the role of Mabel for over 20 schools. Laura was the Florida District Award Winner for the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition this past year and will be competing again this year in the Boston District on December 14th. She also received the Richard Gaddes Career Award from Opera Theatre of St. Louis this summer. She has been a Shirley Rabb Winston Scholarship Recipient for the past two years and was a finalist in the Schmidt Undergraduate Competition in 2023. She was the Founder and President of the Latinx Student Alliance where she actively served as a student ambassador for the conservatory, advocating for diversity and inclusion within the performing arts. She is very passionate about her Colombian heritage and loves curating Latin-American recitals showcasing songs of Latin composers. Her dream is to one day be able to create a scholarship for students of Latin-American descent to pursue higher education, providing them with financial support and opportunities to achieve their academic and career goals, regardless of their socioeconomic background.
