Sinan Vural wailed eerily as he washed dishes at the kitchen sink. Despite his familiarity to Nick Ross’ family, he spooked his longtime friend’s sister-in-law.
Sinan Vural“She was rather wide-eyed,” Ross said. “He was vocalizing using head voice. The effect was akin to a banshee moaning, which was appropriate as we were in my parent’s house in Galway Bay, Ireland.”
Ross, a pianist and chair of the music department at Sweet Briar College, will reunite with Vural in concert for “A Recital of French Songs” at 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 22 in SBC’s Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.
The British-born Ross has performed periodically with Vural, a native of Ankara, Turkey, since they studied music at the Twente Conservatoire in Holland. Both men started out in different fields, Ross earning a master’s in mathematics, and Vural a degree in computer science before deciding to make his living singing.
Nick RossA baritone, Vural favors French works in his recitals. For the Sweet Briar performance, his selections include Igor Stravinsky’s “Deux Poèmes de Verlaine” (1910), op.9; selections from Arthur Honegger’s “Six Poèmes extraits de Alcools de G. Apollinaire” and “Quatre Chansons pour Voix Grave” H.184; and the American Samuel Barber’s French composition, “Mélodies Passagères” op.27, with text by Rainer Maria Rilke.
“There’s a lot of Gallic elegance and wit in this program,” Ross said. “Anybody will enjoy it, but there are some rare compositions that will make music lovers’ ears prick up. It’s not the standard five greatest hits you’ll normally hear in concert.”
That’s because there are so many good songs and so few song recitals relative to other forms of vocal performance, Vural said. “Why sing and play the same things over and over again?”
As for his affinity for French songs, he likes the language and the music. “The language is suitable for coloring because of the alternating clear vowels and dark, nasal sounds,” Vural said. “The music is sensual. … The whole country and culture are appealing to the senses. Think of French food, French painting, French perfumes.”
Honegger is often skipped over for composers such as Gabriel Fauré or Henri Duparc, whose works are more elaborate, Vural said. The choice of Honegger’s usually short, sometimes despairing, sometimes witty songs was deliberate.
Written during an era marked by two world wars, the songs also fit the “spirit of this time, with everything so fast and potentially superficial,” he said. “When something is over before you have had the time to grasp it, you turn back and look at it again, this time better.”
Vural’s program varies from the emotional and serious – Duparc’s “Lamento” and “Phydilé,” and “Mirages” by Fauré – to the light and funny – Francis Poulenc’s “Bestiaire” and Honegger’s “Saltimbanques.”
After the heft of the Duparc and Fauré works, Poulenc’s and Honegger’s pieces reflect a period when people thought it was time “French music started to smile a bit more,” Vural said.
Listeners can follow along with English translations of the texts, many of which are poems set to music.
“I think the music will get to you if you just sit there and let yourself be surprised,” Vural said.
For more information, e-mail
Ross or call (434) 381-6121.
