Permit Me Voyage

The centerpiece of this song collection, Dominick Argento's cycle From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, was awarded the 1974 Pulitzer Prize. A setting of eight excerpts from Woolf's journal, this ambitious and complex work offers in each song a glimpse into the writer's voyage of self-discovery as she observes her literary, emotional, social, and creative life. Beginning with the opening entry from 1919, the songs traverse a variety of experiences past her prescient 1940 thought, "I can't conceive that there will be a 27th June 1941," to the final entry, just before her suicide in March of 1941. In the composer's words, "I think I write music as a way of learning who I am, what I really think, what I truly believe. My own career has been an exercise in self-discovery. The strong concentration that these texts focus on self-knowledge may have prompted me to write my most moving music. Not a week goes by that I do not receive a letter from a singer or a listener saying how moved they were by a performance of the Virginia Woolf Diary." A singer who loves song literature, mezzo-soprano Mary Ann Hart has delighted audiences and critics alike with her performances. Out of sight (but still in earshot) Miss Hart did voice characterizations for the Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast and has recorded for the Arabesque, Chandos, Nonesuch and Albany Records labels.