MANSFIELD, PA—The Mansfield University Department of Music will welcome guest artist Isai Jess Muñoz for a recital on Monday, March 19, 7:30 p.m. in Steadman 
Theatre. The event is free and open to the public.
Muñoz, accompanied by pianist Oksana Glouchko, will perform “Visca L’Amor! A Celebration of songs by Catalán Composers of the 20th and 21st Centuries.”
When compared to the vast amount of reference materials devoted to the history and analyses of North American and other Central European classical song literature, very little scholarly attention has been placed on the classical songs of Catalunya– the autonomous community in Spain.
The repressive and still resonating effects of Francisco Franco’s dictatorial ban on this community’s native language, Catalán, contributed to a lack of published editions and scarce diffusion of its endangered classical song literature abroad. Although several local publishers have begun to recover the countless musical works by neglected Catalán composers of the past century, the broader dissemination of their products can only truly flourish when performing artists outside Catalunya acquire this music and choose to interpret them by way of live performance and recording. Consequently, much work remains to be done to dismantle the barricades that have stood in the way of a deeper understanding of this body of music outside Catalunya.
This recital program features rare masterpieces that shed light on this nationalistic musical practice of the 20th and 21st centuries–its history and its style–and provide a context for an understanding of the practice so that the genre of Catalán Classical Song may continue to gain recognition.
Praised by the New York Times for “Crucially, deftly navigating the border of genuine emotion through his singing,” tenor Muñoz has appeared in opera, musical theatre, and the concert stage with the Israel Philharmonic, The New York City Opera, The American Symphony Orchestra, The American Composers Symphony at Carnegie Hall, The Utah Festival Opera, The Cincinnati Opera, The Verbier Music Festival of Switzerland, The Bard Music Festival, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater on Broadway, The Grammy-Winning Voices of Ascension, among others.
To learn more about Muñoz, go to JessMunoz.com
Russian-Israeli pianist Oksana Glouchko has had a multi-faceted career as a soloist, chamber player and teacher. Praised for her personal interpretive voice to the great classics of the piano repertoire, from Bach and Mozart to Rachmaninov and Ravel, she holds advanced degrees in piano performance from the Buchman-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University, with additional studies at the DePaul University School of Music. She attained the Doctorate in Piano Performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
To find out more about Glouchko, go to OksanaGlouchko.com