Songs of Love and Longing: Beethoven & Schumann Lieder

Saturday, November 15, 2025 at 7:00 pm - and -

Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 2:00 pm

$35 per ticket

The 37th and 38th concerts in the York Place Musical Salon.

About the Event

This concert, with tenor Benjamin Butterfield and pianist Robert Holliston promises to be nothing short of a celebration of the song cycle — the genre in which the pairing of words and music is most subtly achieved. The program is anchored by Beethoven’s An die Ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved) considered to be the first true song cycle, and by Schumann’s Dichterliebe (Poet's Love) arguably its finest example.

An die Ferne Geliebte was a highly personal and autobiographical work for Beethoven, the subject of the songs being none other than his immortal beloved — in which a solitary lover seated on a hillside gazes into the distance and longs for the object of his affection. Schumann turned to the poetry of the great Heinrich Heine for his cycle, Dichterliebe — sixteen songs which perfectly capture the themes of love, heartbreak, and the passage of time through the perspective of a young man grappling with his unrequited feelings.

Tickets will be available on Monday, September 15, 2025 at 9:00 am.

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We gratefully acknowledge a generous donation from an anonymous patron who has sponsored the York Place Musical Salon since 2024. This support helps further our goal of presenting performances of the highest caliber. Thank you.

About the Musicians

Praised by The New York Times as, “clarion-voiced and vibrant”, Benjamin Butterfield is known for his performances throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He has performed with many of the world’s leading conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, James Conlon, Nicholas McGegan, Charles Dutoit, Leonard Slatkin, Bramwell Tovey, Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Labadie, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Jeffrey Thomas, Trevor Pinnock, Bruno Weil and Marc Minkowski.

Head of Voice for the School of Music at the University of Victoria, Butterfield has been recognized by Opera Canada with a Ruby Award for his contributions as a singer and pedagogue, was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and is the recipient of a Craigdarroch Award for Artistic Excellence from UVic. He also serves as guest faculty for summer vocal training programs; Opera Nuova (Edmonton), Valley Opera Summer Intensive (Kelowna), the Canadian Vocal Arts Institute (Montreal), Orford Musique (Sherbrooke), Yellow Barn (Vermont), Amalfi Coast Music Festival (Italy) and is Co-Director for the Ukrainian Art Song Summer Institute (Toronto).

Robert Holliston studied at the Victoria Conservatory of Music and at the University of British Columbia. He has performed and recorded a wide variety of repertoire throughout Canada and the USA, England, New Zealand and Australia, and has been heard frequently on CBC-Radio. In collaboration with many of Canada's leading singers and instrumentalists and as a member of the popular salon group Viveza, Robert has participated in such festivals as Juneau Jazz and Classics, Parry Sound, Caraquette, Adelaide (Australia), and the Ottawa, Sitka and Orcas Island Chamber Music festivals. He is currently Head of the Keyboard Department at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, where he also teaches music history and serves as chamber music coach.

A popular public speaker, Robert has given pre-performance lectures for Pacific Opera Victoria since 1993 and served as the company’s répétiteur, Chorus Master, and Principal Coach from 1991-2013. Through UVic’s Continuing Studies program, he has led several cultural tours to New York, Santa Fe, and Newfoundland. He is now Pacific Opera Victoria’s Curator of Public Engagement and the host of the company’s new outreach series INSIDE OPERA. During the past decade and a half, Robert has given several concerto performances with the Sidney Classical and Civic Orchestras and also appears frequently as orchestral keyboard player with the Victoria Symphony.