MIDDLEBURY — The Middlebury Performing Arts Series will present British tenor Mark Padmore and compatriot pianist Paul Lewis on Friday, Jan. 18. Although Lewis is a Middlebury audience favorite, this concert will be the first time the two musicians share the Robison Hall stage at the Mahaney Arts Center. Their concert will showcase German lieder by Brahms, Mahler and Schumann.
Performing Arts Series Director Allison Coyne Carroll first heard the pair perform together at a music festival in 2011. “We had already hosted Lewis for an entire Beethoven cycle and the start of his Schubert cycle, but I was intrigued to hear him perform in collaboration with another artist,” she said. “What transpired that evening was one of the most magical performances I’ve ever attended. Padmore kept us rapt in our seats… his voice at times icy, haunting and longing. Lewis, for his part, was also stunning. I knew if we could capture even a morsel of that magic in our acoustically-resonant Robison Hall, we would be in for a night to remember.”
Mark Padmore
Born in London and awarded an honors degree in music from King’s College, Cambridge in 1982, Padmore has established an international career in opera, concert and recital. He has been an Artist in Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (2016/17) and with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (2017/18). He also collaborates regularly with The Britten Sinfonia. As a recitalist, he has performed all three Schubert song cycles in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, London, Liverpool, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna and New York.
He was voted 2016 Vocalist of the Year by Musical America, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Kent University in 2014. He is Artistic Director of the St. Endellion Summer Music Festival in Cornwall, England.
Paul Lewis
Lewis is internationally regarded as one of the leading musicians of his generation. His numerous awards have included the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year, two Edison awards, three Gramophone awards, the Diapason D’or de l’Annee, the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, and the South Bank Show Classical Music award. In 2016 he was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honors list, and holds honorary doctorates from Southampton University and Edge Hill University.
Lewis performs regularly as soloist with the world’s great orchestras and is a frequent guest at the most prestigious international festivals, including Lucerne, Mostly Mozart (New York), Tanglewood, Schubertiade, Salzburg, Edinburgh, and London’s BBC Proms, where in 2010 he became the first pianist to perform a complete Beethoven piano concerto cycle in one season. His recital career takes him to venues such as London’s Royal Festival Hall, Alice Tully and Carnegie Hall in New York, Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus, and the Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris.
This is a duo you don’t want to miss. Mark your calendars for next Friday, Jan. 18, at 7:30 p.m. at the Mahaney Arts Center’s Robison Hall. Tickets are $30 for adults; $25 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, emeriti and alumni; $10 for youth; and $6 for Middlebury College students. To purchase, call 802-443-MIDD (6433) or visit  middlebury.edu/arts/tickets.