SECOND STAGE: Suyan Ma, voice | Where Love Resides | Graduating Student Project

The program unfolds in two parts: love in nature, and love in reflection and strength.

Part I: Love in Nature

The first half of the program explores how nature reflects human emotion, offering a space where feelings can exist gently and freely.

In Richard Strauss’s Mädchenblumen, each flower reveals a different character and emotional quality, suggesting that love, like nature, takes many forms. This connection deepens in Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le ciel, where memory and longing blend seamlessly with images of the natural world, creating a quiet and dreamlike atmosphere.

In Zeffiretti lusinghieri, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart uses the image of the breeze to carry emotion outward, as if nature itself is speaking.

The first half concludes with Soave sia il vento, where the wind becomes calm and expansive, offering a gentle blessing. Here, love is no longer searching, but resting — peaceful, still, and quietly complete.

Part II: Love in Reflection and Strength

The second half turns inward, exploring how love grows through memory, reflection, and emotional resilience.

In Ding Shande’s My Beloved Sent Me Sunflowers and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Silent Noon, love appears in simple and intimate moments — in sunlight, stillness, and quiet presence. These works capture how beauty and care can exist in everyday life.

The songs of Lori Laitman reflect on memory and lived experience, revealing how strength can develop gently over time. Love here is not dramatic, but steady and enduring.

In Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Dove sono i bei momenti, love is remembered through loss, filled with tenderness, vulnerability, and dignity.

The program concludes with Ben Moore’s I Am in Need of Music, where music itself becomes a source of comfort. In this final moment, love is found not only in others or in memory, but in the act of listening, feeling, and being present.

Together, these works trace a journey from the outer world to the inner self — from nature to memory, from stillness to strength.

This recital invites you to listen, reflect, and perhaps discover your own experience of love within the music.

Growing up in a loving and supportive family, Suyan Ma discovered an early passion for music—first through piano, and later through the profound resonance of the human voice. Drawn to the expressive power of bel canto, she developed a commitment to singing that is rooted in emotion rather than pure technique. Her artistic journey has been shaped by choir work, performance experiences, and a deep desire to share warmth, peace, and strength through her voice. Suyan believes music should heal, uplift, and connect, and she strives to be an artist who sings with sincerity, humanity, and genuine warmth.