A Silent Night honors the sacrifice of WW1 soldiers through classical song

Baritone John Brancy and pianist Peter Dugan perform a selection from A Silent Night.Baritone John Brancy and pianist Peter Dugan have been collaborative musical partners and friends since they met as students at the Juilliard School in 2007. Together they created A Silent Night: A WWI Centenary Tribute in Song which premiered on their first professional tour together as recitalists this past season.

Silent Night is a collection of classical and popular art songs written mostly by composers who lived through, fought, and died in the Great War. They are looking for venues, traditional and non-traditional. They also need help putting together their album.

 This program honors and illuminates the legacy of these composers, many of whom are often forgotten. On a larger scale, A Silent Night is the first program of its kind that uses the intimate art of classical song to the tell the story of the millions of soldiers who lost their lives in the Great War, simultaneously honoring their sacrifice and mourning their loss with a subtlety of expression that only great music and poetry can convey.

 

Following it's premiere at the Kennedy Center in 2014, A Silent Night was hailed as "refreshingly, marvelously different" and as a "smart program" that was performed "consummately well" by Anne Midgette of The Washington Post.

Since the premiere of A Silent Night, John and Peter have gone on to perform as a duo internationally, making their Carnegie Hall Presents debut this season. Learn more about their program and upcoming album here.