Album Notes

While Grieg’s music for Peer Gynt, his Piano Concerto, and the Holberg Suite have remained in the world’s concert repertories, his piano music and his songs have gradually fallen from the high esteem they enjoyed at the time of his death in 1907 and in the early years of the last century. In Norway, of course, he is held in particular honour as the greatest of the nation’s composers, and a Norwegian flavour is to be detected in almost everything he wrote. As the music itself makes abundantly clear, he had a passion for the mountains and fields of his native country. Between 1867 and 1901 he published ten books of Lyric Pieces, 66 short and tuneful pieces, often based on folk idioms and gestures. Their titles suggest a mood, or a picture of nature, or the type of touching sentiment dear to the Romantic soul.

Pianist Sandra Mogensen has performed widely in concert as soloist and accompanist in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Sandra has received much praise for her work as a recitalist committed to the art song repertoire. Recent performances include collaborations in recital with Canadian baritones Brett Polegato and James Westman; bass-baritone Gary Relyea, and bass Paul Sketris, with whom Ms. Mogensen has recorded a CD of Schubert’s Winterreise. Sandra Mogensen has performed much chamber music repertoire and holds the position of Faculty Pianist at the annual National Music Camp on Lake Couchiching.

Sandra Mogensen did her early musical studies with her mother, Edite Mogensen, in Sarnia, Ontario. Sandra’s further training as a pianist has taken her to the University of Western Ontario with Dr. Damiana Bratuz, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen with Friedrich Gürtler, and to Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ for a Masters Degree, where her teachers were Dalton Baldwin and J.J.Penna.

Devoted to her role as educator, Sandra enjoys her work as a vocal coach. Well-versed in German, French, Italian, Danish and Latvian, Ms. Mogensen is well-known for her language and diction coaching. Ms. Mogensen has had an extensive teaching career and is active as an adjudicator and workshop clinician across Canada. Sandra Mogensen is also a Senior Examiner at the Royal Conservatory of Music Examinations Department.