Songs Across Millennia at Carnegie Hall
Vocal recitals are deceptively challenging to photograph. Unlike dance, where movement tells the story, or theater, where staging creates visual interest, you're working with performers who stand relatively still. The magic is happening in their voices, and your job is to make that visible.
Last week I shot baritone Ziliang Hao’s Songs Across Millennia concert at Weill Recital Hall, and it was a perfect example of why I love these intimate classical performances. The program spanned several centuries of vocal music, from baroque to contemporary, performed by soprano and baritone with piano accompaniment. What struck me most wasn't just the technical skill (though that was impressive), it was watching how each performer inhabited the different musical periods.
One moment you'd have a baroque piece with all its ornamentation and restraint. The next, a romantic era song where the emotion just poured out. Then something contemporary that demanded an entirely different approach. As a photographer, I'm constantly watching for those moments where the music becomes visible, the intensity in the eyes during a climactic phrase, the way hands communicate when words alone aren't enough.
Weill Recital Hall is intimate enough that you can see every expression, every breath, but it still has that Carnegie Hall elegance, the columns, the chandelier, the warm lighting that works beautifully for skin tones in formal wear. The challenge is constantly adjusting for the contrast between the bright stage and the silhouetted audience.
After photographing hundreds of performances in New York, I still get excited about intimate vocal recitals like this one. The format is pure, just a voice, a piano, and the music itself. And Weill Recital Hall, with its history and its acoustics and its particular kind of elegance, remains one of my favorite spaces to shoot in. Some venues feel like work. This one still feels like a privilege.
