On Sunday, March 25, pianist Boyd McDonald and actors Susan Williamson and Henry Woolf presented a splendid program of music and poetry at Gustin House! Mr. McDonald, prominent Gustin graduate, performed works of the Romantic masters Brahms, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Chopin, along with selections from “Triumph of Love,” which he had composed in 2004 for the Stratford Festival stage.

Mr. Woolf and Ms. Williamson, internationally celebrated actors, enchanted the audience with readings of the first six sonnets of Shakespeare; each sonnet was interwoven with music Mr. McDonald had composed specifically for that work. The same program was presented both in the afternoon and in the evening of March 25.

This presentation at Gustin House of the narrated Shakespeare sonnets with Boyd McDonald’s piano music was a world premiere. The sonnets, in the original version for baritone with piano, were performed in Calgary the previous week, and the vocal-orchestral setting will be premiered in Hamilton on April 29, 2007.