ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Those looking for a night of stories and musical entertainment will soon have just that chance thanks to Community Concerts of Liberal.
The Aria Nouveau duo comprised of Laura Auer and John Riesen will be performing Friday, Feb. 27 in Maskus Auditorium at Liberal High School as part of this year's Community Concerts of Liberal series. The show will start at 7:30 p.m., and tickets will be available at the door that evening.
Auer and Riesen said the show and subsequent tour came about rather organically a couple years ago.
“I was doing a lot of networking in 2021 and 2022, and John and his wife happened to own a company that promotes classical artists. I found that company online, so we started working together in that capacity, and I realized how amazing John is as a tenor along with doing the promotional aspect of everything,” Auer said. “There was a song I was recording, 'Stranger in Paradise,' which I needed a tenor voice for, and I asked him to sing with me, and it ended up being a pretty big hit for us. Eventually, I thought we should do another duet, which we did, and that led to discussions of us touring together since we were getting such positive feedback on the songs we'd released.”
“We happened to debut our show nearly two years ago, and the response was so positive because we do cover multiple genres, we don't do only opera. I like to say our show is all about storytelling through multiple different media, and it just comes so organically,” Riesen added. “Once people started giving us that positive feedback, we knew we had to get this out to more and more people, so the team at Epic Arts helped us get together with a touring agent and get everything started. We're just getting out of the gate, and we hope to get to more places throughout the U.S. I would say, by far, the most common comment we've gotten from people is 'We thought this was going to be a solely classical music evening, and it ended up being one of our favorite shows EVER.' And that's what we want to hear, because we don't think what we do is boring, we absolutely love what we do and want to bring it to as many people as possible. Our show is so much more than people will expect, and we're multiple types of singing to the forefront for the audience to enjoy. Touring together has been super fun, and it's been a blast singing for so many different people and different audiences.”
Both Auer and Riesen said they are excited to bring the show to Liberal.
“I'm an operatically trained tenor, and my career started off purely as an opera singer, and there's rather a stigma that comes with that. There came a point where I learned a lot of people won't go and introduce themselves to this type of music because of those stereotypes – a lot of times, it's not because of the music itself or the performers, but because they can't really bring themselves to go and experience this music for a first time,” Riesen said. “That became apparent as I went through my own performing, and my hope is to introduce people to this type of music like I was and have them go home thinking 'I had no idea music like that could be so intimate and personal!' That's what Laura and I try and do with our show, we do our best to make it personal to the audience so we're just communicating our love of this music back and forth with each other and the audience as the evening goes on.”
“And I've never actually been to the Midwest, so it'll be great to get to that part of the country and introduce myself and my music to everyone there,” Auer added.
Riesen and Auer also offered encouragement for people to come out to the concert that evening.
“This show is a vocal spectacle – almost like something you would see on 'America's Got Talent' or some similar show, and there's going to be just such a wide variety of experiences people will have,” Auer said. “The show is all about getting to know John and I as friends and performers and just sharing this beautiful music with everyone. We've got such a great program of music people love and will recognize as the night goes on. The core of the show is our storytelling and our moments with the audience as two artists coming together. All of those elements culminate in something really special.”
“I would absolutely agree with that. There are only a very few songs that won't be quite as widely known, and if anyone wants to get an idea of what they'll be hearing that night, they can look us up online and listen to some of that,” Riesen added. “And again, the show will not be a stereotype of what some people will probably be expecting, and I would say the audience will know a good chunk of the songs we'll be performing both classical and more new.”
Overall, the duo agreed, the evening should be a good time for everyone.
“One comment we keep getting from audience members is how they were not expecting the level of experience they ended up having through our show – they tell us they came to the show expecting a nice time and good music, but they ended up being completely blowing them away with the songs we're performing,” Auer said. “It's a truly deeply emotional experience doing this type of music, and we're blown away with the responses we've been getting and hearing how much fun they have. And we'll be more than happy to hang around after the show and meet everyone and shake their hands and hear their thoughts, that should be great.”
“We're coming to the table to share stories and music and entertain everyone, and we want to keep that going with this Liberal stop,” Riesen added.
