“New Songs for an Old Poet” is a series of four concerts spanning July 2025 through June 2026. Organized by long-time Valley vocalist Peter W. Shea, who is also the principal performer, the series presents an enormous variety of songs, all of them musical settings of the great nineteenth-century German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, whose verses have been set to music more than any other poet. All are works that Shea has in some way helped to bring into the world, either by suggestion, commission, or premiere, as part of his thirty- year project on Heine and the music he continues to inspire.

This concert, “Heinrich Heine Far and Near,” showcases songs by composers who hail from as far away as Germany and as close at hand as the Pioneer Valley. The songs range in style from cabaret to classical, in mood from witty to tragic, and in tonality from Baroque to twelve-tone. Nearly all display some aspect of Heine’s characteristic irony and wit, and several will be sung in English translation. Peter will be joined by pianist and guitarist Clifton J. Noble, Jr., mezzo-soprano and guitarist Justina Golden, and soprano Junko Watanabe.

Final concert in the series:

“Seas, Birds and Trees,” Sunday, June 7, 4 p.m., also at South Church, Amherst. An evocative potpourri of works by eleven composers, with several sea-related solo songs, a suite for piano four-hands, and five pieces for voice and multiple instruments, with a cast of thousands (well, nine really).

Previous concerts in the series (at Bombyx Center, Florence):

“The Noble Heine,” July 6, 2025. Music by local pianist and composer Clifton J. Noble, Jr., including his 2016 song cycle written in tribute to Robert Schumann, and four new works composed for the vocal sextet Cantabile, of which Peter is a member.

“The Parting Summer,” Sept. 13, 2025. Music by pianist and composer Kaeza Fearn, presently of Cape Cod, featuring her 2009 song cycle of the same name, sung by Peter with pianist Monica Jakuc Leverett, plus a few of Kaeza’s piano works.