An Imaginary Soirée at Downton Abbey

​October 17th, 2026
7:30 PM
​
Christ United Methodist Church

​
​Featuring
Maria Jette, soprano
Horacio Nuguid, pianist
Jaeden Weroha, cellist


Program

From the theatre to the parlor

1908 My Hero (from The Chocolate Soldier)
Oscar Straus (1870-1954), words translated by Stanislaus Stange (1862-1917)

​
The Birds and the Leas

1912 Linden Lea
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), words by William Barnes (1801-1886) 

1906 Blackbird’s Song
Cyril Scott (1879-1970), words by Rosamund Marriott Watson (1860-1911)

1917 The Little Brown Owl
Wilfred Sanderson (1878-1935), words by Ada Leonora Harris (1859-1943)

Super-successful ladies, exotic and homely

1903 Kashmiri Song (Four Indian Love Lyrics)
Amy Woodforde-Finden (1860-1919), words by Laurence Hope (1865-1904)

1909 A Perfect Day
Carrie Jacobs-Bond (1862-1946)


Familiar names…in secular mood

1888 Salut d’amour, Op. 12
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

1921 The Monkey’s Carol
Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924, words by Winifred M. Letts (1882-1972)

1881 Willow, Willow, Willow (English Lyrics, First Set, No. 4)
Hubert Parry (1848-1918), words by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

INTERMISSION

The glorious Dame Clara Butt

1877 The Lost Chord
Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900), words by Adelaide A. Proctor (1825-1864

1912 The Fairy Pipers
Albert Herbert Brewer (1865-1928), words by Fred Edward Weatherly (1848-1929)

1909 Jim (Four Cautionary Tales and a Moral)
Liza Lehmann (1862-1918), words by Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)
 

Master of light music

1927 Marigold
Billy Mayerl (1902-1959)


The Great War and beyond…

1905 Thora
Stephen Adams (1841-1913), words by Fred Edward Weatherly

1916 Roses of Picardy
Haydn Wood (1882-1959), words by Fred Edward Weatherly

1922 The Land of Might-Have-Been
Ivor Novello (1893-1951), words by Edward Moore (1872-1953) 

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English music from the late Victorian era through the Edwardian and into the 1920s. The Downton Abbey craze is the perfect way for soprano Maria Jette to present so many grand (and ridiculous) songs from that period, everything from silly songs about faeries through Vaughan William and Elgar and Peter Warlock.

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Maria Jette

​Maria Jette’s lengthy and varied career includes appearances with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Houston, Kansas City, San Luis Obispo, Santa Rosa, Charlotte, Buffalo, Grand Rapids, Austin, San Antonio and New York Chamber Symphonies, Portland Baroque Orchestra and Musica Angelica. She was a regular
guest over many seasons at the San Luis Obispo Mozart and Oregon Bach Festivals and the Oregon Festival of American Music. At home in Minneapolis-St. Paul, she’s regularly found with VocalEssence, Chamber Music Society of Minnesota and Lyra Baroque Orchestra; and was a regular guest for 20 years on Garrison Keillorʼs A Prairie Home Companion.

Her 45+ operatic roles range from Monteverdi's Poppea and Handel's Cleopatra through Mozart’s Pamina, Susanna and Fiordiligi, many of them with Ex Machina Antique Music Theatre, where for many seasons she portrayed queens, goddesses, sorceresses and mermaids in the Twin Cities.

Maria has sung countless classical song programs in most European languages with Minnesota’s great collaborative pianists: Sonja Thompson, Mary Jo Gothmann and Timothy Lovelace; and with each of them, and longtime colleague, conductor Philip Brunelle, she’s explored the world of Edwardian song and Dame Clara Butt. With pianist/accordionist Dan Chouinard, she regularly performs grab-bags of vocal music of all kinds at Twin Cities jazz venue Crooners and elsewhere, including the last eight conventions of The Wodehouse Society, for which august organization they are the Official Soprano and Pianist; and following stints as Pres. and Vice Pres., she is again the VP. Some 2025-26 performances: Musette Mania! French baroque music for bagpipe and voice, with musette maniac Dick Hensold; Songs of Enchantment: premieres of new music for voice and viola with Minnesota Orchestra violist Sarah Switzer and pianist Sonja Thompson; Peter and the Wolf with Chamber Music Society of Minnesota; and Dazzling Duos, a recent program of duets with her fellow section leaders at Plymouth Congregational Church.

Horacio Nuguid

Filipino American pianist Horacio Nuguid holds degrees in piano performance from the University of Santo Tomas (Manila), the University of Northern Iowa, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to presenting solo recitals,
Dr. Nuguid has performed with orchestras in the Philippines, Mexico, and the United States. He also collaborates regularly with distinguished singers and instrumentalists as founder, pianist, and artistic director of the Rochester Chamber Music Society.

Dr. Nuguid is the recipient of Rochester’s Ardee Award for Outstanding Artist. As a music educator, he has presented master classes internationally and has served as an adjudicator for piano competitions in the United States, the Philippines, and South
Korea. He has been a member of the artist faculty of the Young Artist World Piano Festival in Minnesota for more than twenty years and has taught as a guest artist at the Philippine High School for the Arts. His pioneering anthology, Philippine Piano
Pieces, has been widely acclaimed for its scholarly editions of works by Filipino composers.

Dr. Nuguid currently teaches piano privately with his wife, Rosanna, in Rochester. He also serves as Co-Artistic Director of the Bethel University Summer Piano Academy and as a faculty member and juror at the Asian International Piano Academy and
Festival in South Korea.

Jaeden Weroha

Jaeden Weroha, a senior at Mayo High School, began piano lessons at six years old and cello at age eleven. He is a member of the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies Symphony and the principal cellist of the Southeastern Minnesota Youth Orchestras Concert Orchestra. He was selected to the Minnesota Music Educators Association All-State Orchestra in 2025 and 2026, placing 3rd chair in 2026. He has performed as a concerto soloist with the Sapphira String Quartet and competed internationally at the Asian International Piano Academy and Festival in South Korea, where he won Silver.

As a piano student, Jaeden currently studies with Horacio Nuguid, previously with Kathryn Horntvedt. His cello teachers include Carolyn Mead and Amy Crockett. He has developed a passion for music teaching; he currently offers private cello lessons through the Ringen Music Studio. He has also served as a mentor for the SEMYO Prelude Strings Summer camp, the Rochester-based Middle School Honors Orchestra, and the SEMYO weekly 6th grade orchestra mentorship program at Dakota Middle School. He has started his own teaching program at Mayo High School for advanced orchestra students to give free lessons to students who don’t have private teachers of their own. 

In his free time, Jaeden enjoys playing tennis, snowboarding, and playing chamber music with friends. He has done various chamber music gigs and events across Rochester.