One hundred years after its original performance in 1915, Dorothy Leona Jewell’s recital in Philadelphia received a reenactment this past weekend at Faith Chapel Gathering Place in Lucketts, VA. Jewell’s grandson, Paul Muench, was the guest of honor at the performance in celebration of his birthday, and several other descendants of Jewell attended, making for an extremely special afternoon. Performed when Jewell was eighteen, within three years of her recital she would sadly pass away in the third wave of the Spanish Flu pandemic, in early 1919. “I learned a lot about Dorothy doing historical research, which I shared back with the family,” said Pamela Myers Butler, the event creator and one of the performers. “She gave the recital in 1915, she got married in 1916, she had her one daughter in 1917, and then she died the next year…Her life was so brief, but yet she left this beautiful musical legacy, as well as 16 grandchildren and great-grandchildren from her one daughter who are still alive today…A lot of them were moved to tears by the recital.”
L: Pamela Myers Butler. R: Lillian Hoehl
Butler, having served on the music staff of Christ Episcopal Church in Lucketts for about 12 years, knew Muench as a parishioner there. “He told me about this old recital program of a concert that his grandmother had given back in 1915,” said Butler. “I said, show me a picture of it sometime, so he did, and I just got so excited about it and said we need to re-create this sometime.” Muench and Janet Lyman, the sponsor of the concert, are great supporters of Loudoun Lyric Opera, the company founded by Butler in 2007. “I decided back in January of this year that now would be a good time to learn the repertoire and give the concert,” said Butler, “and I got together with Janet and decided to do it the weekend before Paul’s birthday as a gift, and then Janet had the idea of making this a benefit for some local nonprofits.” Those nonprofits were the Lucketts Food Pantry, which is run out of the basement of Faith Chapel, and Loudoun Lyric Opera. “Mark Irchai decided to offer to play for the recital,” said Butler, of the opera company’s current artistic and general director. Janet Lyman sponsored both the venue and the reception, which was catered by Ford’s Fish Shack and Fabbioli Cellars Vineyard. The event also featured a vintage clothing display by Avera Worrall of Fashion Past Forward.
An experienced performer as well as arts administrator, Butler sang all but two of the pieces on the program. I really liked the way she sounded in this venue, which in my opinion had great acoustics and really added to what the performers did vocally. But Butler wanted to take this experience a step further. “I worked for 15 years as an opera producer for Loudoun Lyric Opera, so I think that production experience came in handy in making this more than just a concert. I felt it was more immersive than your average recital.” This was an accurate assessment on her part. I can’t think of another concert I’ve attended where there is vintage clothing to look at and learn about during intermission. This also gave the audience an idea of what the original performers of the recital in 1915 would have worn. The result of creating this immersive experience was an extremely good energy pervading the event, from the music to the reception.
L to R: Pamela Myers Butler, Lillian Hoehl, Mark Irchai, and Paul Muench
In addition to Butler singing and Irchai playing piano, soprano Lillian Hoehl was featured as a guest student soloist. “That was Janet Lyman’s idea,” said Butler. “In addition to sponsoring the recital and reception, she offered a scholarship to a student. She asked if I would want to have a student join me on the recital.” Myers and Hoehl met at Victorian Lyric Opera Company in Rockville, MD, and have also sung together at Center Stage Opera in Harrisburg, PA. Hoehl is currently a junior at Towson University. I loved her clear tone in the two solos she sang, ‘Voi che sapete’ and ‘Song of the Shepherd Lehl,’ and it seems likewise clear that her solid voice will continue to grow and blossom. I hope to hear a lot more of her in the future.
One of the highlights of this program was how many pieces are not in the standard repertoire. Speaking to the decision to do the recital on-book, Butler said, “We wanted to make sure that we were perfectly comfortable with the music. It took a little bit of pressure off and made us more comfortable in the repertoire. Of the ten songs in the main recital program, only four of them are in the common repertoire today. The other six have kind of been lost to posterity for the most part. We were dealing with music that was gorgeous – it was like unearthing a hidden treasure – but the majority of that music was not familiar to us.”
Gorgeous is indeed the right word for this music. In particular, Hoehl’s singing of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Song of the Shepherd Lehl’ and Butler’s singing of Alma Goetz’s ‘Melisande in the Wood’ stood out as pieces of the hidden treasure Butler talked about. Perhaps it was the English language of those pieces that made them easier to connect with, but also the music itself was haunting to the point that the audience would be thinking about it days later. Adding to this was Irchai’s playing, with which he took a delicate approach at appropriate moments, and at others leaned into the power of the instrument, creating a huge sound, yet, again, appropriate, never overwhelming. Kudos to him, too, for playing in a way that was informed by the text. The audience could feel the drama in the piano just as much as in the voices.
To close the program, Butler, Hoehl, and Irchai performed Rossini’s famous ‘Duetto buffo per due gatti,’ the Comic Duet For Two Cats, as an encore. It was not on the historical program, since the 1915 recital was for solo voice and piano, but as Butler pointed out, “Whenever you have two or more people singing on a program, I think the audience will expect at some point that you will sing together.” Always a classic, this Rossini duet had the audience laughing, and it was as well-received as the rest of the program, if not more. I only wondered if the tempo for this particular piece could have been faster, but who can resist such a delightful encore where the only word is “Meow”? I hope to see more recitals like this in the future: Concise, well-sung and played, with utmost attention to history and historical details, and a little bit of visual art to go along with it.
Maggie Ramsey
The Lost Recital 1915: A Reenactment
Alessandro Scarlatti – ‘O Cessate di Piagarmi’; W.A. Mozart – ‘Voi Che Sapete’ (Le nozze di Figaro); Kurt Schindler – ‘La Colomba’; Robert Schumann – ‘Die Lotosblume,’ ‘Volksliedchen’; Émile Paladilhe – ‘Psyche’; André Grétry – ‘Plus de Depit’ (Les deux avares); Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – ‘Song of the Shepherd Lehl’ (The Snow Maiden); Alma Goetz – ‘Melisande in the Wood’; Hermann Löhr – ‘Little Grey Home in the West’
Pamela Myers Butler – Mezzo-Soprano; Lillian Hoehl – Soprano; Mark Irchai – Piano
Lucketts, VA, October 25, 2025
Top image: (L to R) Pamela Myers Butler, Lillian Hoehl, and Mark Irchai
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Historic Philadelphia Recital Comes To Rural Virginia with Loudoun Lyric Opera
One hundred years after its original performance in 1915, Dorothy Leona Jewell’s recital in Philadelphia received a reenactment this past weekend at Faith Chapel Gathering Place in Lucketts, VA. Jewell’s grandson, Paul Muench, was the guest of honor at the performance in celebration of his birthday, and several other descendants of Jewell attended, making for an extremely special afternoon. Performed when Jewell was eighteen, within three years of her recital she would sadly pass away in the third wave of the Spanish Flu pandemic, in early 1919. “I learned a lot about Dorothy doing historical research, which I shared back with the family,” said Pamela Myers Butler, the event creator and one of the performers. “She gave the recital in 1915, she got married in 1916, she had her one daughter in 1917, and then she died the next year…Her life was so brief, but yet she left this beautiful musical legacy, as well as 16 grandchildren and great-grandchildren from her one daughter who are still alive today…A lot of them were moved to tears by the recital.”
Butler, having served on the music staff of Christ Episcopal Church in Lucketts for about 12 years, knew Muench as a parishioner there. “He told me about this old recital program of a concert that his grandmother had given back in 1915,” said Butler. “I said, show me a picture of it sometime, so he did, and I just got so excited about it and said we need to re-create this sometime.” Muench and Janet Lyman, the sponsor of the concert, are great supporters of Loudoun Lyric Opera, the company founded by Butler in 2007. “I decided back in January of this year that now would be a good time to learn the repertoire and give the concert,” said Butler, “and I got together with Janet and decided to do it the weekend before Paul’s birthday as a gift, and then Janet had the idea of making this a benefit for some local nonprofits.” Those nonprofits were the Lucketts Food Pantry, which is run out of the basement of Faith Chapel, and Loudoun Lyric Opera. “Mark Irchai decided to offer to play for the recital,” said Butler, of the opera company’s current artistic and general director. Janet Lyman sponsored both the venue and the reception, which was catered by Ford’s Fish Shack and Fabbioli Cellars Vineyard. The event also featured a vintage clothing display by Avera Worrall of Fashion Past Forward.
An experienced performer as well as arts administrator, Butler sang all but two of the pieces on the program. I really liked the way she sounded in this venue, which in my opinion had great acoustics and really added to what the performers did vocally. But Butler wanted to take this experience a step further. “I worked for 15 years as an opera producer for Loudoun Lyric Opera, so I think that production experience came in handy in making this more than just a concert. I felt it was more immersive than your average recital.” This was an accurate assessment on her part. I can’t think of another concert I’ve attended where there is vintage clothing to look at and learn about during intermission. This also gave the audience an idea of what the original performers of the recital in 1915 would have worn. The result of creating this immersive experience was an extremely good energy pervading the event, from the music to the reception.
In addition to Butler singing and Irchai playing piano, soprano Lillian Hoehl was featured as a guest student soloist. “That was Janet Lyman’s idea,” said Butler. “In addition to sponsoring the recital and reception, she offered a scholarship to a student. She asked if I would want to have a student join me on the recital.” Myers and Hoehl met at Victorian Lyric Opera Company in Rockville, MD, and have also sung together at Center Stage Opera in Harrisburg, PA. Hoehl is currently a junior at Towson University. I loved her clear tone in the two solos she sang, ‘Voi che sapete’ and ‘Song of the Shepherd Lehl,’ and it seems likewise clear that her solid voice will continue to grow and blossom. I hope to hear a lot more of her in the future.
One of the highlights of this program was how many pieces are not in the standard repertoire. Speaking to the decision to do the recital on-book, Butler said, “We wanted to make sure that we were perfectly comfortable with the music. It took a little bit of pressure off and made us more comfortable in the repertoire. Of the ten songs in the main recital program, only four of them are in the common repertoire today. The other six have kind of been lost to posterity for the most part. We were dealing with music that was gorgeous – it was like unearthing a hidden treasure – but the majority of that music was not familiar to us.”
Gorgeous is indeed the right word for this music. In particular, Hoehl’s singing of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Song of the Shepherd Lehl’ and Butler’s singing of Alma Goetz’s ‘Melisande in the Wood’ stood out as pieces of the hidden treasure Butler talked about. Perhaps it was the English language of those pieces that made them easier to connect with, but also the music itself was haunting to the point that the audience would be thinking about it days later. Adding to this was Irchai’s playing, with which he took a delicate approach at appropriate moments, and at others leaned into the power of the instrument, creating a huge sound, yet, again, appropriate, never overwhelming. Kudos to him, too, for playing in a way that was informed by the text. The audience could feel the drama in the piano just as much as in the voices.
To close the program, Butler, Hoehl, and Irchai performed Rossini’s famous ‘Duetto buffo per due gatti,’ the Comic Duet For Two Cats, as an encore. It was not on the historical program, since the 1915 recital was for solo voice and piano, but as Butler pointed out, “Whenever you have two or more people singing on a program, I think the audience will expect at some point that you will sing together.” Always a classic, this Rossini duet had the audience laughing, and it was as well-received as the rest of the program, if not more. I only wondered if the tempo for this particular piece could have been faster, but who can resist such a delightful encore where the only word is “Meow”? I hope to see more recitals like this in the future: Concise, well-sung and played, with utmost attention to history and historical details, and a little bit of visual art to go along with it.
Maggie Ramsey
The Lost Recital 1915: A Reenactment
Alessandro Scarlatti – ‘O Cessate di Piagarmi’; W.A. Mozart – ‘Voi Che Sapete’ (Le nozze di Figaro); Kurt Schindler – ‘La Colomba’; Robert Schumann – ‘Die Lotosblume,’ ‘Volksliedchen’; Émile Paladilhe – ‘Psyche’; André Grétry – ‘Plus de Depit’ (Les deux avares); Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov – ‘Song of the Shepherd Lehl’ (The Snow Maiden); Alma Goetz – ‘Melisande in the Wood’; Hermann Löhr – ‘Little Grey Home in the West’
Pamela Myers Butler – Mezzo-Soprano; Lillian Hoehl – Soprano; Mark Irchai – Piano
Lucketts, VA, October 25, 2025
Top image: (L to R) Pamela Myers Butler, Lillian Hoehl, and Mark Irchai
All photos by Crystal Corona Photography