My Friend Flicka

The versatile mezzo Frederica von Stade will replace the versatile soprano Dawn Upshaw as featureed artist of this year’s Great Artist series. Von Stade will sing a recital that includes music of the holiday season at 7:30 p.m. Monday, December 1, in Foy Hall.

Tickets are still available for $45 and $55, and for the post-concert celebration, a wine and dessert reception to meet the artist, for $125. All proceeds frim the event go to the Reimers Scholarship and other projects of the Moravian Music Alliance.

Upshaw canceled because of a long-running throat infection—it began in early September—that has taken its toll on her performing schedule, forcing her to reschedule much of her fall and winter calendar.

Von Stade, who is known to her friends as Flicka, will perform with Taylor Eigsti, a classical and jazz pianist, as her accompanist.

As of press time, von Stade planned to fulfill the master class part of the contract in April, when she will be in New York for an appearance with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A date is yet to be announced.

From my personal file: A San Francisco music critic once went to interview von Stade at her home on Alameda, an island in San Francisco Bay, where she lives with her husband, Michael Gorman, and their children. The reporter found her cleaning the hardwood floors in the family areas of the house. She had made pads of cheesecloth and strapped them to her feet and was skating around the rooms, buffing the newly waxed floors.