Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and pianist Malcolm Martineau finish up an eight-city U.S. recital tour tonight with a much-anticipated concert of French mlodies in Isaac Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

The 23 composers represented on the program include Bizet, Franck, Chabrier, Debussy, Duparc, Ravel, Faurй and Poulenc. Graham says that "It's a rich tapestry and it provides a delicious variety of romantic, saucy, lush, humorous and offbeat songs. I wasn't familiar with many of them before, including Faurй’s rarely heard Vocalise-Etude, but I have truly fallen in love with each one. Some are heartbreaking, some are dramatic — almost operatic — in scope, like Bachelet’s Chиre nuit. There are animal songs, nature songs, love songs, songs about love manquй, and some subtle French humor thrown in for fun."

Graham frequently sings French song, opera and operetta, and last fall completed an acclaimed run of performances in Gluck's Iphigйnie en Tauride at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The three-week tour began on January 8 in Florida at Sarasota’s Ringling Museum and also took in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Kansas City; Appleton, Wisconsin; Chicago; Boston; and Washington, DC.