Mahler's Kindertotenlieder ("Songs on the Death of Children") is among the most heartbreaking musical reflections on mortality and grief ever composed. This profoundly human expression of mourning explores how easy it can be to distract and delude ourselves about the reality of loss, while ultimately presenting a vision of hope to survivors - a way to find meaning in the suffering, a way to live in a world that now has a human-shaped hole where a loved one used to be.

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Lucas Meachem is easily the top American operatic baritone performing today. The Grammy-winning singer grew up dirt-poor in the sticks of North Carolina, and after being discovered while singing in a karaoke competition (true story!), he got his big break on the operatic stage. Now he'll follow up back-to-back runs at the Metropolitan Opera with this intimate Crypt Session performance, singing Mahler's great masterwork alongside some deeply personal arias, and a few golden-hued songs by Aaron Copland.

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He'll be accompanied at the piano by his beautiful and talented wife, Irina Meachem, who - in a darkly ironic twist of fate, even by our decidedly macabre standards - will be six months pregnant with their first child.