Browsing: Art Song

When the English contralto Norma Procter died a few weeks ago at the age of 89, readers remembered seeing Kathleen Ferrier in her audience at Norma’s London debut, at Southwark Cathedral, in 1948. This was typical Ferrier. Six years before she had been a switchboard operator in Lancashire with no hopes of a music career. Now an international star, she took every opportunity to offer support and encouragement to others on the way up. Hearing that Norma was studying in London with her own teacher, Roy Henderson, Ferrier invited her to stay over at her own West Hampstead flat rather…

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The Kurt Weill Foundation is pleased to announce the fourteen young singer/actors named as finalists for the 20th annual Lotte Lenya Competition: Curtis Bannister (31, Green Bay, WI) Gan-ya Ben-gur Akselrod (29, Tel Aviv, ISR) Felipe Bombonato (28, Gainesville, FL) Molly Dunn (28, South Orange, NJ) Jasmine Habersham (27, Macon, GA) Michael Hewitt (26, Denver, CO) Philip Kalmanovitch (32, Ottawa, ON) Marie Oppert (19, Paris, FR) Tony Potts (24, Fargo, ND) Taylor Raven (25, Fayetteville, NC) Katherine Riddle (25, Annapolis, MD) Lisa Rogali (22, Bergenfield, NJ) Bradley Smoak (32, Cary, NC) Paulina Villareal (27, Torreón, MX) The contestants represent a…

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Montreal, April 4, 2017 – Applications for the next Voice edition of the CMIM (Concours musical international de Montréal) taking place May 27 to June 7, 2018 are now open. Singers around the world born on January 1, 1983 or later are invited to apply by December 15, 2017. The online application form, as well the rules and conditions for participation and the required repertoire are all available on CMIM’s official website at concoursmontreal.ca/voice. Transportation and accommodations are offered to the candidates who are selected, in accordance with the terms of the Competition. Starting in 2018, the vocal competition features…

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This is one of those treasurable major-label releases, made with the best of intentions, in which everything turns out wrong. Mahler wrote The Song of the Earth for high tenor and alto, singing alternate movements. It can also be sung by tenor and baritone if no alto sounds right. The chief requirement is a tenor who needs to sing high and very loud – a Siegfried kind of voice that can surmount the force of full orchestra. This is as much a competition for two soloists and orchestra as a composition. Jonas Kaufmann tells us he has loved the work…

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I hope this is not Renée Fleming’s final record. The American soprano, in her late 50s, is closing her stage career with the voice unblemished and the memories fond. It would be a pity if her legacy on Decca was to be concluded by this album, which plays to all her weaknesses. Samuel Barber’s lyric rhapsody Knoxville: Summer of 2015 requires a rich soprano voice and a capacity to articulate James Agee’s achingly nostalgic English text. Ms Fleming has the first quality. Pronouncing the words has never been her forte. The best ears will strain here to catch more than…

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Pictures of America: Natalie Dessay (Sony Classical) News of a Natalie Dessay release always stirs me to a fevered expectation. The French soprano, now retired from the opera stage, has an extraordinary ability to find character between the lines of a song, even one that is overly familiar or resistant to shades of interpretation. Why, she once won me over to choose a Debussy set as my album of the year… So my curiosity was well and truly piqued when Ms Dessay announced an album of American songs based on her reaction to well-known American paintings by Edward Hopper. What…

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In the same week that the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) presented a contemporary art song program entitled “Christopher Cerrone & Friends” at National Sawdust (viewed December 8, 2016), Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize. The legitimacy of granting the prize to a singer-songwriter received the public auditing the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences anticipated, but also produced an opportune moment to shine a spotlight on the art of song. As part of his acceptance speech, Bob Dylan stated, “Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, ‘Are my songs literature?’” Dylan’s response politely rebuked…

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OM – IN TCHAIKOVSKI’S COMPANY A true musical symbol of Christmas evening, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker rejoices music lovers young and old each year. The Orchestre Métropolitain, under Julian Kuerti, will also perform his Symphony No. 2 “Little Russia,” Glière’s Harp Concerto (with OM artist-in-residence Valérie Milot), and music by Morel. (December 13 to 17 at 7:30 PM in 5 boroughs; 1 Maison symphonique, Sunday December 18, 3:00 PM). www.orchestremetropolitain.com SMAM – CHRISTMAS WITH CHARPENTIER Le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, in collaboration with Clavecin en concert, under Andrew McAnerney and Luc Beauséjour, will perform five of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s sacred…

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The second annual Wirth Vocal Prize at McGill’s Schulich School of Music ­culminated in an evening of superior music-making by the three finalists: bass-baritone Jean-Philippe McClish, mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh, and baritone Igor Mostovoi. Made up of past and present McGill graduates, the jury of Michael McMahon ­(pianist), Joan Patenaude-Yarnell (soprano), Patrick Corrigan (Director General of the Opéra de Montréal), and chair Stéphane Lemelin (pianist and head of the Department of Performance) selected McIntosh for the top prize, which includes $25,000, artistic ­mentorship, and several performance opportunities, including a recital with the COC. McIntosh, also the recent winner of the COC’s…

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Menu: Plaisirs with Jean-Paul Fouchécourt French Institute Alliance Française and Opera Lafayette Where: FIAF Florence Gould Hall, New York When November 16, 2016 The phrase “from the sublime to the ridiculous” is one of those idiomatic expressions that you associate with happenstances of all kinds, so to use that choice of words to describe a performance of high art French chanson, cabaret of Yvette Guilbert, and eighteenth-century Comédie lyrique may seem odd. But not when you consider that the performance Menu-Plaisirs co-created by its tenor soloist Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, director Jean Lacornerie, and magician Thierry Collet was conceived not simply as…

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