CCM Announces the Winners of Its 2020 Opera Scholarship Competition

NOTE: Winners List Updated on April 15, 2020

Twenty-six current and incoming students competed for five coveted full-tuition scholarships and $65,500 in additional awards during the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music’s 2020 Opera Scholarship Competition.

Since its inauguration in 1976, this annual competition welcomes current and incoming CCM voice students to compete for scholarships and cash prizes. A panel of judges composed of opera industry professionals selects each year’s class of prizewinners.

Six students won awards in this year’s competition, which was conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To maintain social distancing, each participating singer was asked to select two arias. Each singers’ assigned pianist then recorded a piano reduction of the chosen arias and provided audio files, which served as virtual accompaniment for the competing vocalists.

Singers were required to record their performance on their smart phones and submit their recordings back to CCM. These recordings were then shared with the competition’s panel of distinguished judges.

The Winners of CCM’s 2020 Opera Scholarship Competition

Michael Pandolfo, baritone, first-year Master of Music student from Fort Worth, Texas; studying at CCM with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Corbett Award ($15,000)
The Corbett Award is supported by the Corbett Foundation in cooperation with CCM.

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Teresa Perrotta, soprano, first-year Artist Diploma student from Orlando, Florida; studying at CCM with Gwendolyn Coleman
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Italo Tajo Memorial Award ($15,000)
This award is supported by the Italo Tajo Memorial Scholarship Fund (established by Mr. Tajo’s wife Inelda Tajo) in cooperation with CCM.

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Amber Monroe, soprano, first-year Artist Diploma student from Youngstown, Ohio; studying at CCM with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Andrew White Memorial Award ($12,500)
This award is supported by the Andrew White Memorial Scholarship Fund in cooperation with CCM.

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Brittany Logan, soprano, second-year Master of Music student and incoming Artist Diploma student from Garden Grove, California; studying at CCM with Gwendolyn Coleman
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Seybold-Russell Award ($10,000)
This award is supported by the Seybold-Russell Scholarship Fund in cooperation with CCM.

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Amanda Olea, soprano, first-year Doctor of Musical Arts student from Mexico City, Mexico; studying at CCM with Gwendolyn Coleman
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the John Alexander Memorial Award ($10,000)
This award is supported by the John Alexander Memorial Scholarship Fund in cooperation with CCM.

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Christina Hazen, mezzo-soprano, second-year Master of Music student from Loveland, Colorado; studying at CCM with Gwendolyn Coleman
Prize: Norman Treigle Award ($3,000)
This award is supported by the Norman Treigle Opera Scholarship Competition Award Fund in cooperation with CCM.

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The judges panel for CCM’s 2020 Opera Scholarship Competition included:

• Evans Mirageas, the Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera
• Peggy Kriha Dye, general director and CEO of Opera Columbus
• Amanda Woodbury, an award-winning soprano and CCM alumna (MM Voice, ’12)

About CCM Opera

The Department of Opera at CCM boasts one of the most comprehensive training programs for opera singers, coaches and directors in the United States. Students at CCM work with some of the most renowned teachers and artists active in opera today.

CCM students frequently advance to the final rounds of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, which is widely considered to be the nation’s most prestigious vocal competition. In 2019, soprano Elena Villalón (BM Voice, ’19) was named a Grand Finals Winner at the competition while she was still finishing her undergraduate degree at CCM. CCM’s other recent Grand Finals Winners include Jessica Faselt (MM Voice, ’16) in 2018, Amanda Woodbury (MM Voice, ’12) and Yi Li (AD Opera, ’13) in 2014 and Thomas Richards (MM Voice, ’13) in 2013. At least two CCM singers advanced to the Upper Midwest Regional Auditions in this year’s Met National Council Auditions: artist diploma students Amber Monroe and Teresa Perrotta.

CCM singers also recently won awards in other prestigious national competitions. Jessica Faselt won a $10,000 award and Alisa Jordheim (DMA Voice, ’15; MM Voice,’ 10) won a $1,000 Encouragement award at the 2020 George London Foundation Awards Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers. Jasmine Habersham (AD Opera, 2015; MM Voice, 2013) won the silver medal in the 2020 American Traditions Vocal Competition. Edward Nelson (BM Voice, 2011; MM Voice, 2013) won first prize at the 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup. Perrotta also advanced to the finals of the 2020 Lotte Lenya Competition.

In addition, CCM Opera productions have received some of the National Opera Association Production Competition’s highest honors throughout the years, taking home six of the 18 non-professional prizes awarded in 2010 and four prizes in 2011.

CCM Opera graduates have performed on the stages of the world’s greatest opera companies, including Cincinnati Opera, Metropolitan Opera (New York), Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera (London), La Scala (Italy) and more.

CCM Opera is also part of Opera Fusion: New Works, a dynamic partnership with Cincinnati Opera that offers composer/librettist teams the opportunity to workshop an opera during a 10-day residency in Cincinnati.

Created in 2011 to foster the development of new American operas and generously funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Opera Fusion: New Works has grown into a nationally recognized collaboration which is not only advancing the repertoire, but also serving as an inspiring example of a successful joint venture between an educational institution and a professional performing arts organization.

For more information about CCM, please visit us online at ccm.uc.edu.

CCM Student Elena Villalón Named Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019 National Council Auditions

CCM student Elena Villalón (center) with the other winners of the 2019 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. From left to right: Miles Mykkanen, William Guanbo Su, Elena Villalón, Thomas Glass and Michaela Wolz. Photography courtesy of Ken Howard.

We are thrilled to report that current CCM student Elena Villalón has been named a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019 National Council Auditions! After a months-long series of auditions involving more than 1,000 singers at the district, regional and national levels, a panel of expert judges named Villalón and four other singers as the winners of the 65th annual Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Each winner receives a $15,000 cash prize. You can learn more about all of the 2019 National Council Winners by visiting www.metopera.org/about/auditions/national-council-auditions/winners.

Senior Voice Performance major Elena Villalón has been named a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019 National Council Auditions.

A soprano from Austin, Texas, who studies with CCM Professor William McGraw, Villalón joins Houston Grand Opera’s studio artist program in the 2019-20 season, after being a finalist and winning the audience prize in the 31st annual Eleanor McCollum Competition. She has been a vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and at Houston Grand Opera’s Young Artist Vocal Academy. Her CCM performances include the roles of Adele in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone and Miss Wordsworth in Britten’s Albert Herring.

As previously reported, fellow CCM-trained singers  Joshua Wheeker, tenor (CCM Voice 2007-2012); Murrella Parton (MM Voice, 2017) also advanced to the Met’s National Council Semi-Finals this year.

This marks the second consecutive year that CCM singers have “won the Met,” as CCM alumna Jessica Faselt (MM Voice, 2016) was one of five singers who won the 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. You can learn more about Faselt’s win courtesy of the Cincinnati Business Courier.

CCM alumni and students frequently advance to the final rounds of the Met’s National Council Auditions, which is widely considered to be the nation’s most prestigious vocal competition. In 2017, four CCM alumni competed in the semi-finals, including Faselt; Summer Hassan, soprano (MM Voice, 2014); Andrew Manea, baritone (MM Voice, 2016); and Cody Quattlebaum, bass-baritone (BM Voice, 2015) — who was chosen as a finalist during that year’s national competition.

About the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions

Following the creation of the Met’s National Council in the 1952-53 season, the first Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions took place in 1954 in the Twin Cities. For over 60 years, the annual competition has helped launch the careers of countless young singers, including some of opera’s greatest stars. Every season, over 100 former participants in the National Council Auditions appear on the Met roster.

The district-level and regional auditions, held across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Mexico, are sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera National Council and administered by National Council members and hundreds of volunteers from across the country. Currently in its 65th year, the program has launched the careers of such well-known stars as Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt, Lawrence Brownlee, Thomas Hampson, Eric Owens, Angela Meade, Nadine Sierra, Jamie Barton and Ryan Speedo Green. The competition garnered international attention with the release of the 2008 feature-length documentary The Audition, directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke, which chronicled the 2007 National Council Auditions season and Grand Finals Concert.

 

CCM Voice Student Performs at Kennedy Center as a VSA International Young Soloist

Natalie Sheppard.

As a winner of the VSA International Young Soloist Award, CCM voice student Natalie Sheppard performs at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 25. This year marks the 33^rd anniversary of the VSA International Young Soloists Competition, a Jean Kennedy Smith Arts and Disability Program that recognizes talented, emerging artists ages 14-25 with disabilities from all over the world.

In addition to Sheppard, the concert features her fellow award winners including pianist Elliot McClain of Tennessee, pianist Kohlin Sekizawa of California and classical saxophonist Jessica Tucker of Nevada. The award winners each receive $2,000 and the opportunity to perform at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. The performance will be live streamed on the Kennedy Center’s Facebook page and on kennedy-center.org.

Sheppard, a mezzo-soprano, begins her junior year at CCM in the fall, studying with Professor William McGraw. She praises McGraw for “his complete knowledge of the voice, the way he nurtures young artists and his kind heart.”

“He knows how to push his students toward success and gives us the tools we need, but never allows us to be too hard on ourselves,” Sheppard adds.

Sheppard says she has dealt with anxiety and depression for most of her life but that music has been a source of therapy for her. She studies voice and international human rights, and hopes to combine the two disciplines in her work. She currently works with children with disabilities and uses music to teach them life skills.

“I have always believed that as artists and musicians, it is our duty to use our unique medium for good,” Sheppard says. “As a singer, we carry grand responsibility. We posses a public voice. I really want to be a voice for minorities and those who have faced extreme hardships around the world. I plan to combine activism work with recitals.”

At the Kennedy Center concert, she plans to sing a song cycle titled Love After 1950 by Libby Larsen. It features collected poetry written by women. Sheppard will also work with Larsen this summer as a Colburn Fellow at SongFest in Los Angeles.

“Art is an outlet for many,” Sheppard says. “It is crucial that we become more accepting of those with mental illness, and come together as collaborators, not as competitors. I have many friends who suffer from very similar mental disorders. I encourage them to apply for this same award and to be a strong voice for those with all types of anxiety and depression.”

Visit the Kennedy Center’s Facebook page or website to watch Sheppard’s performance at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 25.

 

CCM Summer Hosts Opera Bootcamp for Singers, Conductors and Pianists

The UC College-Conservatory of Music combines its annual Opera Bootcamp and Opera Studio summer programs into a dynamic new program designed to develop career skills for conductors and singers alike. If you are an aspiring pianist, coach, stage director, conductor or singer, apply for the new Opera Bootcamp summer program, which occurs July 8-30 at CCM.

Training singers and conductors alongside each other builds a depth of understanding often not acquired until well into your professional career. In the three-week program, participants will mount two opera productions, Gianni Schicchi and Les mamelles de Tirésias, and one program of staged Mozart scenes and arias — all with orchestra and in their respective original languages. Both French and Italian language instruction will be offered to support the assigned repertoire.

Opera Bootcamp faculty includes internationally renowned professionals from CCM and visiting faculty members. CCM faculty includes Mark Gibson, Amy Johnson, Kathryn Lorenz, William McGraw, Andrea Tutt, Marie-France Lefebvre and professor emeritus David Adams. Visiting faculty members include Vernon Hartman, stage director; Steven Mosteller, coach; Joyce Miller, Italian language instructor; Jose Maria Condemi, stage director; Ken Weiss, coach; and Louis Pelletier, coach.

Professional biographies for each faculty member are available online at ccm.uc.edu/summer/collegiate-adult/opera-bootcamp/faculty.

All singers begin Opera Bootcamp with a two-day intensive on July 8 and 9, which includes training in traditional lyric stagecraft, Michael Chekhov acting technique, period movement, dances used in opera and career mentorship specific to the industry. These special sessions are led by Johnson, Tutt and Hartman. Conductors and pianists begin their Opera Bootcamp training on July 10.

This program is process oriented. It’s bootcamp! You are trained. The skills taught can be applied quickly and effectively to have great impact on your success as an artist.

CCM’s 2017 Opera Bootcamp is now accepting applications. The application deadline is April 15, 2017; enrollment for CCM Summer Programs is limited.

Visit ccm.uc.edu/summer/collegiate-adult/opera-bootcamp for application details and more information on Opera Bootcamp.

CCM Alumnae Tamara Wilson and Amanda Woodbury Receive Major Awards from Richard Tucker Music Foundation

We are ecstatic to report that CCM alumnae Tamara Wilson (BM Voice, 2004) and Amanda Woodbury (MM Voice, 2012) have both received major awards from the prestigious Richard Tucker Music Foundation.

Wilson, a soprano who studied with Barbara Honn while attending CCM, has been named winner of the 2016 Richard Tucker Award. Dubbed the “Heisman Trophy of Opera,” the Tucker Award carries the foundation’s most substantial cash prize of $50,000, and is conferred each year by a panel of opera industry professionals on an American singer at the threshold of a major international career. Featuring such luminaries as Renée Fleming, Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, David Daniels, Christine Goerke and Joyce DiDonato, the list of past winners reads like a who’s who of American opera. Wilson is a previous recipient of the Foundation’s Sara Tucker Study Grant in 2008 and Richard Tucker Career Grant in 2011.

Barry Tucker, president of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation and son of the Brooklyn-born tenor, commented, “I first met Tamara Wilson when she auditioned for – and won – a Sara Tucker Study Grant in 2008. I was blown away not only by the power and sheer beauty of her voice, but also by how grounded she is as a person. Last year, when I was listening to the Saturday matinee broadcast of Aida from the Met and realized it was her singing the title role, I couldn’t have been more impressed by how she’s evolved as an artist. She has a bright future ahead of her, and we are thrilled to have her as our 2016 Richard Tucker Award winner.”

Wilson is not the only CCM-trained singer honored by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation this year. Woodbury, a soprano who studied with William McGraw while attending CCM, has been named a 2016 Richard Tucker Career Grant recipient. Selected through a vocal competition, these grants are provided to singers who have begun professional careers and who have already performed roles with opera companies nationally or internationally. As previously reported, Woodbury was awarded the Foundation’s Sara Tucker Grant in 2014.

About the Richard Tucker Music Foundation
Founded in 1975, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation is a non-profit cultural organization that honors the artistic legacy of the great American tenor through support of talented American opera singers and by bringing opera into the community.

The Foundation’s awards program offers grants for study, performance opportunities and other career-enhancing activities, thereby providing professional development for singers at several levels of career-readiness. You can learn more about the Richard Tucker Music Foundation by visiting richardtucker.org/about.

Soprano Tamara Wilson (BM Voice, 2004).

About Tamara Wilson
American soprano Tamara Wilson made her much-anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut in December of 2014 in the title role of Aida, when the New York Times praised the “laserlike authority of her high notes,” and observed: “Her voice blooms with her palpable involvement in her own story: Her singing is urgent, her physical performance restrained yet powerful.”

Nominated for a 2016 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera after her English National Opera debut last fall as Leonora in La forza del destino, the soprano will make further debuts next season at the Bayerischer Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper Berlin. She was a finalist in the 2004 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a Grand Prize Winner at Barcelona’s Annual Francisco Viñas Competition, a winner of the George London Award and the recipient of both a 2008 Sara Tucker Study Grant and a 2011 Richard Tucker Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation.

After launching the present season headlining Aida at the Aspen Music Festival, Wilson returned to Oper Frankfurt as Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlo; sang Lucrezia in Verdi’s I due Foscari in Santiago, Chile; made her Cleveland Orchestra debut; and joined Marin Alsop for Mahler in São Paulo. Back in the States after touring Japan as Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, the soprano looks forward to taking Brahms’s German Requiem on an East Coast tour with Seraphic Fire and singing Desdemona in Otello at Cincinnati’s May Festival, in celebration of James Conlon’s 37th and final year as Music Director. Last season Wilson made her role and house debuts headlining Norma at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu, following recent debuts at Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Carnegie Hall. In addition to being a CCM graduate, Wilson is also an alumna of the Houston Grand Opera Studio.

CCM alumna Amanda Woodbury.

About Amanda Woodbury
An alumna of Los Angeles Opera’s Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program, Amanda Woodbury was recently honored with the second place and Audience Choice awards in Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition. She also won the 2014 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a 2014 Sara Tucker Study Grant, and both second place and Audience Choice awards at Houston Grand Opera’s Eleanor McCollum Competition.

Woodbury made her professional debut as Micaëla in Carmen at Los Angeles Opera, where she returned as Papagena in Die Zauberflöte. She then joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera, appearing as Tebaldo in Don Carlo and covering the roles of Antonia and Stella in Les Contes d’Hoffmann.

This season she sang Leïla in Les pêcheurs de perles at the Met, and looks forward to appearing as Musetta in La bohème with the Los Angeles Opera. Having taken part in the Met’s “Rising Stars” concert tour, she looks forward to headlining a new Met production of Roméo et Juliette and making house debuts at PORTopera as Micaëla in Carmen and at Atlanta Opera as Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Woodbury completed her Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance at CCM in 2012, after receiving her Bachelor of Music from Indiana University.

In a 2014 interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer, Woodbury reflected on her recent success and on her time at CCM, telling Janelle Gelfand:

“I sang two roles onstage [at CCM], Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Madame Lidoine in Dialogues of the Carmelites. I can’t tell you how much that has helped my career. It helped me to prepare for the next step, and just everything they did opened up doors for me. I’m so glad I went to CCM, because I passed up Juilliard for CCM.”

You can read the Enquirer‘s full interview with Woodbury online here.

Learn more about the achievements of CCM’s students and alumni by subscribing to The Village News!
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Story by Curt Whitacre

CCM Students Advance to the Final Round of the 2016 Lotte Lenya Competition

We are elated to report that CCM students Talya Lieberman and Reilly Nelson have been named as finalists for the 2016 Lotte Lenya Competition. They have been selected alongside 13 other young singer/actors and will take part in the final round of the competition on Saturday, April 16.

Both Lieberman and Nelson also made strong showings in last year’s Lotte Lenya Competition. Nelson advanced to the semifinal round of the competition (along with three other CCM-trained singers), while Lieberman won the Lys Symonette Award for Outstanding Performance of an Individual Number during the final round.

Lieberman and Nelson are the latest in a long line of CCM students and alumni who have reached the final rounds of the Lotte Lenya Competition. CCM alumna Lauren Roesner (BFA Musical Theatre, 2013) took Third Prize in the 2013 installment of this prestigious international theatre singing contest. CCM alumna Caitlin Mathes (MM Voice, 2009; Artist Diploma in Opera, 2010) earned First Prize in 2011 and fellow alumna Alisa Suzanne Jordheim (BM Voice, 2008; MM Voice, 2010; DMA candidate) progressed to the final round of the competition that same year.

Selected from 31 semifinalists, this year’s finalists represent a diverse range of performers, ages 21 to 31, from across the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel. All will sing repertoire from the operatic, golden age and contemporary musical stages, and of course, the music of Kurt Weill, for a chance win the top prize of $15,000.

Semifinalist judges, Tony Award-winners Jeanine Tesori and Victoria Clark, adjudicated and coached the performers. Clark, who first judged the competition in 2008, noted that “I can feel the leap in overall talent from when I last judged the semifinals.”

Kurt Weill Foundation President Kim Kowalke stated that “this year’s finalists are the largest and most diverse group in the Competition’s 19-year history, with contestants currently working on- and off-Broadway, in national touring companies, and in major regional theaters and opera companies. Many are well on their way to distinguished careers.”

The final round takes place April 16 at Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. Each finalist will present a 15 minute program of four selections in the daytime round, 11:00-4:00. An evening concert, in which contestants sing only a segment of their programs, follows at 8:00. The concert concludes with the announcement of awards and prizes. Both the daytime round and evening concert are free and open to the public.

All finalists receive a minimum cash award of $1,000, with additional discretionary awards of $3,500 each, and top prizes ranging from $7,500 to $15,000. Total prizes will exceed $60,000.

Returning to judge for the tenth time, international opera legend Teresa Stratas leads the judges’ panel. The Lenya Competition remains the only vocal competition she has ever consented to adjudicate. Joining her on the jury are Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization President and former American Theater Wing Chairman Theodore S. Chapin (also returning for his tenth time), and Broadway (and Audra McDonald’s) music director, conductor and accompanist Andy Einhorn.

Past prize winners have gone on to appear on major theater, opera and concert stages around the world. Don’t miss the competition described by Opera News as “target[ing] today’s total-package talents, unearthing up-and-coming singers who are ready for their close-ups.”

About the Kurt Weill Foundation
The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. is dedicated to promoting understanding of the life and works of composer Kurt Weill (1900-50) and preserving the legacies of Weill and his wife, actress-singer Lotte Lenya (1898-1981). The Foundation administers the Weill-Lenya Research Center, a Grant Program, the Kurt Weill Book Prize and the Lotte Lenya Competition, and publishes the Kurt Weill Edition and the Kurt Weill Newsletter. Learn more by visiting www.kwf.org.

CCM student Talya Lieberman.

About Talya Lieberman
Originally from Forest Hills, New York, soprano Talya Ilana Lieberman is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at CCM as a student of Professor William McGraw.

Recently described by Opera News as “poetically compelling,” “delectably stylish” and “technically refined,” Lieberman is equally at home with operatic, art song and musical theatre repertoire. Starting in September 2016 she will be seen frequently on stage at Komische Oper Berlin, where she will be assuming the soprano position in the Opernstudio. Her upcoming performances include debuts with Cincinnati Opera and Opera Columbus, as well as the title role in CCM’s Mainstage Series production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen.

Lieberman returned to Cincinnati this fall after completing a summer as a Filene Young Artist with Wolf Trap Opera, where her ability to “make a point with the merest flick of a finger” (Washington Post) shined in a highly lauded run as Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. She also appeared in concert with Steven Blier at Wolf Trap in a program celebrating the Broadway legacy of the Rodgers family (The Rodgers Family – A Century of Musicals).

Lieberman is a convert from the orchestra pit and started singing after receiving her master’s degree in trumpet performance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts under the tutelage of Judith Saxton. She completed her BA at Duke University with highest distinction in linguistics (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude). She is a two-time winner of full tuition and stipend—winning the Russell-Seybold and Italo Tajo Awards, respectively—at CCM’s Opera Scholarship Competition.

CCM student Reilly Nelson. Photography by Kate Lemmon (http://www.katelphotography.com).

About Reilly Nelson
Born in the coastal town of Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario, Canada, Reilly Nelson attended the Eastman School of Music where she received a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance and CCM where she completed a Master of Music in Vocal Performance.

Nelson is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at CCM.

At CCM she performed Hansel in Hansel and Gretel and Mary in Ricky Ian Gordon’s Morning Star. She also performed Hansel, as well as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, at Janiec Opera Company at the Brevard Music Center.

The mezzo-soprano was a vocal fellow at the renowned Tanglewood Music Festival for the summers of 2014 and 2015, performing Les nuits d’été, Op. 7 and Folk Songs by Bernard Rands.

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Story by Curt Whitacre

CCM Announces 2016 Opera Scholarship Competition Results

Five voice students were named winners of CCM’s 2016 Opera Scholarship Competition, which was held on Saturday, March 12, in UC’s Corbett Auditorium.

Since its inauguration in 1976, the annual competition welcomes current and incoming CCM voice students to compete for scholarships and cash prizes, and a panel of judges composed of opera industry professionals selects each year’s class of prizewinners.

The 2016 CCM Opera Scholarship Competition winners are:

Kayleigh Decker (first year Master of Music student)
From Woodstock, Md., studying with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Corbett Award ($15,000)
The Corbett Award is supported by the Corbett Foundation in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Christian Pursell (first year Master of Music student)
From Aptos, Calif., studying with Thomas Baresel
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Italo Tajo Memorial Award ($15,000)
This award is supported by the Italo Tajo Memorial Scholarship Fund (established by Mr. Tajo’s wife, Mrs. Inelda Tajo) in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Erica Intilangelo (second year Master of Music student)
From Fairfield, Conn., studying with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Andrew White Memorial Award ($12,500)
This award is supported by the Andrew White Memorial Scholarship Fund in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Murrella Parton (first year Master of Music student)
From Seymour, Tenn., studying with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Seybold-Russell Award ($10,000)
The Seybold-Russell Award is supported by the Seybold-Russell Scholarship Fund in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Grace Newberry (first year Master of Music student)
From San Rafael, Calif., studying with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the John Alexander Memorial Award ($10,000)
This award is sponsored by the John Alexander Memorial Scholarship Fund in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

The following student also received an award as part of the competition:

Alexandra Schoeny (incoming Doctor of Musical Arts student)
From Cincinnati, Ohio
Prize: Corbett Incentive Award for new graduate students ($2,000)
This award is supported by the Corbett Foundation in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

The judges’ panel for CCM’s 2016 Opera Scholarship Competition included:

• Michael Heaston, Director of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program and Advisor to the Artistic Director at Washington National Opera and Associate Artistic Director of Glimmerglass Festival
• Peter Kazaras, Professor of Music and Director of Opera at UCLA Herb Albert School of Music
  Stage Director
• Viswa Subbaraman, Artistic and Music Director of the Skylight Music Theatre in Milwaukee

About CCM Opera
The Department of Opera at CCM boasts one of the most comprehensive training programs for opera singers, coaches and directors in the United States. Students at CCM work with some of the most renowned teachers and artists active in opera today.

CCM students frequently advance to the final rounds of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. As recently reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer, four singers with ties to CCM advanced to the semi-final round of this year’s Met Auditions.

In addition, CCM’s Mainstage and Studio Series of Opera have received some of the National Opera Association Production Competition’s highest honors throughout the years, taking home six of the 18 non-professional prizes awarded in 2010 and four prizes in 2011.

CCM Opera graduates have performed on the stages of the world’s greatest opera companies, including Cincinnati Opera, Metropolitan Opera (New York), Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera (London), La Scala (Italy) and more.

CCM’s 2015-16 opera season concludes next month with Janáček’s classic The Cunning Little Vixen (April 8 – 10), conducted by Mark Gibson with stage direction by Vince DeGeorge. Learn more about the production at ccm.uc.edu/boxoffice/mainstage/cunning-little-vixen.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM Alumnus Edward Nelson Makes Professional Debut in San Francisco Opera’s ‘Two Women’

Janelle Gelfand reviews Marco Tutino’s new opera Two Women, which serves as a San Francisco Opera debut for CCM alumnus Edward Nelson (BM Voice, 2011; MM Voice, 2013)!

You can read her full recap online at here.

janellesnotes

Italian diva Anna Caterina Antonacci took her cue from Sophia Loren as the character Cesira in “Two Women”

Marco Tutino’s new opera “Two Women,” which takes place in war-torn Italy during World War II, has one stirring moment. Near the end of Act I, Rosetta (sung by Sarah Shafer), the 16-year-old daughter of Cesira, lifts her pure-toned soprano in a poignant prayer for peace. It becomes a touching anthem for the whole village, as they join her a lush chorus, singing “Father, do not abandon us,” as battles are growing closer to their village.

To a full War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco Opera presented the world premiere on Saturday of the hotly-anticipated opera, “Two Women” (“La Ciociara”) by Tutino, to his libretto with Fabio Ceresa. As the creators told us in a panel discussion on Friday, the opera is based on Alberto Moravia’s novel, but not so…

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CCM Artist Diploma Student Talya Lieberman Wins Outstanding Performance Award at 2015 Lotte Lenya Competition

CCM artist diploma student Talya Lieberman.

We are happy to report that soprano Talya Lieberman, an Artist Diploma candidate in CCM’s Opera program, won the Lys Symonette Award for Outstanding Performance of an Individual Number during the final round of the 2015 Lotte Lenya Competition.

Sponsored by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, this year’s competition was held at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music on April 18. Named in honor of Weill’s musical assistant on Broadway, the Lys Symonette Award comes with a cash prize of $3,500.

Now in its 18th year, the Lotte Lenya Competition is an international theatre singing contest that recognizes exceptionally talented young singer/actors, ages 19-32, who are dramatically and musically convincing in a wide range of repertoire, from opera and operetta to contemporary Broadway musicals, with a focus on the works of Kurt Weill. The judges of this year’s competition were Rebecca Luker, James Holmes and Theodore S. Chapin. You can view a full list of this year’s competition winners by visiting www.kwf.org/previous-winners.

Lieberman is the latest in a long line of CCM-trained singers to take home top honors at the Lotte Lenya Competition. CCM alumna Lauren Roesner (BFA Musical Theatre, 2013) took Third Prize in the 2013 installment of this prestigious international theater singing contest. CCM alumna Caitlin Mathes (MM Voice, 2009; Artist Diploma in Opera, 2010) earned First Prize in 2011 and fellow alumna Alisa Suzanne Jordheim (BM Voice, 2008; MM Voice, 2010; DMA candidate) progressed to the final round of the competition that same year.

About Talya Lieberman
Originally from Forest Hills, New York, Talya Ilana Lieberman is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at CCM as a student of CCM Professor of Voice William McGraw.

A soprano, Lieberman will be singing Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro with Wolf Trap Opera as a Filene Young Artist this coming summer. She has been invited to make her recital debut with the San Francisco Opera Center as part of their Schwabacher Debut Recital series this spring. She was most recently seen performing Gretel in CCM’s Mainstage Series production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

This past summer she sang the title role in Handel’s Semele as part of the Schwabacher Concert Series (Merola Opera Program). Highlights from 2013-14 include performing selections from Canteloube’s “Chants d’Auverge” with the CCM Philharmonia, as well as performing David del Tredici’s “Haddock’s Eyes” with CCM’s Café MoMus ensemble. She won the Irma M. Cooper Vocal Competition (Columbus Opera, 2014) and Alida Vane International Voice Competition (2013) in Latvia, where she studied on a Fulbright scholarship for the 2012-13 school year.

Lieberman made her New York City debut prior to departing for Latvia, singing in concert with Schubert & Co. In the summer of 2012 she participated in the voice program at the Chautauqua School of Music, where she was featured in Villa-Lobos’ “Bachianas Brasileiras” with the cello studio.

Lieberman is a convert from the orchestra pit and started singing after receiving her master’s degree in trumpet performance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts under the tutelage of Judith Saxton. She completed her BA at Duke University with highest distinction in linguistics (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude). She is a two-time winner of full tuition and stipend—winning the Russell-Seybold Award and Italo Tajo Award, respectively—at CCM’s annual Opera Scholarship Competition.

Lieberman has lived a few lives before coming to opera full-time; she worked on sleep apnea research as a research coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, served as program coordinator for the El Sistema inspired program Play On, Philly!, and had a short stint as a singer-songwriter. She is an avid student of contact improvisation and various forms of meditation. She loves reading, writing, editing, working with children, teaching and being an aunt.

CCM Alumni Yi Li and Amanda Woodbury Named Grand Finalist Winners of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2014 National Council Auditions

From left to right, CCM alumni Yi Li and Amanda Woodbury.

CCM alumni Yi Li (AD, ’13) and Amanda Woodbury (MM, ’12) have been named Grand Finals Winners of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2014 National Council Auditions.

A tenor, Li is a member of the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program.

Woodbury, a soprano, is in her second year at the Domingo-Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at LA Opera.

Li and Woodbury were among nine singers competing in the Met’s prestigious and highly competitive Grand Finals Concert this past Sunday, March 30. The finalists were accompanied by the Met Orchestra led by Marco Armiliato. You can learn more about all of the 2014 National Council Winners here.

This marks the second consecutive year that CCM trained singers have won the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions: bass-baritone Thomas Richards was named a Grand Finals Winner in 2013.

WQXR, New York’s Classical Music Radio Station, will broadcast performances and interviews with all of this year’s winners at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 1. Learn more by visiting www.wqxr.org/#!/story/video-webcast-metropolitan-opera-national-council-award-winners.

Learn more courtesy of the Cincinnati Enquirer here.