Andrea Chenoweth, soprano

Andrea Chenoweth, soprano, is a two time regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. She has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Opera, Dayton Opera, Commonwealth Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, the Springfield Symphony, the Bach Society of Dayton, Mansfield Symphony Orchestra, and Arcadia Players. Career highlights include her recent Carnegie Hall debut singing Verdi’s Requiem and touring Japan with Maestro Neal Gittleman and the Telemann Chamber Orchestra. She has sung numerous operatic roles, including Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte, and Atalanta in Handel's Xerxes. A proponent of new music, Ms. Chenoweth has worked with many living composers including Libby Larsen, Joseph Summer, Jonathon Sheffer, and Monica Houghton. Ms. Chenoweth received her Masters of Music degree in Voice from The Cleveland Institute of Music and her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Dayton. Her teachers include Ruth Golden, George Vassos, Ellen Shade, and Linda Snyder. Ms. Chenoweth is an Artistin Residence at the University of Dayton.

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Miroslav Sekera, piano

A child prodigy on violin and piano, Miroslav Sekera won numerous competitions on both instruments, gaining the attention of Milos Forman who cast him at the age of six as the child Mozart in the 1985 film Amadeus. Eventually, Mirek chose to concentrate on piano and in 1991 he won first prize in the Chopin Competitionat Mariánské Lázne. Other awards include first prizes in the National Competition of Czech Conservatories, the Baden Competition for Best Performance of a work by Leos Janáček, the 1999 Prague Academy of Music Arts, and the 2002 Johannes Brahms International Competition at Portschach, Austria. He has also achieved prize winning performances at the Gaillard International Piano Competition in France as well as the Nadezda Sazinova Piano Competition. Sekera has performed solo recitals throughout the world, including Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, France, the Caribbean, and Jakarta, Indonesia. A perennial artist with The Shakespeare Concerts, he participated in both the 2003 debut season and the inaugural 2005 recording What A Piece Of Work Is Man. In his many seasons with The Shakespeare Concerts Mirek has premiered eleven compositions by Joseph Summer, including The Dumb Show in Boston in 2004. Critic Roger Lakins, writing about Sekera in the 2003 The Shakespeare Concerts, opined that he is "an awesome talent. As both a solo performer and accompanist, he is absolutely amazing... This young performer has so much going on that is far surpassing technical brilliance. His performance of the 'Tempest Sonata' of Beethoven was a mystical experience. This listener heard new things in a work that has been a favorite most of his life. In Sekera's hands, the second movement is otherworldly. Form, line, harmony they all disappeared. Just sheer beauty, beauty unfolding in all those ways and many more." (back to menu)

 

 

Neal Ferreira, tenor

Tenor Neal Ferreira, especially noted for his dynamic and captivating stage presence, is quickly gaining national recognition. In the current season and beyond, performances include a return to Syracuse Opera as Alfred in Die Fledermaus, the Judge/Amelia's Servant in Un ballo in maschera with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra, and the role of Ferdinand in the world premiere of Joseph Summer's THE TEMPEST with The Shakespeare Concerts. Most recent engagements include Tancredi in John Musto's The Inspector with Boston Lyric Opera, for which Opera News praised his "moving performance," Charlie Gould (Orlofsky) in Die Fledermaus with Anchorage Opera, and Spoletta in Tosca with the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra. Last season his performance as Basilio/Curzio in Le nozze di Figaro with Syracuse Opera garnered him the company’s 201213 Artist of the Year Award. He has also appeared with Florida Grand Opera, Virginia Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Colorado, Opera Boston, the American Repertory Theatre, Boston Midsummer Opera, and Guerilla Opera. Mr. Ferreira received the 2009 Stephen Shrestinian Award for Excellence from Boston Lyric Opera, and has since performed there in many roles including Monostatos in The Magic Flute, Traveler in Clemency, Spoletta in Tosca, Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Gran Sacerdote in Mozart's Idomeneo, re di Creta, and Spanzani/Andrès in Les contes d'Hoffmann. (back to menu)

 

 

Emily Jaworksi, mezzo soprano

Hailed by Classical Voice of New England as “thoroughly delightful” and a “consummate storyteller, musician and artist,” Emily Jaworski is earning a reputation for excellence and constantly surprising audiences with her versatility. From the oratorios of Bach to the art songs of Brahms and Copland, to jazz and musical theatre; on the opera stage or in professional ensembles, Emily is committed to forging a deep emotional connection with every piece she sings. Her opera roles span a wide range of characters, from the ridiculous (Aloès in L'Étoile, Meg Page in Falstaff, Dorabella in Cosí fan Tutte), to the painfully tragic (Idamante in Idomeneo, Dinah in Trouble in Tahiti), and everything in between. She has been referred to as the “ideal pants mezzo,” particularly well-suited to Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Hansel (Hansel and Gretel), and the soaring lyricism of the French mezzo roles (Urbain / Les Huguenots, Stéphano / Roméo et Juliette, Siebel/ Faust, and Nicklausse / Les Contes d'Hoffmann). Emily is thrilled to make her role debut as Carmen this season with Longwood Opera. She will cover the role of Ariel in the world premiere of Joseph Summer's The Tempest with The Shakespeare Concerts, and present solo recitals in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The highlight of a busy 2013-2014 season was creating the mezzo-soprano solo in the world premiere of Jonathan Santore's Solstices with the New Hampshire Master Chorale. Emily also made solo appearances with the Lakes Region Symphony, was an apprentice at the inaugural Nahant Music Festival, and appeared in concert with Odyssey Opera, The Advent Project, and the New Hampshire Music Festival. (back to menu)

 

 

Justin Vickers, tenor

Justin Vickers, American lyric tenor, is an active proponent of modern song composition. Vickers’s repertoire balances more than forty leading tenor roles in standard and contemporary operas, and he has performed opera and oratorio at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Stephansdom, Moscow’s International House of Music, and Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall. At the 2014 Red Note New Music Festival (Illinois State University), Vickers was thrilled to première John David Earnest’s song cycle the Songs of Hadrian, a homoromantic memorial work detailing the life of the second century Roman emperor Hadrian and his love for his eromenos Antinuous. Vickers commissioned and premièred Tony Solitro’s tour de force War Wedding in Philadelphia in 2012. He is currently engaged in the preparations of five major song cycles, working closely with the composers who are writing for his voice: two works—a cantata that sets Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant, and three Shakespeare songs—by Byron Adams; Amore cieco, a Michelangelo cycle by Jonathan Green; a cycle that sets the poetry of Jewish artist Marc Chagall by Jerrold Morgulas; and, a large scale composition by David Vayo using texts and correspondence from the American twentieth century. Vickers previously recorded for Albany Records, singing the title role of Mario in the professional New York première of Francis Thorne’s opera Mario and the Magician. He was fortunate to perform the world première performance for the composer of the especially composed aria “Beatriz, puerta del mundo” while portraying the pivotal role of Giovanni in the revised version of Daniel Catán’s Spanish language opera La hija de Rappaccini. Vickers has sung the world premières of Jerrold Morgulas’s Anna and Dedo in Moscow, Bill Banfield’s jazzfusion opera Gertrude Stein Invents a Leap Early On, creating the role of Leo Stein, and Tom Cobb in Seymour Barab’s A Perfect Plan, in addition to the world première of Alexander Zhurbin’s Fourth Symphony, City of the Plague, at Moscow’s International House of Music. Vickers was invited by the Britten Pears Foundation to record world premières of a handful of Benjamin Britten’s songs from his juvenilia. (back to menu)

 

 

Victor Cayres, piano

Brazilian pianist Victor Cayres has earned praise for concerts with the Sine Nomine string quartet in Switzerland and as a soloist with such orchestras as the Boston Pops and Brno Philharmonic in the Czech Republic. Previous 2013 engagements included a recording project with Albany Records, as well as concerts in Brazil, Interlochen Center for the Arts, BU Tanglewood Institute, and a debut at Weill Hall, Carnegie Hall, as a soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of New York. Victor Cayres studied at University of Sao Paulo, Hochshule fur Muzik in Karlsruhe, Germany, New England Conservatory, and Boston University. Mr. Cayres serves as a graduate lecturer on the piano faculty at Boston University School of Music.

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R. Kent Cook, piano

R. Kent Cook is Professor of Piano and Head of the Keyboard Department at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington IL. He is active as teacher, adjudicator and performer, and his performance schedule as soloist and chamber musician has taken him throughout the United States. He has also appeared in many European venues with performances in Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, England and Italy. A native of Texas, Cook attended Baylor University, and received a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance. He continued his studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music receiving both a Master of Music and a Doctor of Music in piano. Among his mentors, he credits distinguished pianists and teachers Leonard Hokanson, Eteri Andjaparidze, Michel Block, James Tocco, Karen Shaw, Evelyne Brancart and Roger Keyes. He also worked with Herbert Seidel at the Frankfurt Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst after receiving a Fulbright Scholarship for study in Germany. Recent performing highlights include solo recital appearances at the Kindred Arts Concert Association in Manteca, California and at the Atlantic Music Center in Orlando, Florida. He has also appeared on Guest Artists Series at Butler University, James Madison University, Towson University, and Cleveland State University, where ClevelandClassical.com praised Cook for his “colorful and exquisitely voiced playing.” In addition to Illinois Wesleyan University, Cook has served on piano faculties at DePauw University, the Indiana University Piano Academy, the Illinois Chamber Music Festival, the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and the International Chamber Music Festival, based in Kyustendil, Bulgaria. (back to menu)

 

 

Arcadia Players

The Arcadia Players are a professional ensemble of musicians founded in 1989 by Margaret Irwin Brandon, with the invaluable assistance of founding patron T. Marc Futter. Currently under the direction of renowned keyboardist and conductor Ian Watson, they present a series of concerts each year in several communities in Western Massachusetts, performing chamber music, opera, orchestral and choral repertoire, including highly acclaimed performances of Handel's Messiah. They also regularly collaborate with vocal ensembles throughout New England, at institutions such as Dartmouth College, Mount Holyoke College, Yale University, and the Hartt School, as well as Commonwealth Opera and the Connecticut Early Music Festival. Arcadia Players is in residence at the Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

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LUNAR Ensemble

LUNAR seeks to present and perform music in ways that redefines today's concert experience. A proponent of music by living composers, LUNAR aims to engage and challenge audiences through the immersion and education of hot-off-the-press music. Founded in 2010, and now in its fifth season, the LUNAR ensemble is a Baltimore based new music group with the Pierrot instrumentation (flutes, clarinets, piano, percussion, violin/viola, cello and sopranos) as its core. Dedicated to breathing life into new works, LUNAR has premiered 27 works since their founding, and has also held residencies at the Peabody Conservatory, SUNY Fredonia and Tulane University. LUNAR has performed at music festivals such as the LAUNCH Music festival (Lancaster PA) and the ArtScape Festival (Baltimore MD), and at various venues in including the An Die Musik Hall, the Brown Center, the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Shriver Hall. Under the direction of Gemma New, the ensemble includes Stephanie Ray (flute), Gleb Kanasevich (clarinet), Lisa Perry (soprano), Terry Sweeney (percussion), Peter Kibbe (cello), and Katarzyna Bryla (violin/viola). (back to menu)

 

 

​​2013: Joseph Summer before a lecture atMinzu University, Beijing; with musician/translatorssoprano: Summer Anni (seated) and composer:GUO Bing. Photograph by Su Lin.Joseph Summer

My (Joseph Summer’s) operas include The Tempest, Hamlet, Hippolytus, The Tenor’s Suite, and a cycle of comedies that I’ve been working on for decades titled collectively: The Hebdomad. The cycle tells the story of the last week in the life of a 14th-century Franciscan monk, Andreuccio Cipolla, a reprobate and rake; derived from the stories of Boccaccio. (Shakespeare borrowed tales from Boccaccio’s Decameron to create All’s Well That Ends Well, Troilus and Cressida, and portions of Cymbeline and The Merchant of Venice). The four completed Hebdomad operas are 1) And The Dead Shall Walk The Earth, 2) Courting Disaster, 3) Their Fate In The Hands Of The Friar, and 4) Gianetta. I am currently working on the next two operas in the Hebdomad: Also Known As and The Ignoble, The Grotesque, The Heretical. (The opera Gianetta, though complete, I will allow to be subsumed by the two I am working on, so it will cease to exist as a separate opera when I am done. This is because I have found it intriguing to carry the labyrinthine plots forward in a bifurcated pair of operas that occur on the same day, but at different locations and hours. It’s complicated, but it works. I like how the characters run in and out of scenes between the operas in a way that is logical in one perspective as well as in another, yet not comprehensible at times to the characters within the operas.) I’ve set an inordinate amount of Shakespeare in eight “books” (each of which contains many songs and scenes) which I have labeled The Oxford Songs, labeled thus because I am 90% certain that Edward de Vere, the 17th earl of Oxford is the author of the works collected under the pseudonymous attribution of Shakes-Speare (rather than the country bumpkin and wannabe William Shaxper or Shagsper or whatever lame attempt at his name the illiterate attempted.) I’ve also written cantatas and some non-vocal music such as chamber music and a horn concerto (which latter I mention because it allows me to note it won an award.) I have completed one string quartet, The Garden of Forking Paths, and am working on a second: Picasso Trigger. (back to menu)

Andrea Chenoweth      Miroslav Sekera      Neal Ferreira      Emily Jaworksi      Justin Vickers      Victor Cayres

R. Kent Cook      Arcadia Players      LUNAR Ensemble      Joseph Summer

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