Lotte Lenya News

The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music today announced an extension of the application deadline for the 2022 Lenya Competition preliminary auditions. The new deadline, Wednesday, 2 February, was announced to ensure that as many contestants as possible can safely prepare for and participate in this year's contest.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music invites applications from aspiring young musicians to live, learn, and play in the heart of San Francisco's cultural district during one of four new and unparalleled summer residential academies.  

After a highly successful presentation at the New Musicals Lab, Collard & Rosenblatt's Like the Wind will receive a staged reading on December 19th and 20th. Directed by Daniella Caggiano, with music direction by Rai Arsa Artha and stage management by Isabel Schwartzberg, the two-night only staged reading will debut at The Brick in Brooklyn, NY.

The Fred Ebb Foundation will present the seventeenth annual Fred Ebb Award for aspiring musical theatre songwriters to the team of Isabella Dawis & Tidtaya Sinutoke. The award, named in honor of the late award-winning lyricist Fred Ebb, will be presented on Monday January 3rd, 2022, at a by-invitation-only ceremony at Birdland Jazz Club

Theatro Sao Pedro premieres the satirical ballet chante The Seven Deadly Sins, the last collaboration between Kurt Weil and Bertolt Brecht. The production will be musically directed by Ira Levin, who will command the Theatro Sao Pedro Orchestra. The Seven Deadly Sins opens on November 5th. In all, there will be 8 recitals until the 14th.

Andrew Polec talks about winning The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music's 23rd Annual Lotte Lenya Competition and what he loves about performing HAIR at The Old Globe through October 3rd.

Andrew Polec, 32, actor/singer/musician/composer from Doylestown, PA, is honored to have been named the first prize winner in The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music 's 23rd Annual Lotte Lenya Competition, which took place in New York City on August 28, 2021. He received the $20,000 First Prize plus a $2,000 Finalist Prize, for a total of $22,000. Each of his four selections were a fully realized one-act drama. 

In honor of Luker, a six-time judge for the competition, the Lotte Lenya Competition has created the Rebecca Luker Award, given for an outstanding performance of a selection from a Golden Age musical. The first Luker award was given to Taylor-Alexis DuPont for her performance of “Supper Time,” from As Thousands Cheer.

The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music announced the winners of the 23rd annual Lotte Lenya Competition, which took place before an invitation-only audience at the Riverside Theatre in New York City on August 28.

The Mac-Haydn Theatre's Limited Performances series continues with Exiled: The Evolution of Kurt Weill, featuring Mac-Haydn favorites James Benjamin Rodgers and Jillian Zack, presented September 1 and 29.

Penny Fuller may have had the quote of the evening when she and Anita Gillette unveiled the new version of their show SIN TWISTERS. She was quoting the great Barbara Cook, who said 'I wish someone had told me I was working in The Golden Age. I would have paid attention.' That is a mouthful. Anita Gillette (Carnival, All-American, Mr. President, They're Playing Our Song, Chapter Two) and Penny Fuller (Applause, Rex, A New Brain, The Dinner Party, Anastasia) brought a bit of The Golden Age to the stage of Feinstein's 54 Below. And the audience paid attention. In fact, the audience was spellbound.

The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music today announced streaming distribution plans for the final round of the 23rd annual Lotte Lenya Competition, the internationally renowned theatrical singing contest, which is set to take place before an invitation-only audience in New York City on Saturday, August 28, 2021.

Not all Lady Artemisia's selections are in their mother tongue, but enough of them are to give you a true sense of period, intention, and Weimar tone. And the performances... Oh, my DARLINGS! The performances of each song, evoking each shadow, each sharp angle of the period, reaching through the room as the young lady morphs her vocal production and intonations to fit each dramatic journey the audience must take with her.

For the 15th consecutive year, VOICExperience Foundation (VE) founded by acclaimed operatic baritone Sherrill Milnes and soprano Maria Zouves, will offer their annual 'Opera Idol' master class competition. Traditionally taking place in the Chicago area, this annual event will take place virtually on Tuesday, June 1 at 7 p.m. EST, due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Ted Chapin has decided to step down as President and Chief Creative Officer of The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization at the end of his current contract this month, Scott Pascucci, CEO of Concord, announced today. His departure comes exactly 40 years after the Rodgers and Hammerstein families first tapped Chapin to run their business.

Kim H. Kowalke, President of the Kurt Weill Foundation has announced the finalists for the 2021 Lotte Lenya Competition. Fifteen performers will compete for top prizes of $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000.

THE SPOTLIGHT SERIES, a bi-monthly live streamed concert series created by A LITTLE NEW MUSIC will  “spotlight” the music of composer/lyricist team Katya Stanislavskaya on April 20th.

Kim H. Kowalke, President and CEO of the Kurt Weill Foundation, is pleased to announce the semifinalists for the 2021 Lotte Lenya Competition.

Houston Grand Opera has announced the nine finalists for this year’s Concert of Arias, the 33rd Annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers, to be presented live from the Wortham Theater Center on February 5, 2020, at 7 p.m. CT.

Kim Kowalke, president of the Kurt Weill Foundation and founder of the Lotte Lenya Competition, has announced that the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to establish an annual 'Rebecca Luker Award' for an outstanding performance of a selection from the Golden Age of American musical theater by a finalist in the Lotte Lenya Competition.