Richard Tucker News

On Sunday, November 17th at 6:30 pm, the New York Choral Society (NYCS),returns for its 20th year as guest artist at the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala in Avery Fisher Hall. In an evening led by Maestro Riccardo Frizza, the Gala concert will feature Isabel Leonard, winner of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, which is conferred annually upon a single artist who is on the threshold of a major international career.

On Sunday, November 3 2013, Pace Presents welcomes JAMIE BARTON, curated by Matthew A. Epstein, at The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts. Doors at 2:00pm, Show at 3:00pm. Tickets: $35.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance welcomes back the internationally renowned Sphinx Virtuosi (formerly known as the Sphinx Chamber Orchestra) and the Catalyst Quartet, joined by celebrated mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves tonight, October 1, 2013 at 7:30 pm. This one-time collaboration between Ms. Graves and Sphinx can only be seen at the Harris.

Fabio Luisi, Grammy and ECHO Klassik Award-winner and Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, launches his second season as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera with new productions of Beethoven's Fidelio and Verdi's Aida. Luisi also leads three revivals in the 2013-14 season: Bellini's La straniera, Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, and Verdi's Don Carlo, and conducts Philharmonia Zurich's 'Big Five' concert series, revealing why he is as venerated in the concert hall as he is in the opera house. The coming season sees Luisi in collaboration with directorAndreas Homoki - the Zurich Opera General Manager - in Fidelio and German director Tatjana Gürbaca in Aida, as well as a roster of powerhouse performers including René Pape, Anja Kampe, Brandon Jovanovich, and Latonia Moore.

Soprano Tracy Cox and pianist Maureen Zoltek, winners of the 2012 Music Academy of the West Marilyn Horne Song Competition, will perform a program of works by Verdi, Strauss, Mark Carlson, Poulenc, and Gabriel Kahane at Opera America's new National Opera Center in New York City tonight, September 25. The recital, which begins at 8 pm, will inaugurate Opera America's Emerging Artist Recital Series, a showcase for finalists and prizewinners from the nation's most prestigious young artist programs and competitions. Tickets cost $20. The National Opera Center is located at 330 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

Fabio Luisi, Grammy and ECHO Klassik Award-winner and Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, launches his second season as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera with new productions of Beethoven's Fidelio and Verdi's Aida. Luisi also leads three revivals in the 2013-14 season: Bellini's La straniera, Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, and Verdi's Don Carlo, and conducts Philharmonia Zurich's 'Big Five' concert series, revealing why he is as venerated in the concert hall as he is in the opera house. The coming season sees Luisi in collaboration with directorAndreas Homoki - the Zurich Opera General Manager - in Fidelio and German director Tatjana Gürbaca in Aida, as well as a roster of powerhouse performers including René Pape, Anja Kampe, Brandon Jovanovich, and Latonia Moore.

During her 2013-14 season, rising-star soprano Ailyn Perez - winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award and the 15th annual Placido Domingo Award - embodies Verdi's iconic Violetta on both sides of the Atlantic. The Chicago-born singer portrays the composer's tragic heroine in Verdi bicentennial stagings of La traviata at Hamburg State Opera (tonight, Sep 20-27) and Ópera de Oviedo in Spain (Oct 13-19), with 2014 productions at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (Dec 31-Jan 6), London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (May 6-20) and San Francisco Opera (July 5-13). Reviewing her 2012 triumph in La traviata at Covent Garden, The Observer of the UK called Perez 'an ideal Violetta... The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama. Her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical.' But it's not only Violetta this season for the soprano, as she returns to New York for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall (Nov 17) and joins tenor Stephen Costello - her husband - for a duo recital at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (Dec 17).

In his second season as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera, Grammy and ECHO Klassik Award-winner Fabio Luisi premieres important new productions of Beethoven's Fidelio and Verdi's Aida, and conducts revivals of Bellini's La straniera, Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, and Verdi'sDon Carlo with René Pape, which also serves as the vehicle for his return to the Teatro alla Scala. As distinguished in the concert hall as the opera house, he leads four orchestral programs with the Philharmonia Zurich, makes his long-awaited London Symphony Orchestra debut, and returns to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and Cleveland Orchestra, with which he launches the new season. As Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, the distinguished Italian conductor leads productions of Puccini's Madama Butterflyand Rossini's comedy La Cenerentola, which will be transmitted live to movie theaters around the world in the Met's celebrated Live in HD series.

The Lincoln Square Business Improvement District (BID) hosts the 14th annual Winter's Eve at Lincoln Square, New York's largest outdoor holiday festival on Monday, December 2nd from 5:30PM-9:00PM to kick-off the holiday season! This year's highly-anticipated event is expected to attract thousands of people to the Lincoln Square area and light up the entire Upper West Side. There will be over 20 live performance areas, more than 30 restaurants offering tastings and many great performers including Tony Award Winning, renowned Broadway stars, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Bebe Neuwirth headlining the festival. Other performances include: the sultry songstress and rising jazz star Brianna Thomas Quartet, world renowned DJ David Chang, Frank London's Klezmer Brass All-Stars, Indie Flamenco and Folk Rock band City of the Sun,GRAMMY nominated Brooklyn-based children's band The Pop Ups, the talentedLaGuardia High School Show Choir, ice sculpting, Alice Farley Dance Theater, Bond Street Theatre's Shinbone Alley Stilt Band, Asphalt Orchestra, and Jazz at Lincoln Center just to name a few. The Parks Department will run a free trolley up and down Broadway during the event. Winter's Eve will take place rain, snow or shine. For details visit: www.winterseve.org

Today, September 18, the Metropolitan Opera Guild will celebrate the life and career of Rise Stevens with an evening tribute at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College in NYC that will showcase the legendary mezzo-soprano in rare performance videos not seen since the 1950s.

Tenor Matthew Polenzani, who has been praised as "perhaps the finest tenor voice of his generation" (Boston Phoenix), and fast-rising young star soprano Corinne Winters will launch the 2013-14 season of events of The George London Foundation for Singers with a recital at The Morgan Library and Museum on Sunday, October 20, 2013, at 4:30 PM. The George London Foundation Recital Series presents pairs of outstanding opera singers, many of whom were winners of a George London prize early in their careers or are recent George London Award recipients. Mr. Polenzani is a 1998 George London Award winner, and Ms. Winters won a George London Award in 2012 (watch Corinne Winters's George London Award-winning performance of Meyerbeer's "Robert, toi que j'aime"here).

October 21 marks the release of HERE/AFTER: Songs of Lost Voices, a two-CD set of recent songs and music by Jake Heggie, “the finest American art song composer of his generation” (John von Rhein, Classical Review), to texts by the Grammy Award-nominated Gene Scheer. The generous PentaTone Classics collection features more than two hours of music from the composer and librettist of the operas Moby-Dick and Three Decembers, with performances by some of the foremost exponents of their work, including soprano Talise Trevigne, mezzo Joyce DiDonato, tenor Stephen Costello, baritone Nathan Gunn, flutistCarol Wincenc, and the Alexander String Quartet. Recorded at LucasFilm's Skywalker Ranch and produced by Grammy Award-winner Steve Barnett,HERE/AFTER seeks to give voice to silenced individuals whose stories deserve to be heard, including victims and survivors of 9/11 (Pieces of 9/11) and the great French sculptor Camille Claudel (Camille Claudel: Into the Fire). The composer explains that he and Scheer set out to capture “the hope and newness that can come from grief,” and, as the Associated Press recently recognized, HERE/AFTER succeeds in transmuting “memories of grief into survivor songs – some of them surprisingly joyous.” Video trailers featuring excerpts from five of the songs may be viewed here.

During her 2013-14 season, rising-star soprano Ailyn Pérez - winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award and the 15th annual Plácido Domingo Award - embodies Verdi's iconic Violetta on both sides of the Atlantic. The Chicago-born singer portrays the composer's tragic heroine in Verdi bicentennial stagings of La traviata at Hamburg State Opera (Sep 20-27) and Ópera de Oviedo in Spain (Oct 13-19), with 2014 productions at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (Dec 31-Jan 6), London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (May 6-20) and San Francisco Opera (July 5-13). Reviewing her 2012 triumph in La traviata at Covent Garden, The Observer of the UK called Pérez 'an ideal Violetta... The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama. Her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical.' But it's not only Violetta this season for the soprano, as she returns to New York for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall (Nov 17) and joins tenor Stephen Costello - her husband - for a duo recital at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (Dec 17).

Stephen Costello's 2013-14 season sees the Philadelphia native set to realize more of that potential than ever with high-profile performances on the concert stage and in the opera house, along with appearances on TV and recordings.

Soprano Tracy Cox and pianist Maureen Zoltek, winners of the 2012 Music Academy of the West Marilyn Horne Song Competition, will perform a program of works by Verdi, Strauss, Mark Carlson, Poulenc, and Gabriel Kahane at Opera America's new National Opera Center in New York City on Wednesday, September 25. The recital, which begins at 8 pm, will inaugurate Opera America's Emerging Artist Recital Series, a showcase for finalists and prizewinners from the nation's most prestigious young artist programs and competitions. Tickets cost $20. The National Opera Center is located at 330 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

Music Director David Hayes has announced the New York Choral Society's (NYCS) 56th concert season. The season opens on September 22, 2013, when the New York Choral Society will make a guest appearance with the Detroit Symphony under the direction of Yongyan Hu in a performance of a new piece by Xaiogang Ye, Twilight of the Himalayas at Avery Fisher Hall. On November 17, NYCS will appear as guest performers for the 20th time at the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala at Avery Fisher Hall. The NYCS make its 11th appearance with Andrea Bocelli at the Barclays Center on December 11. For the holiday season the New York Choral Society will present Christmas at Carnegie Hall on December 17 with a program of classical, contemporary and traditional Christmas music featuring mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson. The season concludes on April 29 at Carnegie Hall with Gustav Holst's The Hymn of Jesus and the New York Premiere of Pulitzer prize-winning Jennifer Higdon's The Singing Rooms with Jennifer Koh, violin.

Soprano Tracy Cox and pianist Maureen Zoltek, winners of the 2012 Music Academy of the West Marilyn Horne Song Competition, will perform a program of works by Verdi, Strauss, Mark Carlson, Poulenc, and Gabriel Kahane at Opera America's new National Opera Center in New York City on Wednesday, September 25. The recital, which begins at 8 pm, will inaugurate Opera America's Emerging Artist Recital Series, a showcase for finalists and prizewinners from the nation's most prestigious young artist programs and competitions. Tickets cost $20. The National Opera Center is located at 330 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

Austin Lyric Opera (ALO) has announced that internationally acclaimed American tenor James Valenti will take on the title role of its season opener, 'Don Carlo'.