Deborah Voigt News

Advance tickets go on sale today for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala concert, one of the most highly anticipated operatic events of the season. Coming to Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage on Sunday, October 21 at 6pm, the concert features bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, winner of the 2018 Richard Tucker Award, with a host of opera luminaries from around the world: soprano Anna Netrebko, tenors Javier Camarena and Yusif Eyvazov, and five past Tucker Award-winners: sopranos Christine Goerke, Angela Meade, and Nadine Sierra; mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe; and tenor Michael Fabiano. This starry lineup will join forces for an evening of favorite arias and ensembles under the baton of Marco Armiliato, with the support of the New York Choral Society and members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The gala concert is presented by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation.

The Television Academy has announced 155 nominations in 47 categories for the 70th Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards. Composer Lisa Bielawa and director Charles Otte are nominees for their work on VIREO: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser, the first episodic made-for-TV & online opera. Bielawa is nominated in the Creative Technical Crafts – Composer category and Otte's nomination is forOutstanding Director – Programming.

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program, one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, offers audiences a look at the opera stars of tomorrow with a lively, fully-staged production of The Rake's Progress. Based loosely on the eponymous eight paintings and engravings by William Hogarth (1733-1735), Stravinsky's dramatic opera follows the decline and fall of a profligate heir who makes a devil's bargain with Nick Shadow, abandoning life in the country and his tender fiancee for the wicked temptations of London.The Rake's Progress will be performed 7:30pm, Thursday, August 2 and 2:00pm, Saturday, August 4 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. For tickets or more information, visit www.merola.org or call (415) 864-3330.

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program presents the stars of tomorrow in Mozart's Il re pastore. Merola is one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, featuring 29 artists selected from more than 800 international applicants. This exquisite early Mozart work featuring a string of thrilling arias explores the competing pulls of love and duty, as a young shepherd finds he must renounce his true love in order to reclaim his lost throne. Il re pastore will be performed 7:30pm, Thursday, July 19, and 2:00pm, Saturday, July 21, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. For tickets or more information, visit www.merola.org or call (415) 864-3330.

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program, one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, launches its 61st season offering audiences a look at the opera stars of tomorrow. Some of opera's greatest moments will come to life as Merola's young artists perform staged scenes from Vanessa, Il tabarro, Les pecheurs de perles, and Don Giovanni in the Schwabacher Summer Concert.

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents Christina Pecce in "Witches, Bitches, & Divas!" on Wednesday June 20th, 2018 at 9:30pm. Songs from your favorite standards, musicals, and operas are given a fresh spin to keep you enchanted and bewildered. Featuring music from Annie to Women On The Verge, from Sweeney Todd to Carmen, this is a night of cross-over comedy you do NOT want to miss. Celebrate iconic roles, both onstage and off, but beware… this program is sure to put a spell on you!

After many months of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, five singers have been named as the winners of the nation's most prestigious vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Each winner receives a $15,000 cash prize and the exposure that comes with winning the competition that launched the careers of many of opera's biggest stars.

Following today's highly competitive semi-final competition, nine young singers will advance to the final phase of the Metropolitan Opera's 2018 National Council Auditions, America's most prestigious vocal competition. The selected finalists, chosen by a panel of experts from the classical music industry, will compete on the Met stage on Sunday, April 29 at 3 p.m. The winners will receive individual cash prizes of $15,000 and the prestigious—and potentially career-launching—title of National Council Auditions Winner. The Grand Finals Concert will be hosted by Joyce DiDonato, who will perform during the judges' deliberations. The finalists will sing two arias, with Bertrand de Billy conducting the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

For the third and final concert of its 50th anniversary season, New Amsterdam Singers, led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will perform the world premiere of The Wave Rises by Ben Moore, a work commissioned by the chorus as part of its 50-year celebration.

Twenty-five young opera singers who have won regional auditions around the United States will arrive at the Met this month to compete in the next phase of the country's leading vocal competition: the semi-final round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program, one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, launches its 61st season offering audiences a look at the opera stars of tomorrow.

American Composers Orchestra (ACO) continues its 2017-2018 season, under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel, Music Director George Manahan, and President Edward Yim, with Dreamscapes, on Friday, April 6, 2018 at 7:30pm at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall (57th St. and 7th Ave.).

Composer Lisa Bielawa celebrates the receipt of a 2017 Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, an honor society of the country's 250 leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. In 1941, the Academy established awards to encourage creative work in the arts and each year the Academy honors over 70 composers, artists, architects, and writers with awards and prizes ranging from $5000 to $100,000. Candidates for awards must be nominated by an Academy member and the recipients are chosen by committees whose members are drawn from the Academy's roster. Now $10,000 each, Arts and Letters Awards are given annually to five artists, eight writers, four composers, and four architects. Composers receive an additional $10,000 toward the recording of a work.

Leon Botstein will lead the American Symphony Orchestra in Luigi Nono's opera Intolleranza 1960, the final performance this season in the ASO's four-concert Vanguard series, on Thursday, March 1, 8 PM at Carnegie Hall. The program is part of the series' season-long theme examining the music composers have created under varied political leaderships.

American Composers Orchestra (ACO) announces two performances presented by Carnegie Hall in Zankel Hall during the 2018-2019 season. In 2018-2019, under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel, Music Director George Manahan, and President Edward Yim, ACO continues its commitment to the creation, performance, preservation, and promotion of music by American composers, with programming that reflects the infinite ways American orchestral music illustrates geographic, stylistic, gender, and racial diversity. ACO's concerts at Carnegie Hall include premieres by 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winner Du Yun, by composer and Imani Winds flutist Valerie Coleman, and by Alex Temple, a composer who integrates love for pop culture and the Western classical tradition. Additional 2018-2019 performances and activities will be announced in March 2018.

Leon Botstein will lead the American Symphony Orchestra in Hollow Victory: Jews in Soviet Russia After the World War, the third installment in the ASO's four-concert Vanguard series on Sunday, January 28, at 2 PM at Carnegie Hall. The program continues the season's political focus by examining the music composers have created under various types of leadership, in this case Stalin's dictatorship and anti-Semitic rule.

Singing string quartet Well-Strung has crafted a new music video 'What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?' Featuring Edmund Bagnell (1st violin), The Amazing Race Season 30's Chris Marchant (2nd violin), The Amazing Race Season 30's Trevor Wadleigh (viola), Daniel Shevlin (cello), and Directed by Once the Musical's Barry DeBois, this holiday favorite is sure to stir some New Years nostalgia.

The Los Angeles LGBT Center has announced a special one-night-only return of the internationally acclaimed singing string quartet Well-Strung. The four performers specialize in pairing universally recognized classical pieces while singing pop music hits by the likes of Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, and others. Well-Strung will perform at the Renberg Theatre for one show only on Sunday, January 21, 2018 at 7pm.

The 2018 Janet and Mark L. Goldenson Broadway Concert Series at Rubicon Theatre Company kicks off with five intimate concerts by award-winning stars of the Great White Way, including Tony Award-winner FAITH PRINCE (Guys and Dolls), L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award-winner JASON GRAAE (RTC's Return to the Forbidden Planet, Falsettos), Helen Hayes Award-winners DAVID BURNHAM (The Light in the Piazza) and TAMI TAPPAN (RTC's Streetcar Named Desire, Miss Saigon), husband-and-wife duo MEGAN MCGINNIS and ADAM HALPIN (Daddy Long Legs), Ovation nominee ERIC KUNZE (Evita), and Nashville-based singer MELISSA HAMMANS (Back to the Garden).

Classical music lovers around the world can share in two longstanding New York City institutions beginning this weekend, as both the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala concert on Sunday, December 10 (6pm ET), and the first of Trinity Church Wall Street's annual performances of Handel's Messiah today, December 15 (7:30pm ET), are broadcast by WQXR, New York City's only all-classical music station, at WQXR 105.9 FM and www.wqxr.org.