Sylvia McNair News

James Levine, Christoph Eschenbach, Gustavo Dudamel, Susanna Malkki, Kent Nagano, a "virtual" Esa-Pekka Salonen, and three conductors making Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts take the podium. 

The American Traditions Vocal Competition has announced its lineup for the 24th Annual singing competition, held in Savannah, Georgia.

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP) announces a special music panel event "Composing Music in the 21st Century: Music Panel Discussion: How modern composers navigate the ever-changing economy of music."

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington National Opera (WNO) today announced that countertenor John Holiday is the 2017 winner of the Marian Anderson Vocal Award.

A founding resident company of The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (COP) will perform music by Rossini and Gounod, premiere a new arrangement by New Jersey composer, Raphael Fusco and present the U.S. premiere of Stories for piano and orchestra by French-Lebanese pianist and rising-star composer Rami Khalife.

On Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at The Guggenheim presents a discussion with the creators and excerpts of Houston Grand Opera's upcoming world premiere of It's a Wonderful Life by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer.

San Francisco Opera Center Director Sheri Greenawald today announced the thirteen recipients of the 2017 Adler Fellowship. Nine singers, three pianist/apprentice coaches and one director will take part in the program-a multi-year performance-oriented residency offering advanced young artists intensive individual training, coaching and professional seminars, as well as a wide range of performance opportunities. Adler Fellows are selected from the young artists who have participated in the Merola Opera Program. The prestigious fellowship has nurtured the development of more than 175 young artists since its inception.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will offer New Yorkers a preview performance of excerpts from a new opera based on the classic story and Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life on Sunday, November 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Guggenheim Museum, as part of the museum's Works & Process program. The evening will include a discussion with the composer/librettist team of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, moderated by HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington National Opera seek nominations for the 2017 Marian Anderson Vocal Award, which celebrates excellence in performance by recognizing a young American singer who has achieved initial professional success in the area of opera, oratorio, or recital repertory, and who exhibits promise for a significant career.

Brighton Thomas is the 2016 winner of the Great American Songbook Youth Ambassador Award. The 17-year-old is from Burbank, CA. During the final concert on July 23, 2016, she sang American standards: "It Had to be You" and "Happy Days Are Here Again.'

Nine-time Grammy winner and seventeen-time Grammy nominee, Janis Siegel, will join Songbook Academy founder, Michael Feinstein, for this one-of-a-kind music and performance intensive for high school students.

Tony Award nominee Jarrod Spector (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) will join Songbook Academy founder, Michael Feinstein, for this one-of-a-kind music and performance intensive for high school students.

Although Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) has long been recognized as the father of opera, only three of his contributions to the form survive. Next year marks the 450th anniversary of the Venetian master's birth, and to celebrate this musical milestone, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists have announced an ambitious international tour, with concert performances of all three operas – L'Orfeo, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, and L'incoronazione di Poppea – in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, and the USA, between April and October of 2017. The tour will launch in Aix-en-Provence, where Gardiner – the winner of more Gramophone Awards than any other living artist – looks forward to leading Ulissefor the first time in his distinguished career. Additional European highlights include complete operatic trilogies in Paris and Bristol, as well as at the Berliner Festspiele, Lucerne Festival, and Venice's La Fenice, before the tour culminates with accounts of all three operas in multiple cities across America. In honor of the anniversary, Gardiner has been chosen to grace the cover of BBC Music early next year; as the magazine recently blogged: “It will be an exciting 2017, not just for music-lovers, but for Gardiner too, … who continues to stretch the boundaries of early music.”

In celebration of what would be renowned choral director and conductor Robert Shaw's 100th birthday, Carnegie Hall will make newly-digitized videos encompassing eight years' worth of landmark choral workshops led by Mr. Shaw at the Hall during the 1990s, available online for free for the first time, allowing viewers around the world the opportunity to observe this master musician and teacher at work.

Rarely does a discerning lover of the pipe organ have the opportunity to hear three full-scale organ concerti in a single program. On Sunday, April 10th, at 5:00pm, graduate students from the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester will present a program of works by three composers, spanning almost 200 years. 

Nine-time Grammy winner and seventeen-time Grammy nominee, Janis Siegel, will join Songbook Academy founder, Michael Feinstein, for this one-of-a-kind music and performance intensive for high school students.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington National Opera (WNO) today announced that soprano Janai Brugger is the 2016 winner of the Marian Anderson Vocal Award. The Award, which honors trailblazing contralto Marian Anderson's personal and humanitarian achievements, celebrates excellence in performance by recognizing a young American singer who has achieved initial professional success in the vocal arts and who exhibits promise for a significant career. In addition to receiving a $10,000 cash prize, Ms. Brugger will perform a recital on Thursday, September 8, 2016 in the Kennedy Center Family Theater and will establish an educational residency at the opera workshop program of Washington's Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

The 33rd season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals continues on Sunday, March 6 at the new Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater with bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch and pianist John Churchwell.

The Great American Songbook Foundation, founded by Grammy-nominated vocalist, Michael Feinstein, announces the opening of the 2016 application process for The Songbook Academy, a music and performance intensive for high school students! The application is available online at TheSongbook.org until March 25, 2016.

Former American Songbook Youth Ambassador Annie Yokom will join multi-platinum selling, five-time Grammy-nominated entertainer Michael Feinstein for a Frank Sinatra centennial celebration at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts. The event takes place Saturday, October 24th, as a season kick-off event.