Beethoven No. 9 And Contreras

Noted by The Wall Street Journal for her “opulent, Wagner-scaled soprano” and acclaimed by The New York Times as the “lustrous, commanding soprano,” Felicia Moore is recognized by Opera News as “a genuine jugendliche dramatische soprano of exciting potential (and present accomplishment).” She is a powerful and innovative artist having made music in partnership with Alan Gilbert, Anne Manson, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Speranza Scappucci, Alexander Shelley, Evan Rogister, Gary Thor Wedow, and Brian Zeger among others.

Felicia Moore makes her Metropolitan Opera debut as Anna in Nabucco in the 2020-21 season and has been engaged by Opera Maine to make a role debut as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer. She was engaged for symphonic performances in the season with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra among others.

Highlights of last season include the role of Susan B. Anthony in The Mother of Us All at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a part of Project 19, the New York Philharmonic’s multi-season initiative marking the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which guarantees women the right to vote in the United States, the title role of Lady M in an online fantasia of Verdi’s Macbeth with Heartbeat Opera, and her first appearance on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera covering First Lady in The Magic Flute. Symphonic performances included Verdi Requiem with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and an Opera Gala with the Bergen Philharmonic. She was engaged for performances in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos with Arizona Opera and for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the San Diego Symphony.

Felicia Moore sang Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni for Palm Beach Opera, Heartbeat Opera, and with Chamber Music Northwest and she made her debut with Donato Cabrera and the Las Vegas Philharmonic in performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Past performances include Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at Opera Columbus and the title role of Janáček’s Katya Kabanova conducted by Anne Manson in a new production by Stephen Wadsworth at Juilliard.

Accomplishments during her tenure at Juilliard include Copland’s Twelve Emily Dickinson Songs with pianist Brian Zeger at Juilliard’s Songfest, a solo debut at Alice Tully Hall as winner of Juilliard’s Vocal Arts Honors Recital presenting a program of Sibelius, Wagner and Copland with pianist Chris Reynolds, and with the Juilliard Orchestra workshop selections from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with Alan Gilbert, Mozart’s Ch’io mi scordi di te? …Non temer, amato bene, K. 505 conducted by Gary Thor Wedow, and Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido, Op. 65 led by Speranza Scappucci.

Ms. Moore’s training has included resident artist apprenticeships at San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, Des Moines Metro Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Portland Opera, and the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Institute.  In Europe she has participated in the Aix-en-Provence Festival’s Mozart Académie and in the International Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, Germany under the tutelage of Edith Wiens.

Success in international vocal competition is demonstrated and supported by achievements in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Sullivan Foundation Competition, George London Foundation Competition, Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, Tenor Viñas International Singing Contest, Opera Index, and Fort Worth Opera’s McCammon Voice Competition.  Felicia Moore was awarded the Birgit Nilsson Prize at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia in 2019, the Prix des Amis du Festival by the Aix-en-Provence Festival, First Prize from the James Toland Vocal Arts Competition and the Jensen Foundation, Second Prize at the National Opera Association Competition, the Florence and Paul DeRosa Prize from The Juilliard School, and grants from The Gerda Lissner Foundation, the Richard F. Gold Foundation, and the Wagner Society of New York.

Felicia Moore was awarded a 2018-19 Fellowship by Turn The Spotlight, a foundation created to identify, nurture, and empower leaders – and in turn, to illuminate the path to a more equitable future in the arts through mentorship by and for exceptional women, people of color, and other equity-seeking groups in the arts. She is a proud alumna of The Juilliard School, Mannes School of Music, and Westminster Choir College.

Possessing a voice of uncommon allure, the Grammy® Award-winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor has emerged as one of the most compelling performers of her generation.  She is internationally acclaimed equally in the pillars of the classical music canon – from Beethoven and Mahler to Brahms and Ravel –as she is in new works of modern masters – from Adams and Dessner to Lieberson and Talbot.

Kelley O’Connor joins Alan Gilbert for his inaugural performances as Chief Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester in Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony.  Other highlights of the artist’s impressive 2019-20 season include Mahler’s Second Symphony with the Saint Louis Symphony and Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with the Philadelphia Orchestra, both under the baton of Stéphane Denève, Adams’ El Niño with David Robertson leading the Houston Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Elijah with Jun Märkl and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Krzysztof Urbański, both with the Indianapolis Symphony, and Korngold’s Abschiedslieder with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.  Mahler’s Eighth Symphony brings Kelley O’Connor together with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony and with the San Francisco Symphony for Michael Tilson Thomas’ final concerts as Music Director.

John Adams wrote the title role of The Gospel According to the Other Mary for Kelley O’Connor and she has performed the work, both in concert and in the Peter Sellars fully staged production, under the batons of John Adams, Gustavo Dudamel, Grant Gershon, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Simon Rattle, and David Robertson.  She has sung the composer’s El Niño with Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra and continues to be the eminent living interpreter of Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs having given this moving set of songs with Christoph Eschenbach and the National Symphony Orchestra, with Bernard Haitink and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, with Robert Spano and the Minnesota Orchestra, and with David Zinman and the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich among many others.

Recent performances include Mahler’s Second Symphony with Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Houston Symphony, the Third Symphony with Donald Runnicles and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra, and with Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Eighth Symphony with Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Des knaben Wunderhorn with Krzysztof Urbański and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Das Lied von der Erde with Louis Langrée and the Detroit Symphony and with Donald Runnicles and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Dallas Symphony.  She has sung Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with Matthias Pintscher and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Bernstein’s Songfest for her Boston Symphony Orchestra debut under the baton of Bramwell Tovey, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony and Ninth Symphony with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and has bowed in performances of Ravel’s Shéhérazade with Gemma New and the San Francisco Symphony as well as with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Berio’s Folk Songs with Daniel Harding and the London Symphony Orchestra, and as Erda in Wagner’s Das Rheingold with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert.

Sought after by many of the most heralded composers of the modern day, Kelley O’Connor has given the world premieres of Joby Talbot’s A Sheen of Dew on Flowers with the Britten Sinfonia at the Victoria & Albert Museum to celebrate the opening of the institution’s new jewellery wing, and Bryce Dessner’s Voy a Dormir with Robert Spano leading the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall with further performances accompanied by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra led by Jaime Martín.

Operatic highlights include the title role of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia presented by Boston Lyric Opera in a new production by Broadway theater director Sarna Lapine conducted by David Angus, Carmen with Los Angeles Opera conducted by James Conlon, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena at the Lyric Opera of Chicago conducted by Patrick Summers and directed by Kevin Newbury, Madama Butterfly in a new production by Lillian Groag at the Boston Lyric Opera and at the Cincinnati Opera under the baton of Ramón Tebar, Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict at Opera Boston, Falstaff with the Santa Fe Opera, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Canadian Opera Company.

Her vivid recital career includes performances in Boston with Thomas Adès in a program of Brahms, Purcell, and Stravinsky, in Chicago offering works of Debussy, Massenet, and Chausson, in Cincinnati with pianist Louis Langrée in programs of Brahms and Ravel, and in Jackson Hole with the music of Brahms and Bernstein in a collaboration with Donald Runnicles.

Miss O’Connor has appeared numerous times with Gustavo Dudamel, including in performances of Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony on an international tour with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony with the Simón Bolívar Orchestra.  She enjoys a rich musical collaboration with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra with whom she has sung Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mass in C, Bernstein’s “Jeremiah” Symphony, staged performances of Falstaff both in Cleveland and at the Lucerne Festival, and Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles.

Kelley O’Connor has received unanimous international, critical acclaim for her numerous performances as Federico García Lorca in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar.  Miss O’Connor created the role for the world premiere at Tanglewood, under the baton of Robert Spano, and subsequently joined Miguel Harth-Bedoya for performances of Golijov’s piece with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.  She reprised her “musically seductive, palpably charismatic” (Washington Post) portrayal of Lorca in the world-premiere of the revised edition of Ainadamar at the Santa Fe Opera in a new staging by Peter Sellars, which was also presented at Lincoln Center and the Teatro Real.

For her debut with the Atlanta Symphony in Ainadamar, Kelley O’Connor joined Robert Spano for performances and a Grammy® Award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording.  Her discography also includes Mahler’s Third Symphony with Jaap van Zweden and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Lieberson’s Neruda Songs and Michael Kurth’s Everything Lasts Forever with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony, Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra.

For Further Information Please Contact Étude Arts

August 2019

Described by the Boston Globe as “one of the world’s most remarkable singers,” American tenor Nicholas Phan is increasingly recognized as an artist of distinction. An artist with an incredibly diverse repertoire that spans nearly 500 years of music, he performs regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies. Phan is also an avid recitalist and a passionate advocate for art song and vocal chamber music; in 2010, Phan co-founded Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago, an organization devoted to promoting this underserved repertoire.

Phan launches the 20 / 21 season in Chicago, curating and performing in CAIC’s ninth annual Collaborative Works Festival. This year’s festival, “The Women,” commemorates the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which granted women the right to vote. With many live performances canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, Phan will be participating in online initiatives throughout the fall season, including virtual appearances with Houston Grand Opera, Philharmonia Baroque and the California Symphony. He remains active at his blog, Grecchinois, where he writes on a variety of topics underlining classical music’s relevance to the world of today.

Phan’s most recent album, Clairières, a recording of songs by Lili and Nadia Boulanger, was released in January 2020 to international critical acclaim. His album, Gods and Monsters, was nominated for the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album. His other previous solo albums Illuminations, A Painted Tale, Still Fall the Rain, and Winter Words made many “best of” lists, including those of the New York Times, New Yorker, Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. Phan’s growing discography also includes a Grammy-nominated recording of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony, in addition to albums with the San Francisco Symphony, Bach Collegium Japan, Philharmonia Baroque, Apollo’s Fire, as well as the world premiere recording Elliott Carter’s A Sunbeam’s Architecture.

Sought after as a curator and programmer, in addition to his work as artistic director of CAIC, Phan has also created programs for broadcast on WFMT and WQXR, and served as guest curator for projects with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Laguna Beach Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire, and San Francisco Performances, where he served as the vocal artist-in-residence from 2014-2018. Praised by the Chicago Classical Review as “the kind of thoughtful, intelligent programming that should be a model,” Phan’s programs often examine themes of identity, highlight unfairly underrepresented voices from history, and strive to underline the relevance of music from all periods to the currents of the present day.

Kevin Deas has gained international renown as one of America’s leading bass-baritones. He is perhaps most acclaimed for his signature portrayal of the title role in Porgy and Bess, having performed it with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, as well as the most illustrious orchestras on the North American continent, and at the Ravinia, Vail, and Saratoga festivals.

Kevin Deas’ exciting 2019-20 season includes performances of Mozart’s Requiem with the Eugene Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Orchestra Iowa, and National Philharmonic & Chorale, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the Florida Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with the National Cathedral, Saint-Saens’ Henry VII with Odyssey Opera of Boston, Verdi’s Requiem with the Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria and Rhode Island Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Pacific Symphony and Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Pacific Symphony, William Walton’s Façade at the Virginia Arts Festival, Bernstein’s Songfest and the premiere of Daniel Kidane’s Dream Song with the Seattle Symphony, selections from Gershwin with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, selections from musicals Les Miserables, Show Boat, and Ragtime with Providence Singers, in “The Spiritual in White America,” a presentation of black spirituals transformed for the white concert stage by Harry Burleigh and Nathaniel Dett, at the Phillips Collection, and a Christmas concert with the Portland Symphony.

2018-19 season highlights include performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Orquesta Sinfonica de Mineria and the Buffalo Philharmonic, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, Porgy and Bess with the Florida Orchestra, performances of Handel’s Messiah with the National Cathedral and Virginia Symphony, Bach’s St. John Passion with the Louisiana Philharmonic, Joe Horowitz’s “Dvorak in America” project with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, and Verdi’s Requiem with the National Philharmonic. Kevin Deas has also performed as a soloist in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with VoxAmaDeus, in Mozart’s Requiem with Boston Baroque, Handel’s Messiah at the National Cathedral, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church (NYC). He also sang the title role in Porgy and Bess with Duisberg Phiharmoniker; in Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture with the Reading Symphony Orchestra, and in a tour of Asia with the Pacific Symphony; sings in Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with the Seattle Symphony; and is soloist with the Delaware and El Paso symphony orchestras, and with the PostClassical Ensemble, with which he was Artist in Residence.

Other recent successes include Messiah with the Houston Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, and National Cathedral; Vaughn Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem with the Richmond Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem with the Virginia Symphony, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria with the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with the Jacksonville Symphony, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with Baltimore Choral Arts Society, Mozart’s Requiem with VoxAmaDeus, “The Trumpet Shall Sound” with the PostClassical Ensemble, and Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with JoAnn Falletta at SUNY Potsdam.

He has performed Verdi’s Requiem with the Richmond and Winnipeg symphonies and the National Philharmonic,; Messiah with Boston Baroque, the Cleveland Orchestra, Seattle and Kansas City symphonies, the National Philharmonic, and at the Warsaw Easter Festival; Mozart’s Requiem with the Alabama and Vermont symphonies; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Oratorio Society of New York; St. John Passion with the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico; Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges with the New York Philharmonic; and Copland’s Old American Songs with the Chicago and Columbus symphonies.

A strong proponent of contemporary music, Kevin Deas was heard at Italy’s Spoleto Festival in a new production of Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors in honor of the composer’s eighty-fifth birthday, recorded on video for international release. He also performed the world premieres of Derek Bermel’s The Good Life with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Hannibal Lokumbe’s Dear Mrs. Parks with the Detroit Symphony. His twenty-year collaboration with the late jazz legend Dave Brubeck has taken him to Salzburg, Vienna and Moscow in performances of To Hope! He performed Brubeck’s Gates of Justice in a gala performance in New York.

Kevin Deas recorded Wagner’s Die Meistersinger (Decca/London) with the Chicago Symphony under the late Sir Georg Solti, and Varèse’s Ecuatorial with the ASKO Ensemble under the baton of Riccardo Chailly. Other releases include Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Vox Classics); Dave Brubeck’s To Hope! with the Cathedral Choral Society (Telarc); and Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with the Virginia Symphony and Boston Baroque (Linn Records). Dvorák in America (Naxos), features Mr. Deas in the world premiere recording of Dvorák’s “Hiawatha Melodrama” and the composer’s own arrangement of “Goin’ Home” with the PostClassical Ensemble.