Marilyn Horne To Lead THE SONG CONTINUES, Master Classes And Recitals At Carnegie Hall, 1/16-21

From January 16-21, 2017, Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute (WMI) presents The Song Continues, an annual series led by revered mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne that explores song repertoire through master classes and concerts with the goal of encouraging, supporting, and preserving the art of the vocal recital. This year's series culminates in the Marilyn Horne Song Celebration, a recital featuring special guests, tenor Javier Camarena and pianist Gerald Martin Moore, on Saturday, January 21 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall. This concert also includes performances by soprano Michelle Bradley, mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges, tenor Mario Chang, baritone Eugene Villanueva, and pianists Warren Jones, Ken Noda, and Valeriya Polunina. Complete program information is listed below.

Ms. Horne kicks off the first of three public master classes in the Resnick Education Wing on Wednesday, January 18 at 7:30 p.m., as she coaches a group of young professional singers. The following evening, on Thursday, January 19 at 7:30 p.m., collaborative pianist Margo Garrett leads a master class, and soprano Dame Felicity Lott leads the final master class of the series on Friday, January 20 at 7:30 p.m. Participants include twelve young vocalists and four pianists selected through a rigorous application process. They are given the opportunity to perform in the three master classes as well as receive private coaching by pianists Ken Noda and Warren Jones, and are invited guests for the full week of song programs.

In addition to the master classes, a spotlight recital will be held on Tuesday, January 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Weill Recital Hall featuring two emerging young singers chosen by Ms. Horne: mezzo-soprano Beste Kalender and baritone Benjamin Dickerson, performing with pianist Warren Jones in a program of songs by Brahms, Bizet, Fauré, and more.

The Song Continues became a program of Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute (WMI) in June 2010 and is now part of WMI's Workshops and Master Classes series. Previously, this annual event was presented by The Marilyn Horne Foundation in partnership with Carnegie Hall. Ms. Horne continues to be actively involved, serving as Artistic Advisor for the series.

The Song Continues is one of several ways that Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute supports the development of young singers this season. Others include Count Me In, an after-school initiative for New York City middle school singers; three public master classes for young professional singers led by renowned mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, which were streamed live online from Carnegie Hall's Resnick Education Wing on October 29-31; and a workshop led by Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars from February 3-8 that will draw upon the signature polychoral repertoire written for St. Mark's Basilica as part of Carnegie Hall's La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic festival. Additionally, resources for professional singers, teachers, and students are available in WMI's Digital Library and through the Singer's Audition Handbook, an in-depth resource from Carnegie Hall's Musical Exchange website.

About the Workshop Leaders
Mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne continues to be one of America's most beloved artists. Ms. Horne has received numerous accolades and honors in the arts as well as academia. In 2009, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was honored in Washington DC as the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors Award. President Clinton named her a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1995. In 1992, she received the National Medal of Arts from President Bush and the Endowment for the Arts. Ms. Horne sang at the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton White Houses and at President Clinton's inauguration in 1993. Dedicated to mentoring young singers, Ms. Horne holds residencies at the University of Oklahoma and Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. She has also given master classes at the University of Maryland, the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University, St. Joseph's College, and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As vocal program director at Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, she teaches public master classes and private lessons to some of the world's most promising young artists.

Margo Garrett has enjoyed a long and respected performing career as a collaborative pianist and has enjoyed lengthy performing relationships with many noted American recitalists, including sopranos Kathleen Battle, Barbara Bonney, Elizabeth Futral, the late Judith Raskin, Lucy Shelton, Dawn Upshaw, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey and a large number of leading instrumentalists and chamber music groups. Ms. Garrett has premiered over 35 works. Her recordings can be found on Albany, CRI, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon (1992 Grammy for Best Vocal Recital), Dorian, Musical Heritage Society, Nonesuch, Orion and Sony Classical.

Equally a noted teacher of collaborative pianists and singers, Ms. Garrett has created and headed collaborative piano departments at New England Conservatory and the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where she held the first privately endowed chair of collaborative piano study in the US. From 1985 until 1991, she headed the Collaborative Piano Department at The Juilliard School and returned in 2000, after her years in Minnesota, to The Juilliard School where she remains. Ms. Garrett directed the Tanglewood Music Center vocal fellowship program for the last 6 of her 19 years of teaching there (1979-1997), was awarded the 1989 American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) Most Creative Programming Award, and from 1999 through 2006 was Faculty Chair of The Steans Institute for Young Artist's vocal programs at Chicago Symphony's Ravinia Festival. Recent seasons have found Ms. Garrett in residence at Munich's Hochschule für Musik and at the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie (IMA), Los Angeles's "SongFest," Souchow University in Souzhou, China, Taiwan Normal Teacher's University, Music Academy of the West, Eastman School of Music, Universities of Texas at Austin and Michigan in Ann Arbor, as a judge at the 15th International Schumann Vocal Competition and a return to the vocal faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center. Ms. Garrett is newly the first manager and author of the "Collab Corner," a regular column in the National Association of Singing's Journal of Singing. Her latest recording, Colors of Feelings, with sopranos Susanna Phillips, Elizabeth Futral and narrator Michael York, is a Delos world premiere recording of songs of Philip Lasser.

Dame Felicity Lott is one of Britain's best-loved sopranos. Her operatic repertoire ranges from Handel to Stravinsky, but she has above all built up her formidable international reputation as an interpreter of the great roles of Mozart and Strauss. Her concert engagements have taken her to major orchestras, working with Rattle, Haitink, Mehta, Previn, Masur, Welser-Möst, Solti, Armin Jordan, Philippe Jordan, and Sir Andrew Davis. Much of her concert and recital repertoire is recorded, as are many of her great operatic roles: from Marschallin in Strauss's Der Rosenkvalier under Carlos Kleiber to the title role in Offenbach's La belle Hélène, which she sang for the first time at the Chatelet in Paris in 2000. She recently sang Poulenc's heroine in staged performances of La voix humaine at the Teatro de La Zarzuela, Madrid, the Maison de la Culture de Grenoble and the Opera National de Lyon. A founding member of The Songmakers' Almanac, Felicity has appeared on the major recital platforms of the world. She has a particularly close association with Wigmore Hall, and received the Wigmore Hall Medal in February 2010 for her exceptional contribution to the hall.

Her many awards include honorary doctorates at the Universities of Oxford, Loughborough, Leicester, London and Sussex and the Royal Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. She was made a CBE in the 1990 New Year Honours and in 1996 was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire. In February 2003 she was awarded the title of Bayerische Kammersängerin. She has also been awarded the titles Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier de l'Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur by the French Government. Most recently, she has been honoured with the 2015 Incorporated Society of Musicians Distinguished Musician Award and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 International Classical Music Awards.

About Workshops and Master Classes
Artists on the rise are given valuable access to world-class performers and composers who have established themselves on the Carnegie Hall stages. Participants are selected after responding to an open call for auditions. These up-and coming musicians (ages 18-35) receive coaching and mentoring that assists them in reaching their artistic and professional goals. Upcoming master classes and workshops include a workshop led by Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars from February 3-8 as part of Carnegie Hall's La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic festival; and a workshop from February 18-22 delving into the late solo works of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schubert led by pianist Jonathan Biss. The workshops are tuition-free for participants. Additional information and online applications are available at carnegiehall.org/workshops.

(Photo Credit: Carnegie Hall Facebook)