MasterVoices to Perform at Verbier Festival, 7/23-25

MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale) will make its eighth appearance at the Verbier Festival on July 23 and 25, 2016 in concerts conducted by Charles Dutoit and Gábor Takács-Nagy. MasterVoices cherishes a rich collaboration with the Verbier Festival since its first appearance there under James Levine in 2005, and is pleased to return and celebrate their shared vision for artistic excellence and inter-generational exchange through music.

"We are thrilled to welcome MasterVoices for the eighth time to the Verbier Festival," said Martin T:son Engstroem, Founder and Executive Director of the Festival. "Over the years our audiences have developed a close relationship with this accomplished choir, and they look forward to its magnificent performances. This year MasterVoices will perform in two very different programmes, alongside splendid soloists, and with our own symphony orchestra led by their Music Director Charles Dutoit, and our chamber orchestra led by their Music Director Gábor Takács-Nagy."

MasterVoices at the 2016 Verbier Festival:

July 23, 2016 - Gábor Takács-Nagy conducts the Verbier Festival Orchestra and MasterVoices in an evening dedicated to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The wunderkind Wolfgang demonstrated his precocious talent in his First Symphony, composed when he was only eight. Twenty-four years later he delivered his final symphony, and possibly his most famous - Symphony N°41, the "Jupiter", a fitting symphonic swansong. MasterVoices will join the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and its Music Director Gábor Takács-Nagy for a performance of Mozart's Great Mass in C minor, K. 427, featuring Soprano Emöke Baráth, Mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg, Tenor Bernard Richter, and Baritone Stefan Genz.

July 25, 2016 - Charles Dutoit conducts MasterVoices in a full-length performance of the French opera, Bizet's Carmen. The score, with its drama and power, features some of the most beautiful pages ever written for mezzo-soprano, while the opéra comique genre (which alternates between spoken and sung dialogues) calls for exceptional acting skill. Named the "Carmen of her generation" by the San Francisco Sentinel, American mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich has triumphed in the role around the world and will star in the leading role once again at the Verbier Festival. The July 25 performance will also feature Dmytro Popov, Laurent Naouri, Sylvia Schwartz, Julie Pasturaud, Florie Valiquette, François Piolino, Francis Dudziak, Jean-Luc Ballestra, David Shipley, and the children's chorus from Ecole de Chant Du Haut-Valais (Music Director, Hansruedi Kämpfen).

For more information or to buy tickets, visit https://www.verbierfestival.com/en/artiste/choeur-master-voices/.

MasterVoices' performances on July 23 and 25 will be available for livestream and on-demand viewing on medici.tv: http://www.medici.tv/#!/verbier-festival-on-medicitv.