Four barihunks in Glyndebourne Cup semi-finals

The 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup, an international competition for opera singers, will include four barihunks among its 19 semi-finalists. They are Americans Timothy Murray and Edward Nelson, German-American Gabriel Rollinson and Britain's Dominic Sedgwick. They will be joined by sopranos Alexandra Lowe, Maria Chabounia, Federica Di Trapani, Jessica Harper, Maya Kherani, Miriam Luisa Kutrowatz, Lauren Margison, Johanna Wallroth, Meigui Zhang; mezzo-sopranos Olga Syniakova, Valerie Eickhoff and Evgeniia Asanova; and, tenors  Eric Ferring, Sungho Kim and John Matthew Myers.

The competition was founded to discover and spotlight the best young singers from around the world. Thirteen nationalities are represented among the semi-finalists, who have a variety of backgrounds and interests.

The competition offers a top prize of £15,000 and a guaranteed role at a leading international opera house. The competition awards prizes for the top three singers, as well as a media prize (chosen by arts journalists), a most promising singer prize and an audience favorite prize.  

The semi-finals will be on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 11:00 AM with the finals on March 7, at 4:30 PM. Tickets are available online.

The final will once again be broadcast live on Sky Arts.

The competition was founded in 2018 with the stunning American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey winning the top prize, as well as the media prize. All six prizes in the inaugural competition were awarded to female singers.

Barihunk trio reaches Grange Festival's new vocal competition

Božidar Smiljanić, Dominic Sedgwick and Nick Mogg

Barihunks Božidar Smiljanić, Dominic Sedgwick and Nick Mogg are amongst the 12 semi-finalists for the recently launched Grange Festival International Singing Competition.

Formerly the Hampshire National Singing Competition, which was last held in 2013, the competition offers singers aged 33 or under the chance to win cash prizes and a role in a future production by the Grange Festival.

The first prize winner will receive £7,500, while the second and third prizes are worth £5,000 and £2,500. All other finalists will win £1,000, and the winners of the Song Prize and the Audience Prize will receive £2,500 and £2,000 respectively.

 

Participants will give public performances, culminating in a performance with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and will have the chance to draw on the experience of members of the jury through seminars and masterclasses throughout the competition.

The jury will include Dame Felicity Palmer, patron of the competition; director John Copley; accompanist and coach Roger Vignoles; Jonathan Groves, managing director of Groves Artists; Heather Duncan, head of concerts and programming at Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra; and Scott Cooper, director of artistic administration at the Grange Festival. It will be chaired by the Grange Festival’s artistic director, Michael Chance.