Three of the most talented young baritones in opera have made it to the final round of the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition, which will be held on Thursday, September 7th. John Brancy, Josh Quinn, Julien van Mellaerts and compete alongside mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski, setting up a Battle of the Baritones (plus a low-voice female singer!).
You can watch the final round live online at the Wigmore/Kohn website at 6 PM GST/1 PM EST/10 AM PST.
You can watch the semi-final round HERE. Josh Quinn performed Schubert's Memnon, Poulenc 4 Poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire, Finnissy's Outside Fort Tregantle and Schubert's Der Zwerg. John Brancyperformed Schubert's Liebeslauschen and Erlkönig, Frank Bridge's Love went a-riding, Faure's Dans la nymphée and Wolseley Charles' The green-eyed dragon. Julien van Mellaerts performed Der Einsame and Wandrers Nachtlied II, Gurney's In Flanders, Butterworth's Is my team plouging? and Poulenc's Les gars qui vont a la fete.
Will Liverman, Josh Quinn, Nick Mogg, Peter Mazalán (top row) Ed Ballard, John Brancy, Lawrence Halksworth, and Peter Kellner (bottom row)
There will be no shortage of low male voice to root for in the upcoming 2017 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition, as half of the competitors are baritones or basses. The impressive group includes British baritone Ed Ballard, American baritone John Brancy, British baritone Lawrence Halksworth, British baritone Gareth Brynmor John, Icelandic baritone Oddur Jónsson, Slovakian bass Peter Kellner, American baritone Will Liverman, Slovakian baritone Peter Mazalán, British baritone Nicholas Mogg, American baritone Josh Quinn and New Zealand baritone Julien Van Mellaert.
We didn't see a single tenor amongst the competitors!
Ed Ballard sings Handel's 'Volate Più Dei Venti":
Baritones have historically fared well at the competition, with the amazing German baritone Dominik Köninger winning the top prize
in 2011, Gavan
Ring taking 2nd Prize in 2013 and the famous 2015 trifecta, when Swiss bass Milan Siljanov took 1st Prize, German baritone Samuel Hasselhorn took 2nd Prize, and British baritone James Newby took 3rd Prize. The Competition is held only in odd numbered years.
The Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition has been
around for fourteen years and attracts some of the top young vocal and piano
talent in the world. Singers compete in tandem with an accompanist.
This Competition recognizes the song tradition as a whole and requires
contestants to perform in at least three languages. At the same time it
honors the Lied’s place at the heart of the song repertoire and
celebrates the Shakespearean stature of Schubert in the genre.
First Prize will receive £10,000 and a Wigmore Hall recital offered at the discretion of the Director, Second Prize receives £5,000 and Thrid Prizze receives £2,500. The Richard Tauber Prize for the best interpretation of Schubert lieder receives £3,000 and the best pianist receives £5,000.
You can watch the semi-finals live on September 5th and the finals on September 7th.
Sean Michael Plumb, Josh Quinn, Anthony Schneider and Erik Larson.
What if you held a song competition and no one knew about it? That seems to be the case with this year's Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition. They held a competition last week and haven't posted the results, nor sent out a press release. We have an inquiry pending with them to find out the results and will update this post, as over $200,000 in prizes were handed out for lied, opera and a special Wagner division.
Fortunately, thanks to social media we've learned that barihunk Sean Michael Plumb won one of the top prizes, Josh Quinn took Third Prize and Anthony Schneider and Erik Larson both won Encouragement Awards.
Last year baritones won a number of prizes, including Reginald Smith Jr. who won the Gerda Lissner Foundation Top Prize and first prize honorees Michael Adams, Jared Bybee, Patrick Guetti, Sol Jin and John Viscardi.
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