John Brancy wins 5 AWARDS at Concours musical international de Montréal

John Brancy

American barihunk John Brancy may need a Brinks truck to haul all of his winnings back to the United States from Canada. He took home five prizes at the prestigious Concours musical international de Montréal, including the $30,000 Léopold Simoneau’ First Prize for Art Song (along with frequent collaborator Peter Dugan, the $50000 James Norcop Career Development Grant, the $2,500 Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity Prize, the $5,000 French Mélodie Award and $2,000 for being a finalist in the Aria Division.

John Brancy appears at the 1:33:00 mark in the French Mélodie competition:

Other winners included baritone Julien van Mellaerts for the German Lied Award, mezzo Rihab Chaieb and mezzo Emily D'Angelo for Best Canadian Artist, mezzo Clara Osowski and mezzo Emily D'Angelo for the Radio-Canada People's Choice Award, tenor Mario Bahg for the Aria Division, and tenor Andrew Haji for the Oratorio Award.

This summer, John Brancy will appear as the baritone soloist at the 2018 Carmel Bach Festival, performing Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. In the Fall, he will appear in the lead role of Pete in Olga Neuwirth's setting of David Lynch's movie "Lost Highway".

Three barihunks advance to semi-finals in Montreal Competition

Vasil Garvaliev backstage and onstage at the Montreal Competition (Photos: CBC Music)

Barihunks Byeong-Min Gil from South Korea, Takaoki Onishi from Japan and Vasil Garvanliev from Macedonia are among the 12 finalists in the Montreal International Musical Competition, which began on May 25. The competition started with 24 singers from nine countries and will be reduced to 6 after each of the singers performs a recital this weekend.

The singers are performing for $80,000 in prize money, including, $30,000 for 1st Prize, $15,000 for 2nd Prize, $10,000 for 3rd Prize, $5,000 for best French Art Song, $5,000 for best Canadian Artist, $5,000 for best artist from Quebec and a $5,000 People's Choice award.  The three top prize-winners will perform with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at a Gala concert on June 5.

Takaoki Onishi and Byeong-Min Gil at the Montreal Competition (Photos: CBC Music)

Byeong-Min Gil is currently studying with Attila Jun at the College of Music at Seoul National University. He took the top honors at the 2014 Busan Ilbo Voice Competition in and 3rd Prize at the Schubert Lied Competition.

Takaoki Onishi is currently completing his Graduate Diploma at Juilliard School. This season, he joins the Ryan Center of Lyric Opera of Chicago. He won the top prizes at the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation International Competition and the Opera Index Inc. Competition.

Vasil Garvanliev, who has appeared frequently on this site and in our calendar, is a graduate of the University of Toronto and the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music. He was a member of Calgary’s Opera Emerging Young Artist Program and a member of Opera Atelier, and took part in the Toronto Summer Music Festival & Academy. He was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions – Illinois District in 2014-15.

You can watch the competition online.  Gil and Onishi performed yesterday, but you can watch Garvanliev today at 7:30 EST/4:30 PST. The video will be available for three months.

Other semi-finalists include Claire De Sévigné, Yauci Yanes Ortega, Anaïs Constans, Keonwoo Kim, Owen McCsusland, Hyekyung Choi, Min Gue Cho, France Bellemare, Hyesang Park.

Listen to the "Three Barihunks" from Montreal; Barihunks Sly and Brancy take 1st & 3rd

Sidney Outlaw, Philippe Sly and John Brancy

As a follow up to our post on Sunday about the Concours vocal competition in Montreal, we'd like to let readers know that the performances by the three barihunks who advanced to the finals are now available online. In fact, Sidney Outlaw, Philippe Sly and John Brancy perform one after another, providing an amazing opportunity to compare these three amazing artists.

We admit to being biased towards lower voices, but these three men are truly some of the best opera singers emerging on the scene today. The depth of their artistry and the quality of their voices is remarkable, especially considering that the youngest, Phillippe Sly and John Brancy, are just 23!

The winners will be officially revealed on Friday, but we've heard that Sly took away the top prize, shortly after having won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. The three top singers will appear in the Winners’ Gala Concert this Friday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the Maison symphonique de Montréal. Under the direction of Alain Trudel, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will accompany the winners. Tickets are available at 514 842-2112. The winners are:

FIRST PRIZE – $30,000

PHILIPPE SLY, BASS-BARITONE, CANADA

Added to the First Prize is the Career development programme, valued at $20,000.

SECOND PRIZE – $15,000

OLGA KINDLER, SOPRANO, SWITZERLAND

THIRD PRIZE – $10,000

JOHN BRANCY, BARITONE, UNITED STATES

For the finals, John Brancy kicked it off with Wagner's "O su mein holder Abendstern" from Tannhäuser,  Tchaikovsky's "Postoite na odno mgnovenye!" from Pique Dame, Mendelssohn's "Es ist genug" from Elijah and Rossini's "Largo al factotum" from the Barber of Seville. Phillipe Sly then follows with Stravinsky's "Come, master" from the Rake's Progress, Handel's "Invida sorte avara" from Ariodante, Mozart's "Hai già vinta la causa!" from Marriage of Figaro and Bach's "Mache dich, mein Herze, rein" fo from the St. Matthew Passion. Sidney Outlaw finishes up this amazing run of baritone music with Mendelssohn's "Draw near ye people....Lord God of Abraham" from Eljah, Handel's "Sibilar gli angui d'Aletto" from Rinaldo, Korngold's Tanzlied from Die tote stadt and Verdi's "Death of Rodrigo" from Don Carlo.  

Click here to listen to the performance. The barihunk run starts at about the 27 minute mark and is worth the listen.

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