Nicholas Pallesen to make NY recital debut

Nicholas Pallesen, winner of the 2013 George London Award, will be making his New York recital debut on Sunday, January 11, 2015 at the Morgan Library & Museum. He'll share the stage with soprano Angela Meade, who won the award in 2008.

Joined by accompanist Craig Rutenberg, Pallesen will perform Poulenc's Chansons villageoises, "Ha, welche Lust aus schönen Augen" from Marschner's Der Vampyr, and songs by Charles Ives. Pallesen performed the entire Der Vampyr with the Der Vampyr with the New Orleans Opera in 2013. He will join Meade for the duet "Tu pur lo sai" from Verdi's early opera I Due Foscari.

The George London Foundation Recital Series, which is in its 19th year, presents pairs of outstanding opera singers, many of whom were winners of a George London prize.

This year's competition will be held on Friday, February 27, 2015, at 4:00 PM. Last year's winners included three singers familiar to our readers, Norman Garrett, Cameron McPhail and Ryan Speedo Green.

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Ryan McKinny making his New York recital debut

Ryan McKinny

Bass-Barihunk Ryan McKinny will join soprano Amanda Majeski in kicking off the 2014-15 season of the George London Foundation for Singers with a joint recital at Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. The recital will be McKinny's New York recital debut. The two singers are both past winners of the George London Award.

McKinny will sing three selections from Schubert's Schwanengesang, Die Frist ist um from Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, and Se vuol ballare from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Together they will perform If I Loved You from the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel.

The performance is on Sunday, November 9, 2014, at 4:30 PM, with pianist Ken Noda. Additional information is available online.

Baritones win two top awards at George London competition & three encouragement awards

Steven LaBrie and John Brancy

The 42nd annual George London Foundation Awards Competition was held Friday night and baritones took two of the top prized and three of the encouragement awards. Nicholas Pallesen and Jamez McCorkle both were awarded the top prize which comes with a $10,000 financial gift. Encouragement awards went to John Brancy, who received the Theodor Uppman memorial award; Steven LaBrie won the Herbert J. Frank memorial award; and, a final baritone winner was Jonathan Michie. Aubrey Allicock, who has been featured on this site along with Pallesen, Brancy and LaBrie, was awarded an Honorable Mention.

The competition took place in a front of a capacity audience at Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. A total of $82,000 was given in awards. After three days of preliminary auditions during which ninety singers were heard, 24 were selected as finalists. Of these, seven were selected as winners of George London Awards of $10,000 each and seven were given George London Foundation Encouragement Awards of $1,000 each. The remaining 10 finalists received $500 Honorable Mention awards.

Theodor Uppman as Billy Budd in 1951

Other winners of the $10,000 top prize included tenor Dominic Armstrong, tenor Noah Baetge, soprano Felicia Moore, soprano Jessica Muirhead, and  Additional $1,000 encouragement awards went to tenor Adam Bonanni, mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb, soprano Marina Costa - Jackson, and mezzo-soprano Shirin Eskandani.

This year’s panel of judges included soprano Harolyn Blackwell, mezzo-soprano Nedda Casei, opera stage director Bruce Donnell, former Metropolitan Opera administrator Alfred F. Hubay, George London Foundation President Nora London, former Metropolitan Opera leading tenor and current voice professor George Shirley, and performing arts consultant Thurmond Smithgall.

Since 1971, the annual competition of The George London Foundation for Singers has been giving its George London Awards, and a total of more than $2 million, to an outstanding roster of young American and Canadian opera singers who have gone on to international stardom – the list of past winners includes Christine Brewer, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Catherine Malfitano, James Morris, Matthew Polenzani, Sondra Radvanovsky, Neil Shicoff, and Dawn Upshaw.

Edward Parks singing, "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen"

Edward Parks III

 Here is recent George London Award Competition winner Edward Parks singing, "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" by Gustav Mahler.



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