 | This biographical article is written like a résumé .(June 2022) |
Karol Bennett | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Lieder Chanson Oratorio Contemporary |
| Instruments | Singing |
| Spouse(s) | Anthony Brandt (1991-present) |
Karol Bennett is an American soprano known for her performances of lieder, chanson, and oratorio and her championing of music by living composers. [1]
Bennett is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where she studied with Martha Longmire, and Yale University, where she was a student of Phyllis Curtin. Bennett also studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum with Crista Ludwig and spent two summers at the Tanglewood Music Festival. [2] [3]
In 1993, Bennett became the first classical singer awarded a fellowship at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. [4] Her class of fellows included novelist Ann Patchett, who later credited Bennett as the inspiration for the heroine Roxane Coss of her novel Bel Canto. [5]
Bennett has appeared as soloist with the Houston Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Kracovia, Ekaterineburg Philharmonic, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, New York New Music Ensemble, Boston Masterworks Chorale, Boston Cecilia, Boston Classical Orchestra, Da Camera of Houston, Ars Lyrica of Houston, and the Borromeo, Cassatt, Chiara, Boston Composers, Da Ponte, Del Sol, Enso, Flux, Maia, and Mendelssohn String Quartets.
Bennett played the role of Mélisande in the Russian premiere of Claude Debussy’s “Pélleas et Mélisande,” conducted by Sarah Caldwell; [6] she also travelled with Caldwell to Russia several times for cultural exchange programs, performing the Russian premiere of Leonard Bernstein's “Kaddish” Symphony in Moscow. [7] Bennett has been a participant at the Bowdoin, Marlboro, [8] Round Top, San Luis Obispo International, and Northwest Bach Festivals, and Artist-in-Residence at MIT, the Universidad Verucruzana, and International Festival of Music in Morelia, Mexico.
Since meeting at Yale as graduate students, Bennett and pianist/composer John McDonald have had a long musical partnership, performing recitals throughout the world. The pair were selected as Artistic Ambassadors for the United States Information Agency, touring Mongolia, Korea, and Taiwan. [9] They were also awarded a Duo Recitalists Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, touring several West coast universities. Reviewing their 10th anniversary concert in 1991, Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer wrote that theirs is a “partnership that can stand comparison with the great ones of the past.” [10]
While in Boston, Bennett was a performer member of the new music ensemble Extension Works. She also performed frequently with other new music groups such as the Griffin Music Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Boston Musica Viva, Collage, ALEA III, NuClassix, Composers in Red Sneakers, the Harvard Group for New Music, and more.
After moving to Houston with her family, Bennett has been Resident Artist of the Houston-based contemporary ensemble Musiqa. In addition to extensive public performances, she has spearheaded Musiqa’s educational programs, giving free workshops and performances to over 60,000 students from over 200 Houston area public schools. In 2019, she was awarded the Pro Musicis Foundation’s Father Eugene Merlet Award for Community Service. [11]
Bennett has worked closely with Tod Machover and Earl Kim. Bennett’s pre-recorded voice is the basis of Machover’s "Flora." [12] [13] She also collaborated with Machover on his viola hyperstring concerto "Song of Penance" [14] and the "Brain Opera", which is on permanent exhibition in Vienna. [15] Writing of Bennett’s recording of Kim’s "Now and Then" and "Three Poems in French", New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini remarked on Bennett’s “sumptuous sound, wrenching poignancy, and faultless musicianship” [16] and selected the album for the “Best of Classical: 2001.” [17] Bennett premiered Kim’s “Dear Linda” with Boston Musica Viva conducted by Richard Pittman. With the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and conductor Scott Yoo, she gave the posthumous premiere of Kim’s “Illuminations” at Jordan Hall in Boston and the Library of Congress. [18]
Other notable premieres include Sebastian Currier’s "Deep-Sky Objects", Mark Kilstofte’s "The White Album", and Trevor Weston’s "Stars", all with Musiqa. Bennett has also been involved in works by Emil Awad, Robert Carl, Peter Child, Mark DeVoto, Robert Kyr, Lewis Spratlan, Augusta Read Thomas, and Andy Vores.
Bennett's contemporary repertoire includes music by Milton Babbitt, Alban Berg, Luciano Berio, Leonard Bernstein, John Cage, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Luigi Dallapiccola, Mario Davidovsky, Henri Dutilleux, Morton Feldman, Hans Werner Henze, Gyorgy Ligeti, Olivier Messiaen, Luigi Nono, Kaija Saariaho, Arnold Schoenberg, Joseph Schwantner, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Anton Webern. Bennett’s recordings also include music by Arthur Gottschalk, [19] John Harbison, [20] Jonathan Harvey, [21] and Arlene Zallmann [22] as well as Benjamin Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols” with Boston Cecilia and the Victoria Requiem with Church of the Advent. [23]
In 1994, Bennett was awarded the Pro Musicis International Prize, which pairs concerts in major venues with community service performances. [24] Bennett’s recitals at the Opéra Comique in Paris and a French women’s prison were televised. She also gave recitals in Rome, New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall, Los Angeles, Boston, and several other cities in France. [25]
Bennett received the UMKC Alumni Award in 1996. [3]
Bennett married composer and author Anthony Brandt in 1991. They have collaborated on numerous projects, most notably Brandt’s chamber operas “The Birth of Something” (2006), “Ulysses, Home” (2014) and oratorio “Maternity” (2012), all of which have been recorded. [26] [27] The couple have three children: Sonya, Gabriel, and Lucian.
Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) is an American opera company based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1976. BLO is the largest and longest-lived opera company in New England. BLO employs nearly 350 artists and creative professionals annually—vocalists, artisans, stagehands, costumers, and scenic designers—many of whom are members of the Boston community.
Anne Azéma is a French-born soprano, scholar, and stage director. She is currently artistic director of the Boston Camerata. She has been an important or leading singer of early music since 1993. She has created and directed programs for the Boston Camerata and is also noted as a music scholar. She is perhaps best known for performing music from the Middle Ages, lute songs from the Renaissance period, Baroque sacred music, Shaker song, and contemporary music theater. She is also a music educator and a researcher. She has performed in Japan, Germany, the US, Australia and elsewhere.
The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Tod Machover, is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist.
Amanda Forsythe is an American light lyric soprano who is particularly admired for her interpretations of baroque music and the works of Rossini. Forsythe has received continued critical acclaim from many publications including Opera News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe.
Vache Sharafyan, is an Armenian composer of symphonic works, chamber music, choral music and opera. His works include 2 acts opera King Abgar, ballet Second Moon, 2 acts ballet Ancient Gods, one act ballet “the bride of the desert”.
Earl Kim was an American composer, and music pedagogue. He was of Korean descent.
Judith Gordon is a concert pianist and educator.
Joyce DiDonato is an American opera singer and recitalist. A coloratura mezzo-soprano, she has performed operas and concert works spanning from the 19th-century Romantic era to those by Handel and Mozart.
Eric W. Sawyer is an American orchestral composer, pianist and professor of music at Amherst College. He has studied as an undergraduate at Harvard College, where he was selected as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He undertook graduate studies at both Columbia University and the University of California, Davis. Before taking up the position at Amherst, Sawyer spent four years as Chair of Composition and Theory at the Longy School of Music.
Marc Ponthus pioneered the monographic solo piano recital of leading avant-garde composers from the second half of the 20th century, devoting entire programs to Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis and others. He has performed extensively in North America and abroad in London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing and featured in many contemporary music festivals. Ponthus has recorded for Neuma Records, Lorelt Records and Bridge Records. His recording of the complete piano music of Pierre Boulez released in 2016 was chosen Editor's Choice by Gramophone Magazine. Ponthus has conducted the LowerEastsideEnsemble, the IFCP Ensemble and the Project Webern Orchestra in addition to staging and directing contemporary chamber operas. Ponthus is the founder and director of the Institute and Festival for Contemporary Performance in New York.
Laura Elise Schwendinger was the first composer to win the American Academy in Berlin's Berlin Prize.
The Borromeo String Quartet is an American string quartet, in residence at the New England Conservatory since 1992. They have performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia, at numerous festivals and in many distinguished chamber music series. They are named after the Borromean Islands.
Kati Ilona Agócs is a Canadian-American composer and a member of the composition faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
Fantastic Mr. Fox is an opera in three acts composed by Tobias Picker to a libretto by Donald Sturrock based on Roald Dahl's children's novel of the same name. It was premiered by Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on December 9, 1998.
Gil Rose is the founder and conductor of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), founder and General-Artistic Director of Odyssey Opera, Artistic Director of Monadnock Music Festival, Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, and Executive Producer of the record label "BMOP/sound."
James Maddalena is an American baritone who is chiefly associated with contemporary American opera. He gained international recognition in 1987 when he originated the role of Richard Nixon at the premiere of John Adams's opera Nixon in China at Houston. He has since reprised the role on many occasions, and recorded it for the Nonesuch Records release of the opera in 1987. In addition to Maddelena's role as Nixon, he has originated two other Adams characters: the Captain in The Death of Klinghoffer and Jack Hubbard in Doctor Atomic. He has also performed roles in the premieres of operas by Paul Moravec and Stewart Wallace among other American composers.
Janna Baty is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She is best known for her singing in contemporary music and operas. Baty is also a professor at the Yale School of Music where she directs the student opera.
Anthony K. Brandt is an American composer, academic, and writer. He is Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music and the co-author with neuroscientist David Eagleman of the 2017 book The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World. As a composer, his works include three chamber operas, an oratorio, and orchestral, chamber, and vocal music.
Scott Yoo is an American conductor and violinist. He was appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016. He hosts the PBS TV series Now Hear This.