Milagro Vargas (born June 11, 1955) is an American mezzo-soprano known for her distinctive voice and stage presence. She has appeared as an international soloist in operatic, orchestral, chamber music and recital settings.
Milagro Vargas (born June 11, 1955) is an American mezzo-soprano known for her distinctive voice and stage presence. She has appeared as an international soloist in operatic, orchestral, chamber music and recital settings.
Milagro Vargas was born in New York, the daughter of immigrants from Central America. She had early vocal training on scholarship at the Third Street Music Settlement with Beatrice Rippy and Lucy Shelton. She studied with Helen Hodam at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, receiving a Bachelor of Music in 1977, and with Jan DeGaetani at the Eastman School of Music, receiving a Master of Music in 1981. [1] She had additional vocal training with Paul Sperry, Benita Valente and Anna Renyolds.
Vargas first met DeGaetani when she won a full scholarship to the Aspen Music Festival in 1973, and returned to the festival with opera fellowships in 1980-81. She was also a Marlboro Music Festival Fellow in 1982 and 1984.
DeGaetani would become a major influence on Vargas's singing and approach to music, leading to praise from critics for her vivid but natural performances in traditional styles, and bringing that vocalism to contemporary works.
Vargas was a soloist at the Stuttgart Opera from 1984 to 1992, and worked with conductors including Dennis Russell Davies and Bernhardt Kontarsky, and with stage directors including Götz Friedrich, Achim Freyer and Harry Kupfer. [2] [3] Among her many roles at Stuttgart were Nefertiti in the world premiere and recording of Akhnaten by Philip Glass, Cherubino in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro , Meg in Verdi's Falstaff , Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, Nancy in Britten's Albert Herring , Tisbe in Rossini's ’La Cenerentola , and Stimme des Waldes in Henze's König Hirsch . [4] She sang Charlotte in Zimmermann's Die Soldaten , and on the recording which won the Internationalen Schallplattenpreis in 1992. [5] Kupfer brought her to the Komische Oper Berlin to sing Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte . Other opera engagements include appearances at the Opera de Paris Bastille, Kirov Opera, Bolshoi Opera and the Heidelberg Schlossfestspiele .
Vargas has appeared as a soloist with many orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Houston Symphony and the Orchestra of St. Luke's. [6] Her performances with conductor Helmuth Rilling include Bach's Mass in B Minor, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis , and the Grammy Award winning recording Penderecki's Credo. [7] [8] [9]
As a recitalist and chamber music vocalist Vargas has appeared with such artists as Gilbert Kalish, Walter Trampler, Eliot Fisk, Sharon Isbin, David Shifrin, David Finkle, and Wu Han. [10] [11]
Vargas resides with her husband Tom Manoff in Eugene, Oregon, she was a professor of voice at the University of Oregon. Among her various interests, she works for pro-diversity issues at the university and in the community.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
Philip Glass is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically.
Akhnaten is an opera in three acts based on the life and religious convictions of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, written by the American composer Philip Glass in 1983. The libretto is by Philip Glass in association with Shalom Goldman, Robert Israel, Richard Riddell and Jerome Robbins. According to the composer, this work is the culmination of his two other biographical operas, Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha. These three people – Akhenaten, Einstein and Gandhi – were all driven by an inner vision which altered the age in which they lived, in particular Akhenaten in religion, Einstein in science, and Gandhi in politics.
The English mezzo-soprano Carolyn Watkinson is a well-known singer of baroque music. Her voice is alternately characterized as mezzo-soprano and contralto.
John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.
Jan (Janice) DeGaetani was an American mezzo-soprano known for her performances of contemporary classical vocal compositions.
Peter Ruzicka is a German composer and conductor of classical music. He was director of the Hamburg State Opera, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Hamburg and the Salzburg Festival. Ruzicka was managing director and Intendant of the Salzburg Easter Festival and is professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. The list of his compositions includes numerous orchestral and chamber music works as well as the opera "Celan", about the poet Paul Celan, which was premiered in Dresden in 2001. His opera "Hölderlin" had its premiere at the Berlin State Opera in 2008. Ruzicka's third opera "Benjamin", about the philosopher Walter Benjamin, was written in 2015/16 for the Hamburg State Opera and premiered in 2018.
Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical music composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus. For his notable students, See: List of music students by teacher: R to S#Bernard Rands.
Dennis Russell Davies is an American conductor and pianist, He is currently the music director and chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic.
Judith Ingolfsson is a violinist.
Oregon Bach Festival (OBF) is an annual celebration of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and his musical legacy, held in Eugene, Oregon, United States, in late June and early July. The Executive Director is Janelle McCoy. The role of artistic director was previously held by German organist and conductor Helmuth Rilling.
James Yannatos was a composer, conductor, violinist and teacher. He was a senior lecturer at Harvard University until his retirement in 2009.
Jennifer Koh is an American violinist, born to Korean parents in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
John Kennedy is an American conductor and composer, presently serving as Resident Conductor and Director of Orchestral Activities of Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.
Ella Milch-Sheriff is an Israeli composer. Born in Haifa, Israel, Milch-Sheriff began her career as a composer at the age of 12. During her military service she composed, performed and interpreted her own songs after which she returned to classical music studying composition under the direction of Professor Tzvi Avni and graduating in composition from the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University.
Gächinger Kantorei is an internationally known German mixed choir, founded by Helmuth Rilling in 1954 in Gächingen and conducted by him until 2013, succeeded by Hans-Christoph Rademann.
Ilana Davidson is an American operatic soprano who has had an active international singing career in operas and concerts. She has sung on several recordings, including as a soloist on a recording of William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and of Experience with Leonard Slatkin and the University of Michigan chorus and orchestra which won four Grammy Awards including Best Classical Album in 2006. She is the co-artistic director of the Chamber music series ClassicalCafe. Early life and education
Karen Kamensek is an American orchestral and opera conductor.
Sybille Specht, also Sybille Philippin, is a German operatic mezzo-soprano. She was a member of the Theater Bremen and the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich and has appeared internationally. Since 2010 she has worked freelance, also as a choral conductor and voice teacher.
Credo is a large-scale sacred composition for soloists, children's choir, mixed choir and orchestra by Krzysztof Penderecki, completed in 1998. It was commissioned by Helmuth Rilling for the Oregon Bach Festival, where it was first performed on 11 July 1998. Penderecki expanded the liturgical text by hymns and Bible verses in Latin, Polish and German. A recording won the 2000 Grammy Award for best choral performance.
Katie Emily Bray is an English mezzo-soprano and is best known as the winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2019. She is particularly noted for her baroque repertoire.
