Susan Graham | |
|---|---|
 Graham in 2008 | |
| Born | July 23, 1960 |
| Education | Texas Tech University, Manhattan School of Music |
| Occupation | Opera singer |
Susan Graham (born July 23, 1960) is an American mezzo-soprano.
Susan Graham | |
|---|---|
| Graham in 2008 | |
| Born | July 23, 1960 |
| Education | Texas Tech University, Manhattan School of Music |
| Occupation | Opera singer |
Susan Graham (born July 23, 1960) is an American mezzo-soprano.
Susan Graham was born in Roswell, New Mexico on July 23, 1960. Raised in Midland, Texas, Graham is a graduate of Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music. Her teachers have included Cynthia Hoffmann and Marlena Malas. She studied the piano for 13 years. [1] She was a winner in the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions, and also a recipient of the Schwabacher Award from the Merola Program of San Francisco Opera.
Graham made her international début at Covent Garden in 1994, playing Massenet's Chérubin. [2] She has also premièred several roles in contemporary operas, including John Harbison's The Great Gatsby (Jordan Baker), Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking (Sister Helen Prejean), and Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy (Sondra Finchley). [3]
Graham is a noted champion of the French song repertoire [4] and of songs by contemporary American composers, including Ned Rorem and Lowell Liebermann. [5] She made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in April 2003, [6] and a recording of this recital was later released.
Graham sang "Bless This House" at George W. Bush's second inauguration on January 20, 2005, [2] and Schubert's "Ave Maria" at the nationally televised funeral mass for Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts on August 29, 2009. She is a US delegate for UNESCO. [7] [8]
Her operatic roles include:
Some of the recordings have also received awards. See below.
Charles Édouard Dutoit is a Swiss conductor. He is currently the principal guest conductor for the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia and co-director of the MISA Festival in Shanghai. In 2017, he became the 103rd recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal Award. Dutoit held previous positions with the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Tokyo NHK Symphony and the Orchestre National de France. As of 2017, he is conductor emeritus of the Verbier Music Festival Orchestra. He is an honorary member of the Ravel Foundation in France and the Stravinsky Foundation in Switzerland. In December 2017, following allegations of sexual assault, the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies cancelled his engagements. In a statement, Dutoit denied the charges.
Béatrice et Bénédict is an opéra comique in two acts by French composer Hector Berlioz. Berlioz wrote the French libretto himself, based in general outline on a subplot in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
Dame Janet Abbott Baker is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
Jessye Mae Norman was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but did not limit herself to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert and recital stages, Norman was associated with roles including Beethoven's Leonore, Wagner's Sieglinde and Kundry, Cassandre and Didon by Berlioz and Bartók's Judith. The New York Times music critic Edward Rothstein described her voice as a "grand mansion of sound", and wrote that "it has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward. It opens onto unexpected vistas. It contains sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls."
John Wilton Nelson is an American conductor. His parents were Protestant missionaries.
Jean Fournet was a French flautist and conductor.
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt is a French tenor, mostly as an opera singer. He was born on 30 August 1958 at Blanzy in the Burgundy region. He is best known for singing French Baroque music, especially the parts called in French haute-contre, written for a very high tenor voice with no falsetto singing.
Jean-François Lapointe is a Canadian baritone opera singer.
Sandrine Piau is a French soprano. She is particularly renowned in Baroque music although also excels in Romantic and modernist art songs. She has the versatility to perform works from Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart to Schumann, Debussy, and Poulenc. In addition to an active career in concerts and operas, she is prolific in studio recordings, primarily with Harmonia Mundi, Naïve, and Alpha since 2018.
D'Anna Fortunato is an American mezzo-soprano. She has long been an admired favorite on the American orchestral-concert scene, while establishing herself as a respected operatic artist as well. Of her New York City Opera debut in Handel's Alcina, the New Yorker called her "a Handelian of crisp accomplishment".
The French composer Hector Berlioz made four attempts at winning the Prix de Rome music prize, finally succeeding in 1830. As part of the competition, he had to write a cantata to a text set by the examiners. Berlioz's efforts to win the prize are described at length in his Memoirs. He regarded it as the first stage in his struggle against the musical conservatism represented by the judges, who included established composers such as Luigi Cherubini, François-Adrien Boieldieu and Henri-Montan Berton. Berlioz's stay in Italy as a result of winning the prize also had a great influence on later works such as Benvenuto Cellini and Harold en Italie. The composer subsequently destroyed the scores of two cantatas almost completely and reused music from all four of them in later works. There was a revival of interest in the cantatas in the late 20th century, particularly Cléopâtre, which has become a favourite showcase for the soprano and mezzo-soprano voice.
Marie-Nicole Lemieux, C.M., C.Q. is a Canadian contralto. In 2000, she became the first Canadian to win first prize at the Queen Elizabeth International Music Competition in Belgium.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
Alsatian conductor Charles Munch was one of the most widely recorded symphonic conductors of the twentieth century. Here is a partial list of his recordings.
Laurence Dale is an English tenor, artistic director and conductor.
Jean-François Gardeil is a French baritone and theatre director. He is also the founder and artistic director of the Chants de Garonne.
Stéphane Degout is a contemporary French baritone. He grew up in Saint-Jean-de-Niost (Ain) and has been living in Lyon since 1995.
Shéhérazade is a 40-minute studio album of art songs by Maurice Ravel performed by Frederica von Stade. In the Chansons madécasses, she is accompanied by the flautist Doriot Anthony Dwyer, the cellist Jules Eskin and the pianist Martin Katz. In two of the Cinq mélodies populaires grecques, the Deux mélodies hébraïques and Shéhérazade itself, she is accompanied by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa. The album was released in 1981.
The following lists note recordings in opera and recital of soprano Jessye Norman.
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