Juilliard's Vocal Arts Honors Recital Features Tenor Alek Shrader and Baritone Timothy McDevitt on Tuesday, March 25 at 8 PM at the New York Society for Ethical Culture

Program includes songs by Brahms, Liszt, Rossini, Tosti, Turina, and Vaughan Williams

Two singers from the Juilliard Opera Center (JOC), tenor Alek Shrader and baritone Timothy McDevitt present a duo-recital on Tuesday, March 25 at 8 PM at the New York Society of Ethical Culture, located at 2 West 64th Street. Mr. Shrader and Mr. McDevitt have been named winners of this year’s Juilliard Vocal Arts Honors, chosen by audition and judged on appropriateness of their repertoire, as well as their performances. They were selected by a distinguished panel of judges that included renowned soprano Harolyn Blackwell, Craig Rutenberg, Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera, and Jeremy Geffen, Director of Artistic Programming at Carnegie Hall. Juilliard’s Vocal Arts Honors Recital gives talented song recitalists at Juilliard the opportunity to perform before the general public. Pianist Jessica Chow accompanies Mr. McDevitt, and pianist Keun-A Lee joins Mr. Shrader.

Because of construction, this staple of the Alice Tully Hall season – which also is a highlight of Juilliard’s annual vocal arts schedule – will take place at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street.

Mr. Shrader can be seen later this spring in the Juilliard Opera Center production of Ned Rorem’s Our Town, which receives its NYC premiere, on Wednesday, April 23 and Friday, April 25 at 8 PM and Sunday, April 27 at 2 PM in The Peter Jay Sharp Theater. For more information, visit the Web site at www.juilliard.edu.

This year’s Vocal Arts Honors Recital is unique for the participation of an undergraduate singer – Mr. McDevitt – to have garnered this award.

The Vocal Arts Honors Recital opens with Mr. McDevitt, who sings Malia and Non t’amo piu by Tosti; selections from Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams; and Wie Melodien zieht es mir, a song cycle by Brahms. Mr. Shrader is featured on the second half of the program and sings two well-known song cycles - Poema en forma de canciones, a song cycle by Turina; and Tre sonetti di Petrarca, a song cycle by Liszt; and the aria, Se il mio nome, from Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia.

FREE tickets are available beginning March 11 at the Juilliard Box Office. located at 60 Lincoln Center Plaza. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday from 11 AM – 6 PM. The Juilliard Box Office is accessible by elevator, escalator, or stairs located on W. 65th Street near Amsterdam Avenue. For further information, call the Juilliard Box Office at (212) 769-7406 or visit the Web site at www.juilliard.edu.

Tenor Alek Shrader hails from Alva, Oklahoma and made his professional debut as Almaviva in Rossini’s Barber of Seville with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, where he returns this summer as Giovanni in Martin y Soler’s Una cosa rara. Other roles he has performed include Ramiro in La Cenerentola, Nemorino in L’elisir d’amore, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Fenton in Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, Le chevalier in Dialogues des Carmelites, and Tony in West Side Story. In addition to St. Louis, Mr. Shrader has attended the Merola Opera Program, as well as the Music Academy of the West under the tutelage of Marilyn Horne. In 2007, he was named one of the winners in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and he also received a Sarah Tucker Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation. This year, he appeared as the title character in Rossini’s Le Comte Ory with the Juilliard Opera Center and returns in April for Ned Rorem’s Our Town. Other upcoming engagements include Dino in Bolcom’s A Wedding at Music Academy and in August, he will become an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera.

Baritone Timothy J. McDevitt is an outstanding student in his third year of the undergraduate program at Juilliard where he studies with Cynthia Hoffman. At Juilliard, he has worked with coaches including Nico Castel, Denise Masse, and Brian Zeger. His former teachers include Neil Rosenshein, Diana Walters, and Margaret Kastle-Pugliese. On the Juilliard stage, has been seen as Coryphee in the Juilliard Opera Center production of Rossini’s Le Comte Ory. Virgil T. in The Mother of Us All, and regular scenes with the Juilliard Opera Workshop. During the summer of 2006, Mr. McDevitt traveled to San Jose, California where he made his operatic debut singing the role of Colas in Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne, a production by the Domenico Zipoli Institute. Most recently, he made his Japanese television debut singing to over twenty-one million viewers on their “Wake Up, Japan” morning program. He recently appeared as Surena in Cavalli’s La Doriclea at Juilliard. In the summer of 2008, Mr. McDevitt will be featured in productions at the Wolf Trap Opera Company as a studio artist.

Pianist Jessica Chow has performed throughout the United States and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician since making her solo debut at age fourteen with the Madison Symphony Orchestra. Her most recent concert engagements have included recitals in Salle Cortot in Paris, France and on the stages of Alice Tully Hall and The Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Juilliard. Ms. Chow is an advocate of new music and has been a featured performer in Juilliard’s FOCUS! festival and the European-American Musical Alliance at the École normale de musique in Paris. She is currently a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at Juilliard, where her teachers have included Margo Garrett, Jonathan Feldman, and Brian Zeger. Ms. Chow also is an award-winning chemistry presenter and a published author in established scientific journals such as the Journal of Physical Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry.

Korean pianist Keun-A Lee is building a reputation as a respected collaborator in the classical music world. Following her debut at Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Korea in 1998, Ms. Lee has focused her career on collaborative performances. She has performed throughout the United States, Canada and internationally in Korea and Germany, at such venues as San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House, Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, and Alice Tully Hall, and Korea’s Seoul Arts Center, Chuncheon Culture and Arts Center, Ansan Olympic Memorial Hall, Pan Art Hall, to name a few. Among the artists that she has collaborated with are flutist Dongsoo Kim, cellist Soo Bae, cellist Wei Yu, tenor Alek Shrader, mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller, baritone Eugene Chan, and baritone Hyungmin Lee. She received her bachelor and master’s degree for piano performance at Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea. She received her master’s degree for collaborative piano with Margo Garrett, Jonathan Feldman, and Brian Zeger at Juilliard, and professional studies for vocal accompanying with Warren Jones at Manhattan School of Music. She currently is enrolled in Juilliard’s Artist Diploma program.

One of America’s most prestigious programs for educating singers, Juilliard’s Department of Vocal Arts offers young artists programs tailored to their talents and needs. From bachelor and master of music degree programs to advanced artist diploma programs in voice and opera studies, the School provides frequent performance opportunities, featuring students in Juilliard recitals and opera productions, as well as on Lincoln Center’s stages.