Juilliard Songfest Features Settings of John Keats and Emily Dickinson by Hindemith, Britten, Moore, and Copland on Thursday, February 1, 2018, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall

Curated and Performed by Artistic Director and Pianist Brian Zeger and Featuring Singers from Juilliard's Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts

NEW YORK –– Juilliard Songfest presents songs featuring the poetry of John Keats and Emily Dickinson set to music by Hindemith, Britten, Ben Moore, and Copland, curated and performed by pianist Brian Zeger and featuring singers from the school’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, on Thursday, February 1, 2018, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall.

The singers performing in Juilliard Songfest are soprano Felicia Moore, tenor Charles Sy, and baritone Dominik Belavy. Juilliard Drama alumni Lauren Donahue and Sam Lilja will read letters from both poets.

Tickets at $10 ($5 for full-time non-Juilliard students) are available online at juilliard.edu/calendar or at the Alice Tully Hall Box Office.

About the Program

Brian Zeger, pianist and curator of Juilliard Songfest, writes: “This concert explores the genius of two great poets: John Keats and Emily Dickinson. We’re fortunate at Juilliard to be able to invite superb actors to join our singers to give songs a deeper and fuller context. For this year’s Juilliard Songfest, I’ve invited two actors to join three singers from the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts. Rather than reading the verse of these two remarkable writers, the actors will read their letters. Both poets were vivid and memorable correspondents in an era when passionate friendships and loving family relations were often sustained through the mails.” The first half of the program features three Keats settings: single songs by Paul Hindemith and Benjamin Britten, and a cycle of eight songs by Ben Moore, which will be sung by tenor Charles Sy and baritone Dominik Belavy. The second half of the program features Aaron Copland’s settings to twelve of Emily Dickinson’s short poems, which will be sung by soprano Felicia Moore.

Meet the Artists

Baritone Dominik Belavy is a master’s student at Juilliard where he studies with Sanford Sylvan. At the school, he has been featured as L’horloge Comtoise and L’arbre in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges and Conte Perrucchetto in Haydn’s La fedeltà premiata. With Juilliard415, he has sung Bach’s Mass in B Minor led by Ton Koopman. Last season he made his professional and hometown debut in Detroit as Jim Larkens in Michigan Opera Theatre’s production of La fanciulla del West conducted by Stephen Lord. As a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, Mr. Belavy has sung Ravel’s Chansons madécasses, Schoenberg’s arrangement of Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and premiered works by Alan Smith and Nathan Davis. He returns this summer to Tanglewood to sing Junior in Bernstein’s A Quiet Place. He is a Toulmin Foundation Scholar at Juilliard.

Lauren Donahue, who lives in New York City, is a recent graduate of Juilliard’s Drama Division and a member of Group 46. Upon graduation, she appeared in Law and Order: SVU (NBC) and has guest starred on Bull (CBS). In her time at Juilliard she played a number of roles, including Patricia in Donald Margulies’ Sight Unseen, River in playwriting alumnus and faculty member Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, and Mrs. Tarleton in George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance.

Sam Lilja is a New York-based actor and dialect coach. His stage roles include The Importance of Being Earnest (Two River Theater); Acolyte (59E59); Clarkston (Dallas Theater Center); and The Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare Theatre Company, DC). His work on film includes Lincoln in the Bardo; The Drowning; and I Didn’t Come Here to Make Love. He has also been seen on television on Billions and Almost There. He is an alumnus of Juilliard’s Drama Division (Group 43) and a member of the 52nd Street Project. (samlilja.com)

Soprano Felicia Moore is an Artist Diploma in Opera Studies student at Juilliard studying with Edith Wiens. Ms. Moore was most recently seen as Mrs. Grose in The Turn of the Screw at Opera Columbus. This past summer at the Merola Opera Program she sang Agathe in Der Freischütz and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. Last year she sang the title role of Katya Kabanova with Juilliard Opera. Ms. Moore has been a young artist at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Des Moines Metro Opera, where she was the cover for Alice Ford in Falstaff, the title role of Tobias Picker’s Emmeline, and Madame Lidoine in Dialogues of the Carmelites. She is a winner of this year’s Sullivan Foundation Award, and her previous awards include being a two-time semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, as well as being awarded the top prize from the George London Foundation. Ms. Moore is from Princeton, N.J. She holds a Jerome L. Greene Fellowship and is supported by the Hardesty and Beverley Peck Johnson Fund.

Tenor Charles Sy is from Toronto, and is an Artist Diploma in Opera Studies student at Juilliard, where he studies with Marlena Malas. He is a recent graduate of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio and completed his BM and MM at the University of Toronto. He is also an alumnus of several leading training programs including the Music Academy of the West, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Opera as Theatre program at the Banff Centre, and the Britten-Pears Young Artist Program. Mr. Sy received first prize and audience choice awards in the Canadian Opera Company’s 2014 Centre Stage Competition. He is also the recipient of the 2013 Hnatyshyn Foundation Developing Artist Grant for Classical Voice after being nominated to represent the University of Toronto and competing at the national level. He holds a Philo Higley Scholarship, a Max Dreyfus Scholarship in Voice and is supported by the Hardesty and Beverley Peck Johnson Fund.

Widely recognized as one of today’s leading collaborative pianists, Brian Zeger has performed with many of the world’s greatest singers including Marilyn Horne, Deborah Voigt, Anna Netrebko, Susan Graham, René Pape, Kiri Te Kanawa, Frederica von Stade, Piotr Beczala, Bryn Terfel, Joyce DiDonato, Denyce Graves, and Adrianne Pieczonka in an extensive concert career that has taken him to the premiere concert halls throughout the U.S. and abroad. Among his most recent recordings are All Who Wander, a recital disc with Jamie Barton; Preludios—Spanish songs with Isabel Leonard; a recording of Strauss and Wagner lieder with Adrianne Pieczonka; and Dear Theo: Three Song Cycles by Ben Moore with Paul Appleby, Susanna Phillips, and Brett Polegato, all on the Delos label. In addition to his distinguished concert career, he serves as artistic director of the Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at Juilliard and recently completed an eight-year tenure as the executive director of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Development Program. (brianzeger.com)

About the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at Juilliard

One of America’s most prestigious programs for educating singers, Juilliard’s Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts offers young artists programs tailored to their talents and needs. From bachelor and master of music degrees to an advanced Artist Diploma in Opera Studies, Juilliard provides frequent performance opportunities featuring singers in its own recital halls, on Lincoln Center’s stages, and elsewhere around New York City. Juilliard Opera has presented numerous premieres of new operas as well as works from the standard repertoire.

Juilliard graduates may be heard in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world; diverse alumni artists include well-known performers such as Simon Estes, Renée Fleming, Leontyne Price, Risë Stevens, Tatiana Troyanos, and Shirley Verrett. Recent alumni include Paul Appleby, Sasha Cooke, Isabel Leonard, Erin Morley, Susanna Phillips, and Julia Bullock.

# # #

PROGRAM LISTING:

Thursday Evening, February 1, 2018, 7:30pm, Alice Tully Hall

The Juilliard School

Presents

Juilliard Songfest

Settings of John Keats and Emily Dickinson

Brian Zeger, curator and pianist

 

Felicia Moore, soprano

Charles Sy, tenor

Dominik Belavy, baritone

Lauren Donahue, actor

Sam Lilja, actor

 

Paul HINDEMITH La Belle Dame sans Merci

Benjamin BRITTEN Sonnet

                Charles Sy

Ben MOORE Ode to a Nightingale

                Dominik Belavy

Aaron COPLAND Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson

                Felicia Moore