Once again it promises to be a great evening, as we enjoy a delectable performance by three young HGO Studio performers from their Artists-in-Residence program: Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, Richard Trey Smagur, and Jonathan Gmeinder, on Thursday, April 12, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. in the Parish Hall of Christ the King Lutheran Church, 2353 Rice Boulevard, Houston, TX 77005. Out of 23 contestants, Aryeh and Richard were two of the six Grand Finals Winners in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions last year!
Here is what they said about Aryeh: “There were several good singers at the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Additions Grand Finals Concert . . . but there was only one complete artist. [He] already possesses a remarkable gift for intimate communication in a vast hall, combined with a voice of velvety gentleness – surprisingly penetrating given the tenderness of its texture – and a taste for adventure.”
Richard has been called “astoundingly versatile,” and his flower song at the auditions “La fleur que tu m’avais jetée,” with a beautifully balanced range throughout, received a healthy reaction from the audience with his legato phrasing and ending with a lingering diminuendo. He is said to have “a voice that soared and raged, a glowing tenor that remained firm yet revealing . . . anguish.”
Jonathan Gmeinder was most recently a piano fellow for the Vocal Arts Department at the Juilliard School and a coach at the Manhattan School of Music (MSM). Recent work in opera includes Haydn’s La fedeltà premiata and Handel’s Agrippina at the Juilliard School, and La bohème with Aspen Opera Center. At MSM he was involved in the preparation of the American Musical Theater Ensemble’s productions of A Little Night Music and Defying Gravity: a Steven Schwarz Musical Review. Besides his 2017–18 coaching assignments at HGO, he will perform in HGO Studio recitals and other events.
They will perform the following pieces:
“Che faro senza Euridice” from Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck
Steuermann’s aria from The Flying Dutchman by Wagner
The Angel’s final aria from Written on Skin by George Benjamin
Lensky’s aria from Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky
“Sound the Trumpet” by Purcell
Registration begins at 6:15 p.m., our customary food and beverage reception at 6:30 p.m. and the program at 7:00 p.m. Cost is $10 for members, $15 for nonmembers, and $5 for students. Please let us know as soon as possible that you will attend at angelika@houstonleipzig.org. Plenty of parking is available on the Rice campus, enter from Greenbriar Street, cost $2 with credit card.
The Houston Grand Opera Studio is one of the most respected young artist programs in the country. For more than thirty years it has served young singers and pianist/coaches, providing a bridge between full-time training and full-fledged operatic careers. Each year after an exhaustive nationwide search, a hand-selected group of talented individuals is brought here to Houston to work alongside the best in the business at Houston Grand Opera. In main-stage productions and at other less traditional venues, these artists hone their craft as singing actors. During a residency of up to three years, each performer receives customized training from an expert team while gaining invaluable performance experience at the highest level.
Alumni of the Studio perform at the best opera houses all around the world—but internationally renowned artists such as Joyce DiDonato, Scott Hendricks and Ana María Martínez still regularly return to their home stage at the Wortham Theater Center, back to the audiences who watched them bloom in the springtime of their careers.