DATESMonday, February 1, 2021 @ 12:00 p.m.
Thursday, February 22, 2021 @ 7:00 p.m. Thursday, February 25, 2021 @ 7:00 p.m. |
Streaming on YouTube, Facebook
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DESCRIPTIONJoin FLO as it celebrates Black History month with Episode I of Maestro Floriano's Historical Video-Podcast series as well as recitals from two renowned singers.
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PERFORMERS
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GERARD FLORIANOFebruary 1, 2021
Episode I, Historical Recordings * Video-Podcast Maestro Gerard Floriano kicks off FLO's celebration of Black History Month talking about the 1963 highly acclaimed album of selections from Porgy and Bess featuring baritone William Warfield and soprano Leontyne Price. |
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JORELL WILLIAMS, BaritoneFebruary 22, 2021 @ 7:00 p.m.
Jorell Williams, who last appeared with FLO in the 2019 production of La bohème, has a wide variety of experience from standard repertoire to premiere pieces. He begins the 2020 - 2021 season with the world premiere of Hilliard and Boresi's The Happy Hour and Rachel Peters' Everything comes to a head with The Decameron Opera Coalition featuring Bass-Baritone Luca Pisaroni, the world premiere of In Real Life II written by Robert Patterson and David Cote in his debut with the American Modern Ensemble, his company and role debut of Don Giovanni with Opera Columbus, and the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel with The Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater. Williams is a recipient of the 2018 Rochester Classical Idol XII Top Prize and Audience Choice award, and has garnered many other top awards some of which include The American Prize, Serge Koussevitzky Foundation, the National Association of Negro Musicians, and the Liberace Foundation. |
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Rachael Kerr, PIANORachael Kerr is a remarkably versatile coach and pianist. She has served as rehearsal pianist for countless Canadian Opera Company productions including Barber of Seville, Turandot, Aïda, Hansel and Gretel, Hadrian, Elektra, La bohème, and many, many more. Credits include staff pianist positions at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and the Académie Orford Musique since 2017. Kerr also has been a rehearsal pianist for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in numerous projects and recently joined the faculty of The Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music as a vocal coach and will be the music director for Soundstreams’ upcoming project, Garden of Vanished Pleasures.
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KEARSTiN PIPER BROWN, SopranoFebruary 25, 2021 @ 7:00 p.m.
Soprano Kearstin Piper Brown will round out FLO's celebration with her own recital, filmed onsite at Lyric Theatre of Rochester. Piper Brown recently made her debut with the San Francisco Opera covering the role of Dame Shirley in the world premiere of John Adams’s Girls of the Golden West. She also toured Israel as Bess in Gershwin’s masterpiece, Porgy and Bess, returned as a guest artist with the Chaliapin Festival at the Kazan Opera Theater in Russia and in the spring, she will also begin work singing the lead role in the new opera Promised Land: An Adirondack Folk Opera. |
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Chiao-Wen Cheng, PIANOTaiwanese pianist Chiao-Wen Cheng has performed as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout the United States and Asia. Cheng holds a doctoral degree from the Eastman School of Music, where she was a student and teaching assistant of Barry Snyder. Cheng is Assistant Professor of Accompanying at the Eastman School of Music and a piano instructor at Eastman Community Music School. Cheng’s solo engagements include the Fort Worth Symphony, Greece Symphony, and Taiwan Shin-Min Orchestra. A vibrant and dedicated chamber musician, Cheng has become a sought-after collaborative partner. She has won numerous piano competitions and awards, including first prizes at the Schubert Club Competition, the Piano Texas International Academy and Festival Concerto Competition, the Clara Ascherfeld Award in Excellence in Accompanying at Peabody Institute and more.
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B.E. Boykin, PIANOThe second song on Brown’s program features a work by composer and concert pianist Brittney Boykin (B.E. Boykin). Boykin completed Moments in Sonder in December 2020. Brown is singing 13 of the 14 movements.
A native of Alexandria (VA), Boykin graduated from Spelman College in 2011 with a B.A. in Music and continued her studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton (NJ), where she earned her M.M. in Sacred Music with a concentration in choral studies. Among her professional endeavors, Boykin has also been featured as the conductor/composer-in-residence for the 2017 Harry T. Burleigh Commemorative Spiritual Festival at Tennessee State University. Her instrumental and choral works are currently being published and distributed through her own publishing company, Klavia Press. Boykin is currently pursuing a PhD with an emphasis in Music Education from Georgia State University. |