Home
Tickets
Donations
Music Director
Auditions
Newsletter
Press Center
Members
Contact
Newsletter sign up
News

THANK YOU FOR A TERRIFIC SEASON!

Please sign up for news from the Asheville Choral Society, including the terrific 2008-2009 Concert Season and the special Benefit Concert featuring Sir Paul McCartney's major choral work Ecce cor Meum (Behold my Heart) on October 12.

Consider making a donation too.  And....Thank You!

Asheville Choral Society

GAIA:
A Celebration of the Earth

Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony
Libby Larsen:
Missa Gaia (Mass for the Earth)
Joseph Haydn:
The Creation (selections)
 

Elizabeth Keusch, soprano
Stephen Bryant, baritone


With orchestra

Saturday, March 28 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, March 29, at 4:00 PM
at
Central United Methodist Church

http://www.centralumc.org

Click here for tickets.

  


Elizabeth Keusch
soprano


     Young American soprano Elizabeth Keusch is rapidly emerging as an artist to watch and has already been heard in major venues worldwide. She performed recently in Disney Hall with the LA Philharmonic (composer/ conductor Thomas Ades) and in the Seattle Chamber Players’ Icebreaker III Festival. Ms. Keusch recently made her Arizona Opera debut as Polly Peachum in Bernard Uzan’s production of Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera. The 2005-06 Season also saw her debut with Washington DC Choral Arts Society (Norman Scribner) in Mozart’s Requiem, and with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (Scott Yoo) in Elliott Carter’s Tempo e tempi. Successive engagements since 2003 with Maestro Helmut Rilling of the Oregon Bach Festival and International Bachakademie Stuttgart include Handel’s Belshazzar and Jeptha, Bach's Magnificat and numerous Cantatas, Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem and C Minor Mass and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. 
      Season 2007-08 continues the successful collaboration with Helmut Rilling, in Britten’s War Requiem with the Bachakademie Stuttgart. Other engagements include a recital at the Jasper Arts Center, performances of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Handel’s Messiah with the National Chorale (Martin Josman), appearances with the Florida Orchestra (Stephan Sanderling) in Schubert’s Mass No. 6 and in Haydn’s Jahreszeiten with the Xalapa Symphony (Carlos Miguel Prieto).
     Performances of Academy-Award winning composer Tan Dun’s Water Passion for St. Matthew have taken her to the Europaische Musikfest 2000 in Stuttgart and to both Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2002 Next Wave and 2005 South Street Seaport Festivals in New York City, the 2002 Oregon Bach Festival, the 2003 Macau International Festival and the 2005 Perth International Arts Festival. Ms. Keusch’s Boston Symphony 
     Orchestra debut with conductor Robert Spano occurred
with the 2000 American premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s La Pasión Según San Marcos. Other orchestral collaborations include performances with the symphonies of Dallas, Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Minnesota, and with the New World Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. Widely recognized for her remarkable musicianship, Ms. Keusch is an avid champion of chamber music and new music. The soprano has had successive collaborations with Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, Boston Musica Viva, Collage New Music (Boston), the Seattle Chamber Players, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, and the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society in Alice Tully Hall.
     In demand for opera productions worldwide, she has performed with Opéra National de Paris, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Musikakademie Rheinsberg, Stuttgart Staatsoper, and Neue Oper Wien.



 

Stephen Bryant
bass-baritone


     Bass-baritone Stephen Bryant’s distinguished career in concert and opera has taken him around the world, with acclaimed performances in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. 
     Mr. Bryant has sung with the New York City Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the Indianapolis Opera, and other companies of renown. In performance with major orchestras from The New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra, to the Israel Philharmonic and Japan Philharmonic, Bryant has delighted audiences with a repertoire spanning from Mozart and Verdi to Virgil Thomson and Stewart Wallace.
     “Bryant stormed the heavens with his large and commanding instrument,” said New York Newsday of his performance in Handel’s Messiah. His numerous appearances in Handel’s Messiah include collaborations with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Musica Sacra at Carnegie Hall. 
     The Bass-baritone’s frequent performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah include appearances with the New York Philharmonic under Maestro Kurt Masur, and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch.
     Mr. Bryant’s repertoire extends from Bach and Handel to today’s most prominent composers including Tan Dun. In standard repertoire, the Bass-baritone has performed Colline in La bohème (Indianapolis Opera), Leporello in Don Giovanni (Mobile Opera), Don Alfonso in Cosi fan tutte (Berkshire Opera), Escamillo in Carmen (Opera North), Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro (Madison Opera), the Bonze in Madama Butterfly (San Francisco Opera), and Capulet in Roméo et Juliette at (Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Michigan Opera Theatre, and Chautauqua Opera ). He will be performing the role this fall with Toledo Opera as well. Additionally, Bryant has performed roles in a number of contemporary operas including Robert Gonzales in Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk (San Francisco Opera and New York City Opera), George Milton in Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men (Arizona Opera), Indiana Elliot’s brother in Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All (Santa Fe Opera), and covered Claggart in Britten’s Billy Budd (San Francisco Opera).
     A premiere interpreter of the works of Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun, Bryant created the role of Dante in the world premiere of the opera Marco Polo. He reprised the role at London’s Barbicon Center for a performance broadcast by the BBC. Numerous other performances include appearances at the Munich Biennale, the Holland Festival in Amsterdam, the Hong Kong Arts Festival, New York City Opera, the Japan Philharmonic in Tokyo, Settembre Musica in Torino, Italy, and at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in Scotland. The Times of London referred to the “ . . . unearthly overtone singing, brilliantly accomplished by Stephen Bryant.”
     Stephen holds a Bachelor’s from Oberlin and a Master’s from the University of Michigan. On the voice faculty at William Paterson University, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey with his wife Caryl, and their two sons, David and Andrew.