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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
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Elizabeth Keusch
soprano
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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.
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Stephen Bryant
bass-baritone
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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.
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