FLORIDA POET LAUREATE TO VISIT NAPLES Poetry & Music Unite

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1 FLORIDA POET LAUREATE TO VISIT NAPLES Poetry & Music Unite On Tuesday Evening Aug. 15 th PETER MEINKE, Florida Poet Laureate, will be speaking about his work and giving readings from a selection of his poetry at one of the year s most unusual cultural events in Naples - a very special fusion of literature and music. SW Florida composer, William Dawson, Jr., who has become an aficionado & friend of Peter, has composed a song cycle for Soprano, Baritone and Piano to various texts of Meinke s poetry. The concert will be held at Beverly Hall (on the campus of First United Church of Christ) 5200 Crayton Rd. in Naples at 7 PM. The world premiere of these songs will be the musical highlight of this event which is produced under the auspices of Grand Piano Series. The performing artists at this event include the renown Naples soprano, Steffanie Pearce, founder of Opera Naples & Gulfshore Opera, Christopher Holloway, Baritone, Nadia Marshall, rising young star in the opera world, and Richard Bosworth, pianist. Steffanie Pearce is a world class soprano who has enjoyed a long & stellar operatic career on various international stages and at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. Holloway is widely acclaimed as a phenomenal vocalist and an energetic and dynamic performer who has appeared in operatic roles too numerous to name e.g. La Boheme, Lucia di Lammermoor, Carmen etc. with the Houston Grand Opera as well as companies throughout Florida, North America & Europe. He was a Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions. Richard Bosworth, concert pianist, is well known to Naple s audiences as a brilliant and highly admired performer. This concert will feature other engaging new vocal music including songs in Spanish composed by Fort Myers resident, William Dawson Jr., to the poetry of various Mexican poets. A reception after the concert will give the public a chance to greet and meet the Poet Laureate, Mr Meinke. Will do some book signing. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased on line at or by calling Milana Strezeva at June of 2014 Florida lawmakers established a four-year term for State Poet Laureate. The poet is appointed by the Governor from a list of nominees selected by the Florida Council on Arts & Culture and culled by the Secretary of State. Peter Meinke is the first Florida Poet Laureate to serve under the 2014 statute. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Nation and scores of other journals; he s received many major awards including a Fulbright, two NEA Fellowships, three prizes from the Poetry Society of America and the Flannery O Connor and O Henry Awards for short stories. He retired from Eckerd College in 1993, where he received its Distinguished Teacher Award in Peter has read his poems in over a dozen countries and has been appointed Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at many colleges and universities including Davidson, Emory, University of North Carolina, George Washington University and the University of Hawaii. The most recent of his twenty plus books is Lucky Bones (2014), his eighth collection in the prestigious Pitt Poetry Series. Peter, who is considered a master of the short story, published a new collection of short stories entitled The Expert Witness this past year

2 PETER MEINKE Florida Poet Laureate In June of 2014 Florida lawmakers established a four-year term for State Poet Laureate. The poet is appointed by the Governor from a list of nominees selected by the Florida Council on Arts & Culture and culled by the Secretary of State. Peter Meinke is the first Florida Poet Laureate to serve under the 2014 statute. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Nation and scores of other journals; he s received many major awards including a Fulbright, two NEA Fellowships, three prizes from the Poetry Society of America and the Flannery O Connor and O Henry Awards for short stories. He retired from Eckerd College in 1993, where he received its Distinguished Teacher Award in Peter has read his poems in over a dozen countries and has been appointed Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at many colleges and universities including Davidson, Emory, University of North Carolina, George Washington University and the University of Hawaii. The most recent of his twenty plus books is Lucky Bones (2014), his eighth collection in the prestigious Pitt Poetry Series. Peter, who is considered a master of the short story, published a new collection of short of short stories entitled The Expert Witness this past year.

3 WILLIAM GRAHAM DAWSON JR, Composer Fort Myers Composer & Pianist William Dawson is an alumnus of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied with world renowned concert pianist, Rudolf Serkin. He went on to earn a graduate degree in music at Yale University, where he studied piano with John Kirkpatrick and Composition. Dawson has appeared as soloist with major symphonies including the Boston Pops with Arthur Fiedler (NPR broadcast), the Florida Philharmonic and the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra. He has played recitals & given Master Classes all over the United States, Switzerland (L Abri), throughout Japan, the Republic of China and Latin America. Gian Carlo Menotti invited Dawson to perform at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. His chamber music concerts include performances with members of the Miami String Quartet, Anne Williams, Principal Cellist with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Daniel Majeske, late Concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra. He is Professor Emeritus at Miami Dade College and is a founder of the New World School of the Arts in Miami where he was assistant to the dean, John Delancie, former Director of the Curtis Institute of Music and Principal Oboist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Dawson co- founded the J.S. Bach Escuela de Música in Merida, Mexico and has served as Visiting Professor at Universidad del Valle in Guatemala City & Victoriano Lopez Conservatory in San Pedro Sula, Honduras the BiNational Symphony Orchestra premiered his composition "Chichen Itza Suite" which was performed at that archaeological zone in Yucatan, Mexico. This work was performed and recorded in Miami by the Grammy nominee Mexican conductor, Eduardo Diazmuñoz. The Instituto de Cultura in Yucatan has produced a CD of Dawson's "Trilogía Yucateca" for Soprano, Strings and Piano. In addition Dawson has composed numerous songs based on poetry and themes of the Yucatan. In recognition of his bi-national cultural accomplishments, Dawson has received various official honors and awards from the University of Yucatan, the State of Yucatan, Mexico and the U.S. Department of State. The Florida State Music Teachers Association named Dawson Commissioned Composer of the Year The Southwest Florida Symphony commissioned Dawson to compose choral music for the season. In June of 2017 he was invited by Metropolitan Opera conductor, Maestro Paul Nadler, to a performance of his songs in New York City at the International Vocal Arts Institute. His music has been published by Augsburg- Fortress.

4 STEFFANIE PEARCE, Soprano Born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Steffanie Pearce grew up singing everything from folk to classical music. Her formal studies started at the Cleveland Institute of Music and finished at The University of Southern California "Opera Workshop". She has won the Pavarotti Competition, Montreal International, D Angelo, Baltimore Opera and the American Traditions competition among others. On the opera stage she is most noted for distinctive portrayals of tragic heroines including: Tosca, Violetta, Leonora, Marguerite, Donna Anna, Mimi, and the Three Heroins of Tales of Hoffman.. She has been a guest artist with many opera companies including; Opera de Marseille, Opera Lisboa, Opera Colorado, The Opera Co. of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh Opera Theater, San Diego Opera, The Buxton Festival in England, Baltimore Opera, Opera Delaware, New Jersey Opera Festival and has been a featured artist in many European and US tours with Teatro Lyrico d Europe. Equally at home on the concert stage, she has performed the Strauss 4 Last Songs and Carmina Burana with The Montreal Symphony. Miss Pearce is a frequent guest of the Lexington Philharmonic and has sung Gorecki s Symphony No.3, Villa-Lobos Bachiana No. 5 and this season, Mahler s 4th Symphony with them. Her oratorio repertoire is extensive and she has appeared as a soloist at many famous theaters including: Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl, The Dorothy Chandler, The Academy of Music, Blossom Music Festival, Marlborough Music Festival and many others. Now a resident of Naples, Florida, Miss Pearce is the Founding Director of Opera Naples, Southwest Florida s first profession regional opera company. In 2014 she founded a new regional company, Gulfshore Opera.

5 CHRISTOPHER HOLLOWAY, Baritone Christopher Holloway is an energetic, vibrant performer who acts with waltzlike precision and is able to sing and act with equal agility. A much sought after performer, Mr. Holloway has taken the opera stage with distinguished companies including Houston Grand Opera, Opera Tampa, St. Petersburg Opera, Orlando Opera, Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theatre, Opera Naples, Amarillo Opera, Lyric Opera of Los Angeles, Orange County Opera, Opera in the Heights, New Century Opera, Opera in the Ozarks, Brevard Music Center, and Operafestival di Roma. His extensive repertoire of operatic roles includes Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette,Marcello and Schaunard in La Bohéme, Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Mercutio in Romeo et Juliette, the title role in Don Giovanni, Belcore in L Elisir d Amore, Falke/Frank in Die Fledermaus, Pish-Tush in The Mikado, Morales/Dancairo/Escamillo in Carmen, Lord Ruthven in Der Vampyr, Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Lescaut in Manon, Dandini in La Cenerentola, Silvio in I Pagliacci, Elder McLean in Susannah, Marullo in Rigoletto, Maximilian in Bernstein s Candide, Wagner in Faust, Simone in Gianni Schicchi, and Angelotti and Sciarrone in Tosca.

6 RICHARD BOSWORTH, Concert Pianist Richard Bosworth Critically acclaimed for the kind of artistry which captivates, transports and communicates deeply, pianist Richard Bosworth brings to the concert stage a broad spectrum of musical tastes and experience. His travels have taken him to nearly every major continent in the capacities of a recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and competitor. Besides playing all the major repertory, he is a champion of contemporary works, often premiering them at convention workshops. His interest in jazz and composition add yet another dimension to his creative output. Upon receiving a baccalaureate from Eastman School, he pursued further studies at the Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, culminating in a doctoral degree. His teachers throughout his student years were such notables as Barry Snyder (prize winner of the Van Cliburn Competition), Leonard Hokanson (pianist of the Odeon Trio), Luba Dubinsky (pianist of the BorodinTrio), Mario Feninger (a Busoni expert), Michael Block (winner of the Artur Rubinstein Competition), and Balini Vazsonyi (student and official biographer of Ernst von Dohnanyi). Besides receiving a number of accolades on the competition scene, he has participated in some of the world's most prestigious music contests, including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Beethoven Klavierwettbewerb in Vienna and the Pretoria Competitiion in South Africa. In 1999, he gave a guest performance at the White House in Washington, DC by invitation of President Clinton, and in 2005 debuted the first interactive music program to combine internet resources and multi-media at Lincoln Center. Most recently, in January of 2008, he performed for the Pianoforte Foundation, Chicago. The performance featured the music of Frederic Chopin and was broadcast live on WFMT. His appearances on other radio stations in the United States have included WQXR (New York) and WGBH (Boston). Dr. Bosworth has won praise from such internationally known conductors as Erich Kunzel and Keith Lockhart and has collaborated with flutist Turkil Bye and the late baritone Hermann Prey. In January 2017 Richard will be soloist with the Southwest Florida Symphony performing the Tschaikowsky Piano Concerto.