LIEDER ALIVE! Maxine Bernstein, Director www.liederalive.org Media Contact: Eric Garcia, (415) 621-3186, ext. 112 neqacomm@quinn- assoc.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 20, 2012 LIEDER ALIVE! presents Swedish Baritone Håkan Hagegård with Pianist John Parr in Singers Synergy A Public Master Class on Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 6:00 pm San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall 50 Oak Street, San Francisco Calendar listing below San Francisco LIEDER ALIVE!, a groundbreaking program in the teaching of German Lieder, will continue its unique Master Workshop program with the presentation of renowned Swedish baritone Håkan Hagegård in a public master class titled Singers Synergy at the Concert Hall at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 6:00 pm. This event will feature the great master artist leading a select group of outstanding young professional singers, particularly focusing his teaching on the extraordinary synergy that is to be gained when singer, song, and audience combine for a live performance. In the days leading up to this public event, Mr. Hagegård will work with the singers in a series of private master classes at the Music Salon at Salle Pianos, utilizing a method based on Singers Studio Sweden, an intensive group training program that Mr. Hagegård created and directs in Stockholm for singers of all kinds. People who love singing will not want to miss this opportunity to have an insider s look at the training of gifted young vocal artists.
LIEDER ALIVE! Page 2 Håkan Hagegård may be best known as an operatic baritone of extraordinary gifts and at that, as Papageno in Bergman s classic film version of Mozart s Die Zauberflöte but he has a long and deep relationship with the art of Lieder as well. He studied Lieder interpretation with both Erik Werba and Gerald Moore, and made his debut as a Lieder singer in Stockholm in 1970, singing Schubert s Die Winterreise. He has since given Lieder recitals all over Europe, including London, Madrid, and Salzburg, and has appeared with the leading orchestras of his native Scandinavia and the United States. He has performed and recorded many of the great song cycles, including Schubert's Die Winterreise, Die Schöne Müllerin, and Schwanengesang, Schumann's Dichterliebe, Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch, as well as the songs of Grieg. Since 2005, Mr. Hagegård has been teaching full- time. He holds a position as professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music, has worked as a pedagogue at the Metropolitan Opera s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and is frequently engaged at the International Vocal Institute in Tel Aviv and Montreal, at Si Parla Si Canta in Urbania, Italy, and at the Tanglewood Vocal Arts Program. This year Mr. Hagegård s Tanglewood residency will directly precede ours in San Francisco at LIEDER ALIVE! A dedicated teacher and mentor, Mr. Hagegård founded Singers Studio Sweden in 2010 as a creative platform for artists to hone their skills and art. The activities of Singers Studio Sweden include master classes, individual lessons, lectures, concerts, as well as The Singers Studio, in which participants test their material before fellow singers and a moderator. Professional singing, in the world according to Hagegård, is all about the audience. For his San Francisco public master class, Singers Synergy, Mr. Hagegård will work We'll have fun trying to get insight into onstage with seven professional and emerging young singers, the best profession in the world. in collaboration with Master Coach and pianist John Parr. - Håkan Hagegård The Jerusalem Post, July 16, 2007 Singers Synergy that potent integration of singer, song, and audience is what leads to transformative, and even luminous, performances. "It doesn't matter how good the instrument [the voice] is, you still have to put it [the song] across," Mr. Hagegård said in an interview in The Jerusalem Post in 2007. Unless intellect and emotion are combined and fully grounded in the singer, "the audience isn't going to get it, and will back off." Lessons such as these accompanied by vast quantities of charm and good humour are what make Mr. Hagegård one of the best and most popular master teachers in the field of classical voice. LIEDER ALIVE! has presented Master Workshops by some of the world s greatest singers since 2008. Outstanding professional and pre- professional singers from the Bay Area and beyond are taught by a master artist on the stage, in front of an audience. The participants in Singers Synergy are among the most exciting young professional and emerging singers in the Bay Area and around the world. They are: mezzo- soprano Kate Allen, bass Kirk Eichelberger, soprano Alina Ilchuk, bass Adam Lau, mezzo- soprano Jordan McClellan, soprano Julia Metzler, and mezzo- soprano Kindra Scharich. These superb young artists will participate in four days of intensive Singers Studio training at the Music Salon at Salle Pianos, prior to performing for the audience and Mr. Hagegård in the Singers Synergy master class at the San Francisco Conservatory. In a conversation with Leslie Holmes (Journal of Singing, 5/1/2007), Mr. Hagegård mused about why a singer performs concerts, saying: I want to lift the audience's way of thinking up to a higher level... to sharpen their tools, sharpen their senses to questions that they might not dare to go close to, or open them a little bit to influences from parts they haven't dared to open up to. These could well be his aspirations for the young artists in Singers Synergy. People who love singing won t want to miss this enlightening and enlivening peek into the training of outstanding young professional singers, conducted by one of the great performers and master teachers of our time, Håkan Hagegård.
LIEDER ALIVE! Page 3 About Håkan Hagegård Swedish baritone Håkan Hagegård was born on November 25, 1945 in Karlstad, Sweden. His music education began in the Local Conservatory in Karlstad and continued at the State College of Music in Stockholm (Royal Academy). His debut at the Royal Opera, Stockholm in 1968 of Die Zauberflöte brought him great acclaim, following his performance in the same role in Ingmar Bergman s film of Mozart s opera. Since 1970, he has performed with the Royal Opera, Stockholm, including Malatesta (Don Pasquale), Guglielmo (Cosi fan tutte), Count Almaviva (La Nozze di Figaro), Figaro (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Rodrigo (Don Carlos) and Wolfram (Tannhäuser). He has performed in the U.S., Spain, Germany, Israel, Australia and Hong Kong, among other locales spanning the globe. He made his American operatic debut in Don Pasquale at the Metropolitan Opera in 1980. Since then, he has performed numerous times in the Bay Area, including roles in San Francisco Opera productions as Danilo Danilowitch (Die Lustige Witwe), the Count (Capriccio) and Gabriel von Eisenstein (Die Fledermaus). In 1985, Mr. Hagegård was appointed vocalist to his majesty, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, and in 1989 he became a member of the Royal Academy of Music in Sweden. He is much sought- after as a teacher, and has been a presenter at the NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) biennial conference, and has given Master Classes at the Academy of the Aix- en- Provence Festival and the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. His recording of the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem with James Levine won a Grammy Award. He continues to hold his post as professor at the Norwegian Music Academy and is the Director of The Singers Studio in Stockholm. About Pianist John Parr John Parr is a native of Birmingham (U.K.) who was for 11 years the head of music staff at San Francisco Opera, where he conducted numerous recital programs. In 2011 he was engaged as casting director and assistant to the music director at the Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe, Germany, where he has also launched a series of vocal recitals. He continues to return regularly to San Francisco to coach young artists in the Merola and Adler Fellowship programs of the San Francisco Opera, and to further his collaboration and advisory role with the teaching and performance program, LIEDER ALIVE! About LIEDER ALIVE! LIEDER ALIVE! was founded in 2007 by soprano Maxine Bernstein to re- invigorate the teaching of German Lieder, a major facet of Western classical music. Baritone Thomas Hampson inaugurated LIEDER ALIVE! s Master Workshop program with a Mostly Mahler intensive in 2008; as Janos Gereben wrote in San Francisco Classical Voice, this event went beyond all expectations. In 2009, mezzo- soprano Marilyn Horne offered a three- day program on Romantic German Lieder, and last year, soprano June Anderson presented The Art of Singing Master Workshop, along with private master classes and a rare U.S. concert appearance. Workshop participants include some of the most dynamic and exciting young professional singers working today, such as soprano Heidi Melton, mezzo- soprano Katharine Tier, tenor Eleazar Rodriguez, and many others. LIEDER ALIVE! also presents a Liederabend series of recitals by some our workshop participants. Such a training program, devoted exclusively to this important artistic genre, is unique in America, and is the focus of our purpose to keep Lieder where it belongs alive!
LIEDER ALIVE! Page 4 CALENDAR INFORMATION WHO: LIEDER ALIVE! presents Swedish baritone Håkan Hagegård with pianist John Parr WHAT: Singers Synergy, A Public Master Class WHEN: Saturday, September 8 @ 6:00PM WHERE: San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall 50 Oak Street, San Francisco (between Van Ness and Franklin) TICKETS: $30/$20 BOX OFFICE: City Box Office (415) 392-4400 www.cityboxoffice.com MORE INFO: www.liederalive.com TEL: 415/621-3186, FAX: 415/621-3110
LIEDER ALIVE! Page 5 About our Workshop Participants The following accomplished young singers will be taking part in The Singers Studio and Singers Synergy with Håkan Hagegård as part of LIEDER ALIVE s Master Workshop program: A native of Ireland, mezzo- soprano Kate Allen performed Baba the Turk in Music Academy of the West s production of The Rake s Progress and will debut with Camerata Pacifica in a program that includes Dvorák s Gypsy Songs. Her repertoire includes the title role in Handel s Giulio Cesare, Dorabella in Così Fan Tutte, the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, and Mother Marie in Dialogues of the Carmelites. She recently performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. as part of the Conservatory Project Performances, representing the San Francisco Conservatory of Music She was a 2011 First Prize Winner in the San Francisco district Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Bass Kirk Eichelberger was recently seen as The Emperor in Tan Dun s Tea with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Mephistopheles in Faust with Opera Grand Rapids, Sparafucile in Rigoletto with the Vancouver Opera and Ferrando in Il Trovatore with Opera Manitoba. In concert, he has performed the title role in Mendelssohn s Elijah with Oakland East Bay Symphony and San Francisco Choral Society and has performed as a principal soloist in Mozart s Requiem, Beethoven s 9th Symphony, Handel s Messiah, Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem, Bach s B- minor Mass, Haydn s Creation, Pärt s Litany, Rossini s Stabat Mater, Kodály s Budavári Te Deum and Einhorn s Voices of Light. Praised for the beauty of her voice and the subtlety of her artistic interpretation, soprano Alina Ilchuk has performed throughout Europe, the United States and Canada. Her professional debut took place in 1995 as a solo artist of the Song and Dance Company of the Lviv State Philharmonic in the Ukraine. She has recently appeared as a principal artist with the Sacramento Opera, the Reno Baroque Ensemble, the Bay Area Classical Harmonies, Slavic Chorale, and sung the role of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at Sacramento State University. For the past two years Ms. Ilchuk has become an active participant with the LIEDER ALIVE! program in San Francisco where she has participated in private and public master workshops with such renowned artists as the legendary June Anderson, and master coaches Jeff Cohen and John Parr. Bass Adam Lau has performed Timur in Turandot at West Bay Opera; Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro at the Symphony and Opera Academy of the Pacific; the Bartender in Bolcom s A Wedding at Music Academy of the West; Masetto in Don Giovanni at Rice University; and Dr. Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Leporello in Don Giovanni, and King Louis XVI in Corigliano s The Ghost of Versailles with the Aspen Opera Theater Center. In 2008, he made his San Francisco Opera debut as a Baobab/Hunter in Portman s The Little Prince. In 2011, Mr. Lau made his debut as Timur in West Bay Opera s production of Turandot. He was also a finalist in both the Norwest Region MONCA and the Houston Grand Opera McCollum Competition. In 2011 he joined the Merola program, and sang the role of Basilio in their production of Il barbiere di Siviglia.
LIEDER ALIVE! Page 6 Mezzo- soprano Jordan McClellan was born in a small town on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. A year later her family moved to Seattle, Washington where she was raised. She was accepted into the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she continues to study with Catherine Cook. Jordan made her professional debut singing Suzuki in Madama Butterfly in 2011 with Kitsap Opera, and finished a three- month tour with Portland Opera Outreach singing Hansel, in Hansel and Gretel. She has participated in Si Parla, Si Canta, and will be participating in Stephen Stubbs' baroque program L accademia d amore, and joining Tacoma Opera s young artist program this Fall through spring of 2013. Soprano Julia Metzler was the 1st place winner of the Pacific Musical Society Competition in 2012, and has won prizes at the National Council Auditions, the Palm Springs Opera Guild, the LA Spotlight Awards, the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts, and the International Franz Liszt Competition. She has participated in master classes with Jake Heggie, June Anderson, Evelyn Lear, and Lenore Rosenberg, as well as with Placido Domingo as part of an HBO miniseries. She made her stage debut in 2011 as Blanche de la Force in Poulenc s Dialogues of the Carmelites. She also took part in I SING BEIJING in 2011, and made her debut at the National Centre for Performing Arts performing traditional Chinese folksongs with the China National Symphony Orchestra. Mezzo- soprano Kindra Scharich has been praised for her rich, lyric voice and agile, expressive acting. Past season operatic engagements include Countess Lydia in Opera San Jose s west coast premiere of David Carlson s Anna Karenina, Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia with Opera San Luis Obispo and LA Opera s Saturday mornings at the Opera series. Further highlights include Handel s Messiah with the Napa Valley Symphony, conducted by Ragnar Bolin, and a spring recital presented by Lieder Alive!. She has also sung Purcell s Dido with San Francisco Urban Opera, Suzuki with West Bay Opera, Cenerentola with Pocket Opera and Cherubino with Mission City Opera. A dedicated recitalist, her season also included a recital presented by the American Composers Forum in Los Angeles, as well as concerts presented by Lieder Alive! ###