2014 Program Notes, Book 3 41
Friday, June 27 and Saturday, June 28, 2014
American tenor
GARRETT SORENSON
, a graduate of
Texas Tech University, is winner of the Opera Birmingham
Young Singer Contest, Sorantin Young Artist Award, George
London Foundation Competition and a Sara Tucker Study
Grant, and was a finalist in the Loren L. Zachary Society
Contest for Young Opera Singers. In 2004 he was awarded
a Richard Tucker Foundation Career Grant. He recently
completed an extended run of Terrance McNally’s
Master
Class
onBroadway oppositeTyneDaly, whichwas successfully
transferred to London’s West End. Mr. Sorenson’s extensive
opera credits include the Arizona Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of
Chicago, Canadian Opera Company, West Australian Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Los
Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, and New Orleans
Opera. As a Lindemann Young Artists Development Program graduate, Mr.
Sorenson made his Metropolitan Opera debut with Bellini’s rarely performed
Il
Pirata
, opposite Renée Fleming. His other Met appearances include
Otello
,
Die
Ägyptische Helena
,
Die Feldermaus
,
Ariadne auf Naxos
,
Lucia di Lammermoor
,
Die Frau ohne Schatten
and
Tristan und Isolde
. Mr. Sorenson performed in
Salome
with the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; his other symphonic appearances
include the orchestras of Boston, San Francisco, Houston and Baltimore. As a
concert performer and recitalist, Garrett Sorenson participated in “The Song
Continues,” a week-long series of performances and master classes under the
auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation at Carnegie Hall, as well as concert
appearances in St. Petersburg, Florida. The George London Foundation has also
hosted Mr. Sorenson in recital in New York City.
Bass-baritone
SHENYANG
was born in Tianjin, China
and studied at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He
is also an alumnus of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann
Young Artist Development Program and the Julliard
School Opera Center, and winner of the BBC Cardiff
Singer of the World Competition, Borletti-Buitoni Trust
Award, Montblanc New Voices at Stars of the White Nights
Festival, International Opera Competition in Verona,
Verona
Orfeo
Singing Competition, and Verona
Don
Giovanni
Singing Competition. Shenyang has developed
a career of world-wide scope, with operatic engagements at the Bayerische
Staatsoper, Glyndebourne Festival and Metropolitan Opera (
The Magic Flute
,
La Cenerentola
,
Don Giovanni
,
Rodelinda
,
La Bohème
), concert appearances
with the orchestras of Philadelphia, New York, Cincinnati, San Francisco,
Toronto, Boston, Dallas, Rome, Monte Carlo, Stuttgart and Hong Kong, and solo
recitals in Cardiff, Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York and Salzburg; he performed
Brahms’
Liebeslieder Walzer
with James Levine and Daniel Barenboim at
Carnegie Hall. In his native China, Shenyang has been heard at the National
Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, China National Grand Theatre
in Beijing, Beijing Music Festival, China Philharmonic and China National
Symphony Orchestra, and was Artist-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony
Orchestra in 2011-2012. He made his conducting debut during the 2013-2014
season with the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra in a program of music by
Dvorˇ ák and Smetana. Shenyang gave the world premiere in Beijing of the
orchestral song cycle
Song of Farewell
, written for him by composer Xiaogang
Ye and also performed in Berlin.
