EMERGING ARTISTS [LIVE!] ONLINE
Julia’s concert was recorded live on the Boston Court Pasadena Main Stage on Friday, October 16, 2020. It is available to watch on-demand until October 23.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Los Angeles-based soprano Julia Metzler is an active up-and-coming opera singer and concert soloist. A frequent opera competitor, Ms. Metzler was a 2018 National Semifinalist for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards. Her recent roles include Ma in Proving Up, Matilde Neruda in Il Postino, Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Mrs. P in The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, and Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro. She has been featured by the Los Angeles Master Chorale as a soloist in Handel’s Messiah, Bruckner’s Great Mass, and Bach’s Magnificat.
Ms. Metzler was a 2019/20 Chrisman Studio Artist with Opera Santa Barbara, and in the summers of 2017 and 2018 she was a Vocal Fellow at Music Academy of the West.
In 2011, Ms. Metzler was invited to China to participate in the I Sing International Festival, a summer program designed to introduce western singers to Mandarin as a lyric language. Ms. Metzler has subsequently performed in China many more times, and has sung in concerts of Chinese music across the United States, at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in New York, in Paris, and on Chinese television for the Lunar New Year Gala – the most watched television broadcast in the world.
You can read more about Julia online at juliaheronmetzler.com.
ABOUT THE MENTOR
Lisa Sylvester, coach/pianist/conductor, is vocal coach and teaches courses in Diction, Vocal Repertoire and Accompanying on USC Thornton’s Vocal Arts Faculty. She is also faculty coach at OperaViva!, a summer training program for young singers in Verona, Italy. Sought after as coach and recital collaborator, Ms. Sylvester has also given presentations at the conventions and symposiums of the National Opera Association, National Association Teachers of Singing, Classical Singer, and the Song Collaborators’ Consortia. She has long been associated with the acclaimed Long Beach Opera where she has served as assistant conductor/orchestral pianist in their main stage productions of works by John Adams, Philip Glass, Leos Janacek, Osvaldo Golijov, among others. She also serves as Music Director for LBO’s Educational outreach production of the Diary of Anne Frank by Grigori Frid.
An advocate for new vocal music, Sylvester has been on the creative teams for several new works. She conducted scenes from Julia Adolphe’s So Donia Speaks on Chamber Music Palisades, and was Music Director/Conductor for Teresa Levelle’s aLtered sTates on the RealNewArts Foundation series. She served as assistant conductor for two world premieres produced by First Look Sonoma: Caliban Dreams by Clark Syprynowicz and Daughter of the Red Tsar by Lisa Scola Prosek. She has also performed on several seasons of unSUNg, a summer concert series in Los Angeles sponsored by Lauri Goldenhersch, of Lauri’sList dedicated to vocal works uncommon and new.
PROGRAM
Selections from Songs of Separation (1949)……………William Grant Still (1895-1975)
Idolatry………………………..Poetry by Arna Bontemps
If you should go………….Poetry by Countee Cullen
Poème…………………………Poetry by Phillippe Thoby Marcelin
Selections from Moments in Sonder (2016)…………B.E. Boykin (b. 1989)
Poetry by Maya Angelou
Tears
Greyday
Pearls
Farewell from 4 Apart Songs (2005)…………..Roger Bourland (b. 1952)
Text by James Patrick Kelly
Unread Messages (2020) (world premiere*)…………….Sarah Gibson (b. 1986) and Thomas Kotcheff (b. 1988)
Texts by Gibson and Kotcheff
Sarah Gibson, piano
Thomas Kotcheff, piano
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed…………………Jake Heggie (b. 1961)
Poetry by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Leah Metzler, cello
Selections from Journey of Desire (2016)………..Valerie Saalbach
Texts by Steve Kowit
Behold the Archer’s Skil
In the Morning
When He Pressed His Lips
Sometimes
First Meeting from Geistliche Lieder, Op. 20 No. 5 (1940)………..Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944)
Text by Percy MacKaye
Three Songs of Alexander Zemlinsky……………….Alexander Zemlinsky(1871-1942)
Blaues Sternlein……………….Poetry by Ferdinand Gregorovius
Um Mitternacht………………..Poetry by Julius Rodenberg
The Night Wears Black……………………Juhi Bansal (b. 1984)
Text Adapted from Rumi
Leah Metzler, cello
*Boston Court Emerging Artists Commission
