"During a recent SongFest public master class, the director Peter Sellars was coaching Mishael Eusebio, a poised tenor who told Sellars to call him Mish and brought confident emotion to Aaron Copland’s arrangement of the old American song “The Boatman’s Dance.

Sellars asked that the boatman call be a more droning refrain evoking the placid expanse of the Ohio River, and that Mish “get down” for the song’s high-spirited quickstep chorus. “Do you dance?” Sellars asked. The tenor smiled without otherwise answering.

Repeating the number, Eusebio nonchalantly threw in three or four remarkably polished tap dance steps for the chorus, causing song and singer to come spectacularly to life. Sellars yelled, “Yeeeeesss!” into his mike. Eusebio flashed that same sly smile." Read the full story here:

Congratulations to SongFest 2015 Stern Fellow soprano Marie Marquis who won the Debut Artist Recital Award in Joy of Singing's 2016 competition. SongFest would also like to congratulate finalists and SongFest alumni soprano Danya Katok, tenor Jason Weisinger, and 2016 Professional Fellow tenor Christopher Reames!

Libby Larsen (b. 24 December 1950, Wilmington, Delaware) is one of America’s most performed living composers.  She has created a catalog of over 500 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over 15 operas. Grammy award-winning and widely recorded, including over 50 CD’s of her work, she is constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles, and orchestras around the world, and has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory.

Toi toi to SongFest alumni Emily D'Angelo (2015 Young Artist) and Theo Hoffman (2013 Stern Fellow) in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals this coming Sunday, March 13th at 3pm at the Metropolitan Opera in New York!

SongFest, in collaboration with Hampsong Foundation, the Colburn School, and LA Opera, presents a special Song of America event in Los Angeles, California featuring song settings of poetry by the great American writers Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes. Join SongFest on June 25th for a morning educator workshop, with activities for K-12 teachers on integrating song into their classrooms, followed by an “Honest American” concert at noon featuring Young Artists from SongFest singing songs with texts by Whitman and Hughes. In the afternoon, internationally-renowned baritone, educator, and Hampsong Foundation founder Thomas Hampson will work with young artists at SongFest in a special Song in Dialogue segment, exploring the power of classic American songs as the gateway to a richer knowledge of the cultures, languages, peoples, and events that have shaped American life.

2010 Stern Fellow and current Lindemann Young Artist at the Metropolitan Opera received a rave review in the New York Times for her performance of Lisa in Bellini's "La Sonnambula." Read it here!

SongFest is thrilled to welcome director Peter Sellars for a special masterclass featuring his ground-breaking outlook on music, poetry, and theater. (Date to be announced soon!) Read more about his illustrious career here.

Don't miss SongFest faculty and internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer's riveting insights into the world of song in her recent article at the Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/susanne-mentzer/for-a-song_1_b_8942576.html

SongFest is thrilled to announce that acclaimed pianist and master teacher Roger Vignoles will be joining the SongFest faculty this summer 2016. Roger Vignoles is internationally recognised as one of the world’s most distinguished piano accompanists and musicians of today. He regularly partners the finest singers in major venues around the world and is regarded as a leading authority on the song repertoire. Originally inspired to pursue a career as a piano accompanist by the playing of Gerald Moore, he read Music at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and later joined the Royal Opera House as a repetiteur. He then completed his training with the renowned Viennese-born teacher Paul Hamburger. (read more)

There have been a few wonderfully written tips for successful opera auditions that have circulated on the internet recently thanks to many smart and savvy sources such as Kim Witman at Wolf Trap Opera.

It occurred to me on my third year of hearing SongFest auditions across the country, that just as art song is a slightly different animal than opera, auditioning for art song is a slightly different animal than auditioning for opera, and so perhaps these “6 Tips for a Successful Art Song Audition” might be a helpful addendum cousin to the great opera audition resources that are already out there.

Six young singers have been chosen to participate in the final round of the Young Artist Competition for Performance of Art Song. Finalists include Songfest alumnae soprano Kristina Bachrach, mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, and mezzo-soprano Quinn Middleman, along with bass-baritone Calvin Griffin, soprano Julia Metzler, and bass-baritone Matthew Scollin.

SongFest would like to congratulate director Edwin Cahill and baritone/Masetto Matthew Patrick Morris as well as Leporello understudy/chorus Jeremy Hirsch as well as Zerlina understudy/chorus Mikayla Sager on their recent production of Don Giovanni in New York City. Opera News heralded the production as: "by far the most enjoyable and thought-provoking Don Giovanni New York has heard in many a year: Cahill’s concept proved multi-layered and insightful." And the Huffington Post declared: "one of the best Don Giovannis I have ever seen...

SongFest is thrilled to announce that Pulitzer Prize-winnig composer Shulamit Ran will be writing a new song cycle for our 20th anniversary season this June, thanks to the generous support of the Sorel Organization.