by Archana Subramaniam by CNB
Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: MONDAY, January 6, 1992 TAG: 9201040299 SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: JEFF DEBELL DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SOPRANO DIDN'T HAVE TO SETTLE FOR JINGLES
Metropolitan Opera star Dawn Upshaw, who once thought she might sing jingles for a living, will appear in concert with the Kandinsky Trio on Tuesday at Roanoke's Upshaw Greene Memorial United Methodist Church.The Grammy-winning soprano will perform four Rachmaninoff songs and seven romances by Shostakovich, all arranged for soprano and piano trio.
For the first part of the program, the Kandinsky will perform Beethoven's "Ghost" trio and Spanish composer Joaquin Turina's "Circulo."
The Kandinsky, which is in residence at Roanoke College, was formed in 1987. Its members are pianist Elizabeth Bachelder, violinist Benedict Goodfriend and cellist Alan Weinstein.
Also, Upshaw will present a two-hour master class Wednesday at 10 a.m. in Olin Recital Hall at Roanoke College. It is open to thepublic. The number to call (between 1 and 5 p.m.) is 375-2333.
Upshaw sang in a family folk group while growing up in the suburbs of Chicago. Her musical interests ran to pop and musical theater, and she considered jingle-singing as a career possibility. Instead, she was to become a leading soprano at the Met and the toast of opera stages all over the world.
Her first extensive exposure to classical music came at Illinois Wesleyan University. "I was studying classical music in my history courses, and I thought it was incredible - a whole new side of music I hadn't been to before," she told a reporter in a 1990 interview.
Upshaw studied two years at the Manhattan School of Music. She was a winner at the 1984 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and was accepted into the Met's Young Artist Development program the same year. In 1985, she won the first prize for vocalists at the Walter Naumberg Competition.
Upshaw's first major role at the Met was in the 1988 production of Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore." She immediately became a star of the Met, especially in the operas of Mozart, and has continued to be in demand not only for opera but at festivals and as a lieder singer, recitalist and recording artist.
A 1990 compact disc featuring her recording of Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," along with material by other composers, won a Grammy and was the best-selling classical CD of the year.
Known for her support of new music, Upshaw has recorded the work of John Harbison, Stephen Albert, Aaron Kernis and (with the Kronos Quartet) Stephen Mackey, among other contemporary composers.
Weinstein, the Kandinsky cellist, praised Upshaw for "the quality of her voice, which is completely unforced, and her wonderful diction and interpretation."
Critics agree. "So completely musical is this young singer that we tended to forget about the voice altogether and hear only what the song was saying," said The New York Times after one Upshaw performance.
Weinstein is a friend of Upshaw and her husband, musicologist Michael Nott. The two men were roommates at the Eastman School of Music with Phillip Lambert, who now teaches music theory at Baruch College in New York.
Lambert did the soprano and piano trio arrangements of the Rachmaninoff songs for Tuesday's concert.
Upshaw has appeared at Roanoke College and in Lexington, but not in Roanoke. Originally set for last October, the concert had to be rescheduled. The uncertainty of January weather leaves him a bit nervous, Weinstein admitted, but Upshaw and the trio decided to go ahead because Tuesday was one of the few open dates in the busy singer's schedule.
"That's why it's at such a weird time," the cellist said. "If there's even a hint of snow around here it's like the Apocalypse or something."
The concert is presented by the Greene Memorial Fine Arts Series in conjunction with The Arts Council of the Blue Ridge.
DAWN UPSHAW AND THE KANDINSKY TRIO 8 p.m. Tuesday, Greene Memorial United Methodist Church, 402 Second St., S.W. Tickets $12 at Mill Mountain Theatre box office (342-5740) and Arts Council of the Blue Ridge (342-5790). Master class 10 a.m. Wednesday, Olin Recital Hall; 375-2333.
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