The
140-voice Master Chorale of South Florida has announced the
four soloists for its all-Mozart concert. They are soprano Lynn
Eustis from Denton, Texas; mezzo-soprano Hanna Sharene Penn
from Bloomington, Indiana; tenor Stephen Ng from DeLand, Florida;
and baritone Nicholas Pallesen from Gainesville, Florida. Their
biographies are below.
The
Master Chorale’s debut concert will include Mozart’s
Requiem, Te Deum and Ave Verum Corpus. Performances will take
place at 8:00 PM on Friday, March 19, at St. Jude’s Catholic
Church in Boca Raton; at 8:00 PM on Saturday, March 20, at Second
Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale; and at 4:00 PM on Sunday,
March 21, at First United Methodist Church in Coral Gables.
The singers will be accompanied by a 36-piece orchestra comprised
primarily of former Florida Philharmonic Orchestra musicians.
The concert will be conducted by Jo-Michael Scheibe, DMA, artistic
director of the Master Chorale of South Florida.
Advance
tickets at $20 can be reserved by calling the Master Chorale
offices at 954-418-6232, or through the group’s website,
www.masterchoraleofsouthflorida.com.
* * *
The Master Chorale of South Florida is a nonprofit organization
comprised of the best amateur and professional singers in the
region who volunteer their time and talent for the love of choral
music. The primary mission of the Master Chorale is to provide
top-quality concerts of classical works written for chorus and
orchestra to audiences in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach
counties. The Master Chorale strives to be recognized for musicality,
passion and innovative programming, and for fostering in audiences
feelings of joy and excitement that come from hearing superb
performances of the greatest music ever written.
CONTACT: Nancy Gates-Lee
Chair, Marketing Committee
Cell: 206-849-1256
Florida office: 954-545-4059
njgates@att.net
Lynn Eustis, Soprano
Lynn
Eustis performs annually at the Hudebni Festival Vysocina in
the Czech Republic in recitals with pianist Greg Ritchey. She
appears regularly as a soloist with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra,
Concert Royal (New York and Princeton), Atlanta Baroque Orchestra,
Dallas Bach Society, Fort Worth Symphony, Williamsport Symphony
(PA) and the Æxxus Vocal Ensemble (NY). She has performed
more than 30 operatic roles, including the title role in Lucia
di Lammermoor; Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Susanna
in Le nozze di Figaro. In spring 1998, She won first place at
the Florida Suncoast Opera Guild Competition.
Her
oratorio and concert repertoire includes Bach’s St. John
Passion and St. Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s
C Minor Mass and Requiems by Brahms, Faure and Mozart. Recently,
she sang the role of Iphis (Jephtha's daughter) in Handel's
Jephtha under the baton of Graeme Jenkins with the Dallas Bach
Society. She can be heard as the soprano soloist on Klavier
Music Productions' 2003 recording of Carmina Burana (Orff).
In
1999 Dr. Eustis joined the faculty at the University of North
Texas College of Music in Denton as assistant professor of voice.
She holds a Doctor of Music degree in opera from Florida State
University and a Master of Music degree from the Curtis Institute
of Music. Her students have been heard with the Opera Theater
of St. Louis, Central City Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Dallas
Bach Society, and Concert Royal. A native of Long Island, New
York, she is a frequent lecturer on the music of the Holocaust.
Hannah
Sharene Penn, Mezzo-Soprano
Hannah
Sharene Penn enjoys a diverse career as a performer of recital
literature, oratorio and opera. Her operatic roles have included
Augusta Tabor in The Ballad of Baby Doe, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly,
Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Marcellina in The
Marriage of Figaro. She has performed as mezzo-soprano soloist
in Verdi’s Requiem, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion,
and Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt. An advocate
of new music, Ms. Penn performed in the American premiere tours
of John Adam’s El Nino and Sven-David Sandstrom’s
High Mass. She is closely involved with the composition department
at Indiana University and frequently performs songs composed
for her. As a recitalist, Ms. Penn was selected by the legendary
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to participate in his Hugo Wolf seminar
and recital at Carnegie Hall. Last fall, Ms. Penn participated
in a staged recital of Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch
under the direction of the great lieder singer Hakan Hagegard.
Ms.
Penn will receive her Master’s degree in vocal performance
this spring from Indiana University, where she currently teaches
voice. Ms. Penn has studied with Dale Moore and Patricia Stiles,
and coached extensively with the late Leonard Hokanson. A native
of Indiana, Ms. Penn resides in Bloomington with her husband,
violinist/violist Andrew Wickesberg.
Stephen
Ng, tenor
Born
and raised in Hong Kong, Stephen Ng is known as an opera, oratorio,
recital and new music performer. In 1999 he was featured as
the tenor soloist in nine performances of the staged version
of Stravinsky’s Threni, directed by the renowned Peter
Sellars, with Amsterdam’s De Nederlandse Opera. He has
appeared at Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, St. Paul’s Cathedral
in London, the Cultural Centre and City Hall in Hong Kong, and
on the recital series of St. John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong.
As a tenor soloist, Mr. Ng has performed the role of the Evangelist
in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and has sung the St. Matthew
Passion, St. John Passion, B-minor Mass, Magnificat, Bach cantatas,
Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, and Arvo Pärt’s
Miserere. Recent engagements include Charpentier’s Circé
and Le fous divertissant with Magnificat (San Francisco), a
lecture/recital on Janácek’s The Diary of the One
who Vanished, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with the Hong Kong
Sinfonietta, and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and
Strings with Stetson University. His interest in contemporary
music is further shown in his performance of Mario Lavista’s
Missa ad Consolationis Dominam Nostram at the Festival Internacional
Cervantino in Guanajuato, Mexico. Professional engagements have
included performances with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra,
Theatre of Voices, Schönberg Ensemble (Amsterdam), Carmel
Bach Festival, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Indianapolis Chamber
Orchestra, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, and Hong Kong Bach Choir,
working with conductors such as Nicolas McGegan, Paul Hillier,
Reinbert de Leeuw, Anthony Hose and Gennady Rozhdestvensky.
Currently
an assistant professor of voice at Stetson University in DeLand,
Florida, Mr. Ng is a Doctor of Music candidate in voice at Indiana
University. His teachers have included Mollie Rich, Alan Bennett,
Susan Clickner, Irene Gubrud, and Raymond Fu. He received his
Master of Music degree in voice at the New England Conservatory
of Music in Boston and was a Vocal Chamber Music Fellow at the
Aspen Music Festival 1997. His voice can be heard in Carols
Vol. 2 and Arvo Pärt: I am the true vine with Harmonia
Mundi USA, and the Jubilate Deo with the Christian Communications
Ltd. (Hong Kong).
Nicholas Pallesen, Baritone
At
the age of 25, Nicholas Pallesen has already established himself
as one of America’s most promising young vocal talents.
A native of Riverside, CA, Mr. Pallesen has had great success
at local, state, regional, and national vocal competitions.
He is a two-time District Winner and Regional Finalist of the
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, winning in Mississippi
in 2003 and Florida in 2004. In November 2003, he was awarded
second place in the Palm Beach Atlantic National Vocal Competition.
He has also been a national finalist for the Palm Beach Opera,
Mobile Opera, and Suncoast Opera Competitions, as well as a
winner of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS)
Auditions. On the opera stage, Mr. Pallesen appeared in supporting
roles in several operas over three summers with Utah Festival
Opera, as well as singing roles for Utah State Opera.
Mr. Pallesen is also active as a concert soloist, appearing
with choirs and professional orchestras in several states. He
has several oratorios and sacred works to his credit, most notably
an appearance with the National Theater Orchestra of Prague
and the Czech Philharmonic Choir as soloist for Dvorak’s
Te Deum in Smetena Hall in Prague. He will also make his debut
with the Vancouver Symphony in Canada this April.
Mr. Pallesen is conductor of two choirs for the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Gainesville. He is currently
pursuing a vocal performance degree at the University of Florida,
where he studies voice with Dr. Elizabeth Graham. He also studies
conducting with Dr. Will Kesling.
CONTACT:
Nancy Gates-Lee
Chair, Marketing Committee
njgates@att.net
