Catherine Malfitano, Video Concept Creator and Director Chun-Wei Kang, Music Director and Pianist
Join us “Live on Tape” for a very special evening bringing together 18 students of Catherine Malfitano’s Junior Opera Theater Ensemble at Manhattan School of Music, featuring solo performances by each student, recorded from their homes all around the world.
In the first half of the program, the artists perform a French song or aria, and in the second half, each sings a composition from their country of origin, representing each student’s homeland and family heritage.
These songs represent each student’s roots and culture, and range from traditional and art songs, to pop songs and spirituals — with a special closing song performed as an ensemble.
Sarah Rachel Bacani, Soprano Student of Cynthia Hoffmann Toms River, New Jersey
Cheryl Bains, Soprano Student of Ruth Golden New Delhi, India
Le Bu, Bass-baritone Student of James Morris Yancheng, China
Rayna Mia Campbell, Soprano Student of Shirley Close Belleville, Illinois
Leah Rivka Israel, Mezzo-soprano Student of Ashley Putnam Cape Elizabeth, Maine Ji Yoon Lee, Soprano Student of Catherine Malfitano Seoul, South Korea
Seul Woo Lee, Soprano Student of Joan Patenaude-Yarnell Seoul, South Korea
Zihao Liu, Tenor Student of Marlena Malas Chongqing, China
Luxana Lozano, Soprano Student of Mignon Dunn Guanajuato, Mexico
Mia Rose Ludwig, Mezzo-soprano Student of Catherine Malfitano Anthony, New Mexico
Arthi Nandakamur, Soprano Student of Ruth Golden Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Evangeline Ng, Soprano Student of Joan Patenaude-Yarnell Singapore, Singapore
Christian Ohlenschlaeger, Bass-baritone Student of Mark Oswald Huntington, New York
Katherine Pound, Soprano Student of Catherine Malfitano Erin, Ontario
Margaret Shannon, Mezzo-soprano Student of Maitland Peters Cincinnati, Ohio
Emilie Kealani Suarez, Soprano Student of Joan Patenaude-Yarnell San Francisco, California
José Velazquez Jr., Tenor Student of Mark Oswald New York, New York
Ruini Wang, Mezzo-soprano Student of Cynthia Hoffmann Dalian, China
Soo Min Yoo, Soprano Student of Mignon Dunn Seoul, South Korea
Luxana Lozano, Soprano Student of Mignon Dunn “Fortune ennemie” from Orphée et Eurydice by Christoph Willibald Gluck (Libretto by Ranieri de’Calzabigi)
Zihao Liu, Tenor Student of Marlena Malas
Le secret by Gabriel Fauré (Text by Armand Silvestre)
Rayna Campbell, Soprano Student of Shirley Close
Ouvre tes yeux bleus by Georges Bizet (Text by Paul Robiquet)
Margaret Shannon, Mezzo-soprano Student of Maitland Peters “Va! laisse couler mes larmes” from Werther by Jules Massenet (Libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet, and Georges Hartmann)
Christian Ohlenschlaeger, Bass-baritone Student of Mark Oswald Ici-bas by Gabriel Fauré (Text by René-François Sully-Prudhomme)
Sarah Rachel Bacani, Soprano Student of Cynthia Hoffmann Romance: L’âme évaporée by Claude Debussy (Text by Paul Bourget)
Ji Yoon Lee, Soprano Student of Catherine Malfitano “Frère, voyez ! . . . Du gai soleil” from Werther by Jules Massenet (Libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet, and Georges Hartmann)
Cheryl Bains, Soprano Student of Ruth Golden Automne, by Gabriel Fauré (Text by Armand Silvestre)
Soo Min Yoo, Soprano Student of Mignon Dunn Pierrot by Claude Debussy (Text by Théodore de Banville)
Mia Rose Ludwig, Mezzo-soprano Student of Catherine Malfitano Lamento by Henri Duparc (Text by Théophile Gautier)
Seul Woo Lee, Soprano Student of Joan-Patenaude Yarnell Mandoline by Gabriel Fauré (Text by Paul Verlaine)
Arthi Nandakumar, Soprano Student of Ruth Golden C by Francis Poulenc (Text by Louis Aragon)
Ruini Wang, Mezzo-soprano Student of Cynthia Hoffmann
“Habanera” from Carmen by Georges Bizet (Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy)
Leah Rivka Israel, Mezzo-soprano Student of Ashley Putnam
Hai luli from 6 Mélodies by Pauline Viardot (Text by Xavier de Maistre)
Jose Velazquez, Jr., Tenor Student of Mark Oswald
Adieu, Bessy!, by Hector Berlioz (Text by Thomas Gounet)
Emilie Kealani Suarez, Soprano Student of Joan Patenaude-Yarnell
“Vive amour qui rêve” from Chérubin by Jules Massenet (Libretto by Francis de Croisset and Henri Cain)
Le Bu, Bass-baritone Student of James Morris
“Scintille, diamant” from Les Contes d’Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach (Libretto by Jules Barbier)
Katherine Pound, Soprano Student of Catherine Malfitano
Ouvre ton coeur by Georges Bizet (Text by Louis Delâtre)
II. Roots or Homeland Songs
Cheryl Bains (Indian) Pyaar ke pal (“Moments of Love”) by Leslie Lewis and Mehboob
Christian Ohlenschlaeger (German American) In der Fremde (“In a Foreign Land”) by Franz Schubert
Ruini Wang (Chinese) Mayila (Kazakh folk song)
Zihao Liu (Chinese) Wo Zhu Chang Jiang Tou (“My Sentiment to the Yangtze River”) by Qing Zhu
Soo Min Yoo (Korean) Khot gu reum sok eh (“Clouds of Flowers”) by Hyeung Ryeol Lee
Luxana Lozano (Mexican) Besos Robados (“Stolen Kisses”) by Jorge de Moral
Seul Woo Lee (Korean) Dongshimcho (“The Grass of My Heart”) by Sung Tae Kim
Margaret Shannon (Irish American) Star of the Country Down (Traditional hymn)
Ji Yoon Lee (Korean) Mugok (“Dance Song”) by Yeonjung Kim
Le Bu (Chinese) Si Xiang (“Homesick”) by Huang Zi
Mia Rose Ludwig (Mexican American) Las Mañanitas (“Morning Song”) (Traditional song)
Rayna Campbell (African American) Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing by J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson
Jose Velazquez, Jr. (Puerto Rican/Spanish) Al Amor (“To Love”) by Fernando Obradors
Sarah Rachel Bacani (Filipino) Bayan Ko (“My Country”) by Costanzo de Guzmán
Katherine Pound (Canadian) Fair and Tender Ladies (Traditional ballad, arranged by the Rankin family)
Emilie Kealani Suarez (Filipino) Mutya ng Pasig (“The Muse of Pasig”) by Nicanor Abelardo
Leah Rivka Israel (Jewish American) R’tzei (“Accept”) (Traditional Hebrew prayer)
Arthi Nandakumar (Indian) Azhage, Azhage (“Beautiful, beautiful”) by G. V. Prakash and Na Motthu Kumar
“We are celebrating the cultural diversity of MSM with this evening of song,” explains Catherine Malfitano. “The performances bring us together, while representing where each student is now.”
“This is a tapestry of songs for everyone. We raise our voices with hope.” she says. “Our mission with this concert is to give comfort and love through singing.”
Catherine Malfitano, singer, actor, director, and teacher, was born in New York City to a dancer/actress mother and violinist father. Her Emmy-award winning portrayal of Tosca, broadcast live from the actual Roman settings of the opera, was seen by more than one billion viewers worldwide.
Renowned as a unique music theatre performer, Ms. Malfitano has appeared at all the world’s leading opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, the Bavarian State Opera, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, Berlin’s Deutsche Opera and State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Florence’s Teatro Comunale, the San Francisco Opera, the Netherlands Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Barcelona’s Liceu, the Hamburg State Opera, and Brussels’s Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie.
Catherine Malfitano’s stage repertoire of more than 70 roles spans the entirety of operatic history. Some of her many varied roles were Monteverdi’s Poppea and Ottavia, Donizetti’s Adina and Lucia; Humperdinck’s Gretel; Beethoven’s Marzelline and Leonore; Berg’s Lulu and Marie; Mozart’s Konstanze, Susanna, Zerlina, and Donna Elvira; Rossini’s Rosina and Fiorilla; Janáček’s Katya, Emilia Marty, and Kostelnicka; Massenet’s Manon and Thais; the three heroines in Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann; the three heroines in Puccini’s Il Trittico, as well as his Tosca, Cio-Cio-San, Mimì, Liù, and Minnie; Verdi’s Nannetta, Gilda, Violetta, Amelia Grimaldi, and Lady Macbeth; Poulenc’s Thérèse in Les mamelles de Tirésias and Elle in La voix humaine; Annina in Menotti’s Saint of Bleecker Street; Samuel Barber’s Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra; Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Kurt Weill’s Rose and Anna Maurrant in Street Scene, Polly in Threepenny Opera, Jenny in Mahagonny, and both Anna I and Anna II in The Seven Deadly Sins; and Wagner’s Senta and Kundry. Throughout her career, Ms. Malfitano has worked with the world’s leading conductors and stage directors.
A champion of 20th-century music, she has sung in the world premieres of Carlisle Floyd’s Bilby’s Doll; Conrad Susa’s Transformations; Thomas Pasatieri’s Washington Square, The Seagull, The Family Room, and The Martyrs; and William Bolcom’s A View from the Bridge, McTeague, A Wedding, and Medusa.
In the summer of 2005 Catherine Malfitano made her debut as a stage director, with a new production of Madama Butterfly for the Central City Opera. In the following seasons she also directed new productions of Poulenc’s La voix humaine for La Monnaie in Brussels, Menotti’s The Saint of Bleecker Street and Lucia di Lammermoor, again for Central City Opera, Tosca for Florida Grand Opera, Rigoletto for Washington National, Don Giovanni for San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, Tosca for English National Opera in London, Lucia for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and a new double-bill production of Zemlinsky’s Eine florentinische Tragödie and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi for the Canadian Opera Company.
Since 1998 Ms. Malfitano has been teaching privately, giving master classes worldwide—including her own special course, “Revealing the Actor Singer Within.” She joined the Manhattan School of Music voice faculty in the fall of 2008, where she teaches voice and acting and directs the Junior Opera Theater. It is a great honor for her to teach at MSM, the conservatory she graduated from in 1971, having performed, as an undergraduate, the following roles: Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute; Suzel in Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz; Abigail in The Crucible by Ward; and Manon Lescaut in Boulevard Solitude by Henze.
In the summer of 2019, Ms. Malfitano made a return to the stage in a very special production of Puccini’s Tosca by Christophe Honoré, at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, in the role of the Prima Donna. She sang some, and acted up a storm, in this role of the retired Diva!
Chun-Wei Kang has performed in concerts both as soloist and ensemble performer throughout the United States, Canada, and East Asia. She has appeared on national Taiwanese television in recitals with violinist LongLong Kang, was broadcast in Japan with soprano Monique McDonald, and appeared on PBS SundayArts in a showcase for rising young opera singers. She has won several awards and scholarships, including the Gwendolyn Koldofsky Memorial Award for “a musician who demonstrated outstanding professionalism in collaborative piano.” Ms. Kang has served as staff pianist in the National Music Competition in Taiwan, the Canadian Provincial Festival, the Centro Studi Italiani Opera Festival, and the International Vocal Arts Institute (New York, Virginia, Puerto Rico, and Montreal).
A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music with a Master’s degree, Ms. Kang is a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music, OperaWorks, BridgeMusik, and the Manhattan International Music Festival and has been the Assistant Music Director for the New Choral Society since 2008. At MSM, she served as Music Director for the Opera Role Preparation Workshop directed by legendary mezzo-soprano Mignon Dunn from 2010 to 2017 and was Assistant Music Director for The Tailor of Gloucester. In addition, she was Artistic Director for Creative Voice Institute (Taiwan) and Vocal Coach Asia (Singapore) from 2016 to 2019.
Ms. Kang has appeared on many stages, including David Geffen Hall and Carnegie Hall, and has worked with internationally acclaimed masters such as Anne Epperson, Warren Jones, Nico Castel, Marilyn Horne, Paul Nadler, and Joan Dornemann.
Catherine Malfitano (in pink) and her Junior Opera students in Greenfield Hall, September 2019.
“This is a tapestry of songs for everyone, and we raise our voices in hope. Our mission with this concert is to give comfort and love through singing.” Catherine Malfitano
“This is a tapestry of songs for everyone, and we raise our voices in hope. Our mission with this concert is to give comfort and love through singing.”
Catherine Malfitano
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