New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Twenty-eight performers selected to compete for a chance to win top prizes of $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000; total prizes to exceed $75,000; an all-star team of musical theater, opera, and Kurt Weill experts to adjudicate semifinals and finals.
Kim H. Kowalke, President and CEO of the Kurt Weill Foundation, is pleased to announce the semifinalists for the 2019 Lotte Lenya Competition.
Lily Arbisser (USA, 32)
Carolyn Bacon (USA, 28)
Brittany Baratz (USA, 32)
Danielle Beckvermit (USA, 26)
Paula Berry (Canada, 25)
Daniel Berryman (USA, 28)
Kyle Bielfield (USA, 31)
Sarah Bishop (USA, 26)
Timothy Bruno (USA, 31)
Jessica Fishenfeld (USA, 27)
Jonathan Heller (USA, 24)
Michael Hewitt (USA, 28)
Jonah Hoskins (USA, 22)
Suzanne Lane (USA, DC, 28)
Claire Leyden (USA, 24)
Trevor
Martin (USA, 30)
Scott McCreary (USA, 29)
Florian Peters (Germany, 31)
Sun-Ly Pierce (USA, 24)
Katherine Riddle (USA, 27)
Claudia Roick (Germany, 30)
Rachel Sparrow (USA, 31)
Maria Vasilevskaya (Russia, 24)
Adam von Almen (USA, 32)
Nyla Watson (USA, 28)
Amy Weintraub (USA, 24)
Jeremy Weiss (USA, 25)
Andrea Wozniak (USA, 28)
In addition to the semifinalists, seven singers received Emerging Talent Awards with a cash prize of $500: Jenna Barbieri (USA, 21), Sondrine Bontemps (USA, 21), Katie Kallaus (USA, 21),
Maxwell Levy (USA, 22), Lee Metaxa (USA, 19), Kaylee Terrell (USA, 19), Elsie Wagner Sherer (USA, 19). Isaac Frishman (USA, 29) received the
Grace Keagy Award for Outstanding Vocal Promise in the amount of $500. The 2019 competition drew 215 applicants from 21 countries and 29 US states and Puerto Rico, each performing a program of four selections totaling no more than fifteen minutes each.
Semifinals take place on 7 and 8 March in New York. Contestants will audition for and be coached by Broadway music director and conductor Andy Einhorn and Tony Award-winning theater, film, and opera composer Jeanine Tesori. They compete for a spot in the finals, which take place on 13 April 2019 in Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY. The finals daytime round and evening concert are both free and open to the public. Additionally, both will be live-streamed for free online viewing, making the entire finals round available to audiences around the world for the first time. The stream will be accessible at https://www.esm.rochester.edu/live/kilbourn/. In addition to top prizes of $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000, discretionary awards ranging from $3,500 to $5,000 recognize outstanding performances of individual numbers or particular aspects of performances. All semifinalists who do not advance to the finals will receive an award of $500.
Total prizes for this year's rounds will again exceed $75,000.
A distinguished roster of musical theater, opera, and Kurt Weill experts will adjudicate both rounds of the competition. This season, Einhorn leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra,
National Arts Centre Orchestra, Tucson Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in concert with Audra McDonald. Most recently he served as the
Music Supervisor and Musical
Director for the Broadway productions of Carousel and Hello, Dolly!, as well as the North American tour of The Sound of Music. Einhorn has served as music director and pianist for six-time Tony Award Winner Audra McDonald since 2011.
Called "the most accomplished female composer in Broadway history," Tesori co-wrote the musical Fun Home, for which she and Lisa Kron won the Tony Award for Best Original Score in 2015. Other major credits include Caroline, or Change, Violet, Thoroughly
Modern Millie, and Shrek, the Musical. She is currently at work with Tazewell Thompson on a new opera, Blue, which will receive its world premiere at the Glimmerglass Festival this summer. In 2018, the Metropolitan Opera announced that is has commissioned Tesori to write a new opera, Grounded, the Met's first ever commission by a woman.
