Miriam Khalil's Debut Disc Nominated for Classical Album of the Year
“Khalil's performances offer an energy and understanding that make hers a new definitive interpretation of the work.” Ayre: Live, the debut release from Against the Grain Theatre’s new in-house recording label, has been nominated for a 2019 Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year, Vocal or Choral.
January 30, 2019
““Khalil doesn’t so much sing the Argentine-born composer’s material as wholly inhabit it. The fluidity, grace, and seeming ease with which she executes the undulating melodies are stunning...””
Ayre: Live, the debut release from Against the Grain Theatre’s new in-house recording label, has earned a 2019 Juno Awards nomination for Classical Album of the Year, Vocal or Choral. The album has been critically acclaimed for its performances by Lebanese-Canadian soprano Miriam Khalil, who dispatches Osvaldo Golijov’s eclectic song cycle – with elements of Byzantine chant, Sephardic lullabies, Sardinian protest songs, and Arabic, Hebrew, and Christian texts – with aplomb.
Read reviews:
“One of my favourite albums of 2018… it is intimate yet powerful, piercing with emotion and mesmerizing in its tonal expression. The superb chamber ensemble of Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre has a wonderful synergy with the company’s co-founder, soprano Miriam Khalil, a true star of this recording. Her immense range of colours and fascinating vocal transformations made her performance on this album both spectacular and touching.”
The WholeNote
“Khalil doesn't so much sing the Argentine-born composer's material as wholly inhabit it. Khalil's passionate engagement with the material is evident the moment her tremulous voice floats over a delicate foundation provided her by accordionist. The fluidity, grace, and seeming ease with which she executes the undulating melodies are stunning, and without wishing to downplay the magnitude of Golijov's accomplishment, it's her performance that most recommends the recording.”
Textura
“While Khalil’s delivery is unforced and achingly direct, it is far from artless or unpolished. The final movement, “Ariadna en su laberinto,” in particular is a tour de force of effortless virtuosity. Much of the movement is given over to wordless vocalise that traverses the entire compass of Khalil’s voice—she ascends from her lush, velvety lower register to a rhapsodic cantillation over an octave above without missing a beat, delivering the winding, highly ornamented phrases with a graceful fluidity that belies the iron control necessary to execute the extended passage. Ayre’s eclectic sources can feel blocky in their juxtapositions, like buildings from different eras of a city thrown up with no compromise or eye to overall aesthetic cohesion. In Khalil’s rendition, the impression is more of a lived-in landscape, one where tree and grass and hill and oasis have melded together into an intricate network, no one part fully extricable from any of the others. In this way, she makes Ayre feel like a piece for our time…”
Log Journal
“Best Recording of 2018: The clear standout was Miriam Khalil’s extraordinary performance of Golijov’s Ayre. It’s as spine-tingling on record as it was live.”
OperaRamblings
“Khalil’s performance shows her to be more than a singer: she is an elemental force. There are no missteps here… She sings with such tonal surety, such microscopic shading so as to mesmerize and move the listener, [then] rips through the text with ecstatic grunts, wails, menacing caterwauling. Khalil does great things as she leaps into operatic heights and sings long melismatic lines with solid technique and primal force.”
Opera Wire
"Ayre is so relentless in its storytelling that it’s almost exhausting – another emotional wave we can surely ride alongside Khalil, who sings the challenging work with her whole body. Few singers have the stamina or the stylistic palette that Khalil employs throughout Ayre, and it’s even more impressive when one remembers this is a live recording. With Ayre Live, Against the Grain Theatre has christened its new record label with a piece that evades definition, a game in which artistic director Joel Ivany excels. The recording is a nod to the opera collective’s roots, with its spotlight on founding member Khalil, but more importantly, it’s something that will make it into my daily playlist. It’s too bold for background music, too tough to forget after even just one listen."
The Globe and Mail
“The gutsy, political, and hypnotising Ayre Live, performed by Canadian soprano and AtG founding member Miriam Khalil…offers an energy and understanding that make hers a new definitive interpretation of the work. The album is also a bold way for Against the Grain to inaugurate its status as a record label…to lead with Ayre is to lead with a strong message of putting art and diversity first - without compromising on quality.”
Schmopera
Jorge Mejia and An Open Book Nominated for Latin Grammy
Mejia’s “Prelude in F Major for Piano and Orchestra,” from his album An Open Book, was nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
September 20, 2018
Photo by Laura Coppelman
Jorge Mejia’s memoir in music, An Open Book, has been nominated for a Latin Grammy Award. The album comprises 25 preludes for piano and orchestra, with the composer appearing as pianist alongside the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra.
A Steinway Artist, Jorge is a masterful storyteller dedicated to bringing new audiences to classical music. He was recently profiled in Billboard Magazine, graced the cover of Músico Pro Magazine, and was interviewed on WLRN Radio. Immediately following its Miami launch concert, An Open Book was hailed as "an instant classic...a rigorous and eclectic work" by El Nuevo Herald.
Mejia’s “Prelude in F Major for Piano and Orchestra” was nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. The winner will be announced at the 2018 Latin Grammy Awards Show on November 15.
Riders Opera Finalist in NYF Radio Awards
"Monumental and well-crafted…Craig Bohmler's Riders of the Purple Sage can now lay claim to a rightful place in the canon of works about the American West." WFMT's American Opera Series broadcast of Riders has been named a finalist in the New York Festivals Radio Awards.
June 27, 2017
The WFMT broadcast of Riders of the Purple Sage, the world premiere opera written by Olivier Award-nominated composer Craig Bohmler and commissioned by Arizona Opera, aired in 400 cities throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
The broadcast, hosted by Naomi Lewin and co-produced by Kristin Atwell Ford, has now been recognized as a Finalist in the New York Festivals Radio Awards "Best Music Special" category.
Jamie Barton Receives 2017 Beverly Sills Artist Award
The $50,000 prize is awarded annually by the Metropolitan Opera to one of its most promising young singers.
January 31, 2017
“I am truly humbled to be receiving an award given in honor of Beverly Sills, whose lively presence helped opera shine even where classical music previously felt unreachable and elite. Her offstage commitment to cultivating and celebrating homegrown American artistry and her onstage collaborations with people from all walks of art – from “Sills and Burnett at the Met” to “The Muppet Show” and “The Tonight Show” – helped make opera accessible to all and addictive to many. Her ability to communicate an unfolding story with every vocal nuance continues to inspire me – it’s that kind of artistry that moves me as an audience member, and it’s the kind of storytelling I strive for in my own performances. To be not only honored by the Metropolitan Opera but also to become part of a legacy that includes such strong advocates for our art form is one of the greatest honors I can imagine.”
Photo by Jonathan Tichler
See what the New York Times had to say, and read an excerpt from the Metropolitan Opera below:
Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton has been named the winner of the 12th annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera. The $50,000 award, the largest of its kind in the United States, is given to extraordinarily gifted singers between the ages of 25 and 40 who have already appeared in featured solo roles at the Met. The award, given in honor of Beverly Sills, was established in 2006 by an endowment gift from the late Agnes Varis, a managing director on the Met board. Barton, who came to prominence as a winner of the Met’s National Council Auditions in 2007, has distinguished herself in recent seasons with acclaimed Met performances of Adalgisa in Bellini’s Norma, Giovanna Seymour in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, and Fenena in Verdi’s Nabucco. She is currently in rehearsals for her role debut as the witch Ježibaba in Mary Zimmerman’s new staging of Dvořák’s Rusalka, which opens February 2.
The Sills Award was created to help further recipients’ careers, including funding for voice lessons, vocal coaching, language lessons, related travel costs, and other professional assistance. Sills, who passed away in 2007, was well known as a supporter and friend to developing young artists, and this award continues her legacy as an advocate for rising singers. The 35-year-old Barton is the 12th recipient of the award, following baritone Nathan Gunn in 2006, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in 2007, tenor Matthew Polenzani in 2008, bass John Relyea in 2009, soprano Susanna Phillips in 2010, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in 2011, soprano Angela Meade in 2012, tenor Brian Hymel in 2013, tenor Michael Fabiano in 2014, baritone Quinn Kelsey in 2015, and soprano Ailyn Pérez in 2016.
The Atlanta Opera Scores Artistic And Business Wins
The Atlanta Opera’s Silent Night “revealed a company unafraid to move in bold new directions, and with more than enough talent on hand to take a captivated audience along with it into the 21st century."
November 11, 2016
“The Atlanta Opera’s Silent Night revealed a company unafraid to move in bold new directions, and with more than enough talent on hand to take a captivated audience along with it into the 21st century.”
The Atlanta Opera's bold artistic and business moves are earning notice:
- General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun was nominated for an ArtsATL Luminary Award, a commemoration of the passionate, creative and innovative spirit of Atlanta's arts community.
- Behind the scenes, TAO reached a three-year labor agreement with its orchestra, ensuring that the company's growing quantity and quality of productions can be sustained.
- Onstage, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Silent Night was 'a stirring and ambitious performance (ArtsATL), at once 'heart-rending' and 'unforgettable' (AJC.com).
Verismo Clients Featured in "Best of 2015" Round-Ups
Jamie Barton, Corinne Winters, and Amanda Majeski have made round-ups in New York, St. Louis, and Chicago.
December 31, 2015
Verismo clients are popping up in several "Best of 2015" Year in Review lists:
BroadwayWorld.com Best of New York Opera in 2015
Jamie Barton
"Jamie Barton in EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. I was taken with mezzo Barton's velvety, cavernous voice the first time I heard it and it has only become more appealing with every performance, particularly as Anna Bolena's rival Giovanna Seymour."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Year in Review for Classical Music
Corinne Winters
"Canción Amorosa: Songs of Spain. Corinne Winters began her career as a Gerdine Young Artist at OTSL and has built it internationally with the company’s support. This recording is a beautiful selection of miniatures in characteristically Spanish styles."
Chicago Tribune's Best of 2015 in Chicago Classical Music
Amanda Majeski
"Crime and punishment on the operatic stage: Mieczyslaw Weinberg's powerful, Holocaust-themed "The Passenger," [starring Amanda Majeski] in its Midwest premiere at Lyric Opera."