Tenor Eric Ferring and pianist Madeline Slettedahl perform a program of Schumann, Liszt, Fauré, and Ben Moore in this Facebook Live Exclusive Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert.
Tenor Eric Ferring, a native of Dubuque, Iowa, and first-year member of The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, received his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Drake University and his Master of Music in Opera Performance from The Boston Conservatory. He was a Resident Artist at Pittsburgh Opera for the 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons, appearing as Spoletta/Tosca, Basilio and Curzio/The Marriage of Figaro, Ricky/The Long Walk, Flask/Moby Dick, and Nemorino/L’elisir d’amore. He was also The Protagonist in Douglas J. Cuomo’s one-man opera Ashes and Snow (world premiere, in collaboration with American Opera Projects), based on Wilhelm Müller’s Winterreise poetry. Ferring was a 2017 apprentice singer at The Santa Fe Opera where he received the Richard Tucker Fund Award and where he will return in 2020 for a major role debut. He has also been seen at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (Career Award from the Richard Gaddes Fund for Young Artists), Wolf Trap Opera, and Seagle Music Colony. In 2017/18, Ferring received a Sara Tucker Study Grant from The Richard Tucker Foundation, a Career Grant from The Sullivan Foundation, and Third Prize in the Gerda Lissner Foundation International Voice Competition. This season at Lyric he will perform the Young Servant/Elektra and Giuseppe/La traviata, while also understudying roles in Idomeneo, Il trovatore, Cendrillon, La traviata, and Ariodante.
Pianist Madeline Slettedahl, from Seattle, Washington, is a second-year member of The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago. A 2016 participant at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West and winner of that year’s Marilyn Horne Song Competition, she served as rehearsal pianist for the Academy’s production of The Bartered Bride and OperaFest scenes program. Recent engagements include rehearsal pianist for Menotti’s The Telephone and The Medium at Opera in the Heights and coach/pianist for the 2017 world-premiere workshop of Ricky Ian Gordon’s A House Without a Christmas Tree at Houston Grand Opera. Slettedahl debuted at Carnegie Hall in January 2017 performing in master classes with Dame Felicity Lott and pianist Margo Garrett for Carnegie’s The Song Continues Institute. She has performed world premieres of numerous commissioned works, including “Willows“ by composer-conductor Roger Briggs and “My Life a Lyric Cry” by Greek-Canadian composer Constantine Caravassilis. Slettedahl is an alumna of Rice University (master’s degree, Andre Watts Scholarship, Michael P. Hammond Preparatory Program Olshan Foundation Fellowship Award) and Western Washington University (bachelor’s degree, first prize in the WWU Concerto Competition, Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Piano Competition). Last season served on the Lyric Opera music staff for The Pearl Fishers, and in 2018/19 she will prepare the company’s new production of Siegfried.
Biographies courtesy of the International Music Foundation.