On May 10, 2022, WFMT General Manager George Preston welcomed Ryan Opera Center performers Lunga Eric Hallam, tenor, and Chris Reynolds, pianist; along with ROC director Dan Novak, for an hour of conversation and music.
We’re still soaring from our big day last week, when we welcomed some of Chicago’s leading artists to take part in a daylong celebration of WFMT and the music we’ve been presenting for the last 70 years!
As we look back on WFMT’s 70th birthday, we sit down with George Preston and Oliver Camacho to discuss the commemorative celebration and their plans to kickstart the next 70 years of WFMT.
Rolandi retired from performance in the 1990s, then joined the Ryan Opera Center first as the director of vocal studies (the program’s first), and then the program’s director from 2006-2013.
The Chicago Sinfonietta has over 30 years of experience making classical music relevant, accessible, and reflective of Chicago’s diverse communities. This season, the orchestra is tackling diversity through the lens of joy.
A Verdi and bel canto expert, Lyric’s new music director Enrique Mazzola will open the season with Verdi’s Macbeth and Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, while also conducting contemporary opera Proving Up by Missy Mazzoli later in the season.
2020 was a year of great loss for all; the music world was no exception. As we reflect on the year gone by, WFMT salutes the contributions of artists and friends who died this past year.
Ahead of a free livestream this weekend, the star tenor reflected on his colleagues and career in opera and what he thinks classical music organizations should be doing to better represent their communities.
In March, the ascendant American baritone Edward Nelson took first prize at the 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup, an operatic singing competition hosted in England.
Keeping busy and enjoying great music are some of the best ways to get through COVID-19 quarantining. Ryan Opera Center artists have been doing both in a series of homemade performance videos.
There are baritones, and then there are Verdi baritones. They are the elite performers, athletes among baritones, thrilling their fans with blazing top notes and plumbing the depths of some of the most dramatically complex roles in opera.
Lyric’s 2019-2020 season will include seven mainstage operas (three of which are company premieres), three full performances of Lyric’s new Ring cycle, and the Broadway at Lyric premiere of 42nd Street.
Soprano Whitney Morrison began singing before she could even speak. Through her early years of singing in church, she never thought she would pursue a career in opera. Now, Morrison is one of 12 young artists selected for the 2017/2018 ensemble at Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center. The Ryan Opera Center is one …
