The Monmouth Civic Chorus
Dr. Mark Shapiro, Artistic Director
Close to Perfect, Close to Home

Handel's Messiah

The complete oratorio,with
soloists and chamber orchestra
It won't be Christmas without it!

Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009, 3:00 pm
at the Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank NJ

Soloists in This Performance

Lauren Snouffer, soprano, is a graduate student at The Juilliard School. Ms. Snouffer is a recent graduate of the Rice University Shepherd School of Music, where she sang the roles of Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Giannetta in L’Elisir d’amore. She is a regular soloist with the Austin-based choral ensemble Conspirare, with whom she recorded the two-time Grammy-nominated Threshold of Night. A New Horizons fellow of the Aspen Opera Theater program, she has sung the role of the Dewfairy in Hansel and Gretel, and has most recently performed the role of Lucia in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia under the baton of Jane Glover. In February of 2010, Ms. Snouffer will sing the role of the Princess in Conrad Susa's opera Transformations as part of the Juilliard Opera Theater. She will also appear as the soprano soloist in Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes with the Artist Series of Sarasota in May.

Mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti is thrilling audiences with her rich, warm timbre, dynamic stage presence and easy vocal production. This coming season she will debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Mercedes in the new production of Carmen, and will sing Mrs. Hobs in Flora at Spoleto Festival USA, as well as Maria Aegyptiaca in Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust with the American Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall. She will also perform Rossini’s Stabat Mater with the Oregon Symphony, and will workshop Two Boys by Nico Muhly, co-commissioned by The Metropolitan Opera. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, this past summer she sang the role of Vera Boronel in Menottii’s The Consul at Glimmerglass Opera.

Captivating audiences with exquisite musicality, commanding stage presence and a voice of arresting beauty and striking magnetism, American tenor Michael Kelly is quickly establishing himself as one of his generation’s finest artists. The 2009 season brought him to the prestigious Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival with concerts of music ranging from Beethoven to Musto. In September he was a semi-finalist in London’s Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition. Subsequent 2009 engagements include Britten’s Canticle I on the Concert for Peace in Houston, a reading of the new opera by Michael Dellaira, The Secret Agent, at the Center for Contemporary Music in New York, tenor soloist in Purcell’s Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day with the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series, and Britten’s St. Nicholas in Houston. He is a graduate of The Juilliard School and the Eastman School of Music.

Baritone Nathan Wentworth was born and raised in Hawai’i. He studied music at the University of North Texas and the University of Memphis. He made his international debut singing Laurent in the French language world premiere of Tobias Picker’s Thérèse Raquin with L’Opéra de Montréal under the direction of Francesca Zambello. Recent engagements include Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Opera Company of Middlebury in Vermont, Pish-Tush in The Mikado with Opera New Jersey and Frédéric in Lakmé with Union Avenue Opera. He has also worked with the Fort Worth Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, American Lyric Theater, Opera North (USA), Glimmerglass Opera, Dallas Opera, Seagle Music Colony, Opera Company of Brooklyn, Anchorage Opera, Hidden Valley Opera, Natchez Opera Festival, Shreveport Opera, Opera Memphis, Mississippi Opera and Théâtre d'Evreux in Evreux, France.