UNTRAPPED at The Clarice

A guest post by Lee Anne Myslewski

I’m sitting in the beautiful Dekelboum concert hall at the Clarice, on the University of Maryland Campus, listening to an 85-piece orchestra play the overture to Verdi’s Nabucco. (It’s a wonderful way to wake up, for the record!) We’re in rehearsal for a new collaboration with the National Orchestral Institute and Festival. Four of our Studio Artists – sopranos Maria Brea and Ashley Milanese (pictured above), tenor Senhica Klee and baritone Geoffrey Hahn – are making music with Maestro John Morris Russell, Pops Conductor of the Cincinnati Orchestra, and a group of extremely talented collegiate instrumentalists in preparation for this evening’s performance.

NOI+F Director Richard Scerbo and I both went to graduate school at the University of Maryland, and in a conversation several years ago we noticed the similarities between NOI and the Wolf Trap Studio programs: both were committed to finding the best talent in their respective disciplines, and bringing them together for several weeks for focused, high-level music making. With such similar objectives, a partnership seemed like the thing to do!

The singers and orchestra only have two rehearsals to put together a program of opera and music theatre pieces that range from Mozart’s “Dalla sua pace” and the beautiful duet from Delibes’ Lakme to the powerful “Soliloquy” from Carousel and selections from Bernstein’s iconic West Side Story. The energy of these fantastic musicians coupled with the excitement of the opening of the NOI+F season will make for an amazing evening…we hope to see you this evening, Saturday, June 3 in the Dekelboum Concert Hall at the University of  Maryland.

Wolf Trap Opera’s 2017 collaboration with NOI+F is part of UNTRAPPED!