Center for Latter-day Saint Arts Presents Rachel Willis-Sørensen at Zankel Hall
- Date and Venue: April 9th, 2024, at Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York City
- Performance: Rachel Willis-Sørensen’s New York recital debut
- Repertoire: Works by Amy Beach, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jean Sibelius, Richard Strauss, and the world premiere of S. Andrew Lloyd’s Amaranthine
- Tickets: Tickets to hear Rachel Willis-Sørensen’s New York recital debut and the premiere of Amaranthine start at $65 and may be found at www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org.
On April 9th, 2024, at 7:30pm, the celebrated soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen will make her New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall as a guest of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts. Willis-Sørensen is a regular at leading opera houses around the world, from the LA Opera to Opéra national de Paris. She is known for her diverse repertoire ranging from Mozart to Wagner.
In 2021, Rachel signed a multi-record deal with Sony Classical. She released her debut album in April 2022, and her next album one year later. As a Sony Classical artist, she joins a catalog of preeminent musicians like Leonard Bernstein and Yo-Yo Ma. As a female artist operating in the highest echelons of classical music, she achieves a distinction that few others, particularly female singers, have achieved. She is lauded for her distinctive vocal range. Of the American soprano, Le Monde says, “…[She] has without a doubt one of the most impressive voices in the opera world.” Equally at home on the concert stage, Willis-Sørensen has performed Strauss’s Four Last Songs multiple times, most notably at Buckingham Palace for an HRH Prince Charles birthday celebration.
At Zankel Hall, Willis-Sørensen will sing works by Strauss and song cycles by Rachmaninoff, Beach, and more. She will also give the world premiere of S. Andrew Lloyd’s Amaranthine, winner of the 2022 Prize of The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, an endowment created to honor the legacy of Metropolitan Opera mezzo, Ariel Bybee (1943-2018). Willis-Sørensen shares her delight in honoring the legacy of the female opera singer. She also shares her faith tradition with the late mezzo singer. She states, “It is a privilege and an honor to take the stage in celebration of Ariel Bybee, who poured all of her prodigious skill through the lens of her awe-inspiring faith. She produced world-class art in a way that I can only hope to emulate.”
Though her Zankel Hall performance is Willis-Sørensen’s New York recital debut, she will return this fall to the Met to play Leonora in Il Trovatore. Like Willis-Sørensen, Bybee’s dynamic voice found a home with Met audiences, where she sang every season from 1977 to 1995 including fourteen different appearances in Il Trovatore. Bybee pioneered a path as a world-famous singer and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Neylan McBaine, Bybee’s daughter and chair of The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, is thrilled to hear Willis-Sørensen at Carnegie Hall. She says, “This is the kind of evening my mom relished most, elevating our people and the great beauty of the human voice.”
Willis-Sørensen will be accompanied by Tamar Sanikidze, the Sarah and Ernest Butler Professor in Opera at the University of Texas Austin. Sanikidze is no stranger to opera aficionados. She is the director of the Butler Opera Center and the official pianist and chorus master of the Operalia World Opera Competition.
As an active recitalist, Sanikidze has partnered with musicians like Nadine Sierra, Thomas Hampson, Leah Crocetto, Lianna Haroutounian, and Quinn Kelsey. By special invitation, Sanikidze also performed at the White House for President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.
A constellation of strong women is an appropriate roster for composer S. Andrew Lloyd’s New York City debut, whose music is described as “monumental.” A concert organist and composer, and the Bess Hieronymus Endowed Fellow and Assistant Professor of Organ and Composition at the University of Texas at San Antonio, Lloyd credits his life in composition to capable women, specifically his grandmother Lois. He says, “It’s important for me to know where my music all began and to have a reverence for it.”
Both Lloyd’s grandmother and mother are the impetus to his playing the organ. As the winner of the 2022 Prize of The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, Lloyd also reflects on the role of talented women who shape the classical music tradition, including Bybee and Willis-Sørensen.
“I wrote Amaranthine for Rachel. I gave everything I had to these pieces and to writing it for her voice. I think audiences will be able to connect with them–with her–and to feel like it’s home,” says Lloyd. He continues, “I had a beautiful experience writing [it], and in climbing this particular mountain.”
S. Andrew Lloyd’s Amaranthine is a cycle of art songs based on selected poetry from The Hound of Heaven by English poet, Francis Thompson (1859-1907). Lloyd, also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is drawn to Thompson’s 182-line poem written about a sinner wracked with loud torment, forever fleeing God’s voice only to succumb to a divine whisper in the end.
On Monday, April 8, 2024, Willis-Sørensen will also join her mentor, Dr. Darrell Babidge, chair of voice faculty at The Juilliard School, in giving a masterclass to selected vocal students from Brigham Young University and University of Texas San Antonio.
Tickets to hear Rachel Willis-Sørensen’s New York recital debut and the premiere of Amaranthine start at $65 and may be found at www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org. Tickets are also available to purchase at CarnegieCharge (212) 247-7800, carnegiehall.org, or at the Box Office on 57th Street and Seventh Avenue.
dyejo
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