ওয়াশিংটন বাংলা রেডিও Washington Bangla Radio USA

Washington, D.C., Dec 13, 2011 (Washington Bangla Radio) Dubbed “America's favorite mezzo” by Gramophone magazine, Grammy Award-winning singer Susan Graham captivates audiences with her expressive voice, unusually tall and graceful stature, and engaging acting ability. One of the world’s foremost stars of opera and recital, “it is impossible to take eyes or ears off of Susan Graham whenever she is onstage…once Graham opens her mouth, a listener can only submit to a lustrous voice that abounds in expressive colors,” said The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Graham performs an afternoon recital of works ranging from Purcell to Sondheim presented by WPAS at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Saturday, February 4, 2012.

Born in New Mexico and raised in Midland, Texas (hometown of former First Lady, Laura Bush), Susan Graham studied at Texas Tech University and the Manhattan School of Music. She won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Schwabacher Award from San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program, as well as a Career Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation and was Musical America's 2004 Vocalist of the Year.

Graham’s performance last February in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride at the Met elicited praise from the New York Times, which said, “She started off singing with floating richness, emanating tenderness and hurt in arias with the quiet eloquence of prayer, and gained power and authority as the opera went on.” Graham has also sung that title role at Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Graham’s busy 2010-11 season schedule also included performances at Houston Grand Opera, where she reprised her "breath stopping" (The Independent) portrayal of the Composer in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, and with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She sang Marguerite in Berlioz's Damnation de Faust, a role in which she’d previously been hailed as "terrific" by The New York Times. In France, Graham also opened that season with Chausson, revisiting his Poème de l'amour et de la mer with the Orchestre de Paris. Celebrated as an expert in French music, Graham has been honored by the French government with the title "Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur."

The previous season, Graham sang Mahler's Rückert-Lieder with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony which she also recorded for the orchestra’s own record label. After an October return to the Metropolitan Opera as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Graham portrayed Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Nicholas McGegan on the West Coast. She returned to Lyric Opera of Chicago for her first performances there in Berlioz's Damnation de Faust (a role she had previously performed during the 2008-09 season at the Met and in The Met: Live in HD.) At Houston Grand Opera, she took on the title role in Handel's Xerxes (Serse), singing the famous aria "Ombra mai fù." Graham closed out the 2009-10 season performing Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Andrew Davis.

At home and abroad, Graham has also sung leading roles from the 17th to 20th centuries in the great opera houses of the world, including Milan's La Scala, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Vienna State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Dresden’s Semperoper, and the Salzburg Festival. She created the part of Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking for San Francisco Opera and created leading roles in two Metropolitan Opera world premieres: An American Tragedy by Tobias Picker and The Great Gatsby by John Harbison.

Recent recordings include Un frisson français with pianist Malcolm Martineau, a survey of a century of French song; and her interpretation on EMI Classics of Berlioz's La mort de Cléopatre, recorded with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. Earlier solo CDs include Poèmes de l'amour, with Ravel's Shéhérazade and Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer. Her disc of Charles Ives songs with Pierre-Laurent Aimard won a Grammy, and she received both a Grammy nomination and France’s Maria Callas award for her Dido in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Graham’s complete opera recordings range from Handel's Alcina and Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride to Barber's Vanessa and Heggie's Dead Man Walking.

The Scottish pianist Malcolm Martineau is a favorite with top tier singers around the world, perhaps because of his training as both singer and pianist. Martineau has worked with Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Janet Baker, Ian Bostridge, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Simon Keenlyside, Magdalena Kozena, Dame Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Anna Netrebko, Anne Sofie von Otter, Frederica von Stade and Bryn Terfel, to name a few.

He has presented his own series at St. John’s Smith Square (the complete songs of Debussy and Poulenc), Wigmore Hall (a Britten and Poulenc series broadcast by the BBC) and at the Edinburgh Festival (the complete lieder of Hugo Wolf). He has appeared in the top concert halls throughout Europe, North America (including in New York both Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall), Australia (including the Sydney Opera House) and at the Vienna, Edinburgh, Schubertiade, Munich and Salzburg Festivals.

Recording projects have included Schubert, Schumann and English song recitals with Bryn Terfel (for Deutsche Grammophon), Schubert and Strauss recitals with Simon Keenlyside (for EMI), recital records with Angela Gheorghiu and Barbara Bonney (for Decca), Magdalena Kozena (for DG) and Della Jones (for Chandos), the complete Fauré songs with Sarah Walker and Tom Krause, the complete Britten Folk Songs for Hyperion and the complete Beethoven Folk Songs for Deutsche Grammophon.

This performance is made possible in part through the generous support of the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation. Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Who: Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano Malcolm Martineau, piano

Where: Kennedy Center Concert Hall

When: Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 3 p.m.

Program: Purcell Tell me, some pitying angel Purcell Mad Bess (Bess of Bedlam) Berlioz La Mort d’Ophélie Schubert Heiss mich nicht reden, Schumann So lasst mich scheinen,bis ich werde, Liszt Kennst du das Land Tchaikovsky Nyet tolka tot kto snal (None but the lonely heart) Duparc Romance de Mignon Wolf Heiss mich nicht reden Horovitz Lady Macbeth Poulenc Fiançailles pour rire I. La dame d’André II. Dans l’herbe III. Il vole IV. Mon cadavre est doux comme un gant V. Violon VI. Fleurs Other works announced from stage

Tickets: $25-65 available at www.wpas.org or (202) 785-9727