Nicole Cabell, soprano.

Click here for more about Nicole!

Donna Loewy, pianist.

In concert, Ms. Cabell performed a set of songs on texts by Langston Hughes at the Metropolitan Museum, sang the Mozart Requiem with the Cincinnati Symphony and David Robertson before joining Master Voices and Ted Sperling at New York’s Alice Tully Hall. In the summer she returned to Tanglewood for the closing concert of the season as the soprano soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Giancarlo Guerrero.

Prior to that, Ms. Cabell performed the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with the Grand Théâtre de Genève, Flavia in Eliogabalo with the Dutch National Opera, the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with Michigan Opera Theatre, and Micaela in Carmen with the Atlanta Opera. Ms. Cabell was also heard in recital at the Frankfurt Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Harris Theater for Music in Dance in Chicago, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, and in Louisville, Kentucky.

In concert, Nicole Cabell performed with the Lake Forest Symphony (Sisters in Song, a joint program with Alyson Cambridge, which was just commercially released by Cedille Records), the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, and in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Cabell’s 2016-2017 season featured her debut as Bess in Porgy in Bess with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, as well as performances of Mimi in La Bohème with the Minnesota Opera and the Cincinnati Opera and of the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with Angers Nantes Opera in France. In concert, she sang Shéhérazade with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Nashville Symphony and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Oregon Bach Festival.

The 2015-2016 season included Ms. Cabell’s debut at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in the title role of Handel’s Alcina and returns to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Violetta in La Traviata, to the Atlanta Opera as Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, to the Michigan Opera Theatre as Mimi in La Bohème and to the Cincinnati Opera in a new role: Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus. On the concert stage, Ms. Cabell performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a solo recital in Baltimore.

Nicole Cabell’s 2014-2015 season included semi-staged concerts of Don Giovanni with Edo de Waart and the Milwaukee Symphony, her Opéra National de Paris debut (and role debut) as Mimi in La Bohème and Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore with the Minnesota Opera as well as a return to Washington Concert Opera as Giulietta in I Capuleti ed i Montecchi. In concert, she was heard with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras no. 5, with the Orchestre National de Lille in Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, with the San Diego Symphony in Strauss’ Four Last Songs, with the London Symphony Orchestra in Debussy’s La Damoiselle Elue, in a Puccini-Strauss gala concert in Hong-Kong, as Bess in an abridged version of Porgy and Bess at Ravinia with Bobby McFerrin, at the Oregon Bach Festival in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, at Bard’s Music Festival in Villa-Lobos’ Forest of the Amazon and at SUNY Potsdam in Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem.

In the previous season Nicole Cabell made some exciting role debuts: first as Violetta in La Traviata with Michigan Opera Theatre (seen again later in the season at the San Francisco Opera), then as Medora in Il Corsaro with Washington Concert Opera. She reprised the role of her triumphant San Francisco Opera debut: Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. In concert, Ms. Cabell made her Paris debut in Poulenc’s Stabat Mater, appeared several times in Spain, first with the Orquesta de Galicia in a Barber/Mahler program, then on tour with the RPO and Charles Dutoit in Poulenc’s Gloria. In London, she was heard with the RPO in the same Poulenc piece as well as with the BBC Orchestra, first in Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915 with Keith Lockhart and later in Elgar’s The Apostles with Sir Andrew Davis. Further concert appearances included duke Ellington’s Sacred Music at Carnegie Hall, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Boston Symphony and Charles Dutoit at Tanglewood, and finally in a Barber/Brahms program in Nashville with GianCarlo Guerrero. Nicole Cabell also appeared in recital in Chicago.

Awards include first place in both the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition and the Women’s Board of Chicago Vocal Competition. Nicole Cabell was a semi-finalist in the 2005 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and earned first place in the American Opera Society competition in Chicago. She is the 2002 winner of the Union League’s Rose M. Grundman Scholarship, and the 2002 Farwell Award with the Woman’s Board of Chicago. Nicole Cabell holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance from the Eastman School of Music.

Donna Loewy, Pianist

Donna Hallen Loewy is Professor of Collaborative Piano at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Ms. Loewy has prepared and accompanied many top prize winners of the National Federation of Music Cubs Artist Competition, NATS Artist Awards, D’Angelo Competition, and the Montreal Concours International de Musique.  She is much in demand as a collaborative pianist and master class teacher, performing frequently throughout the United States.

Ms. Loewy served as the official accompanist for the Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Southern Ohio region for over twenty-five years, and has held similar positions with the International Clarinet Conference, the Congress of Strings, the International Double Reed Society, the Yamaha Young Performing Artists Winners Recital, Tubamania, in Sydney, Australia, and the International Tuba and Euphonium Conference.

Donna has worked as an opera coach with the Israel Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv, the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Italy, the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy, Cincinnati Opera, and Dayton Opera.  Ms. Loewy coached vocal chamber music for the Grandin Festival in Cincinnati yearly, and was Chamber Music Coordinator for the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Italy.

She has also been a faculty coach and pianist at SongFest at Pepperdine U., the Barcelona Festival of Song in Barcelona, Spain, New Music on the Point in Lake Dunmore, Vermont, and Lingua e Canto, in Sant’Angelo in Vado, Italy.  Currently, she serves as a faculty coach at Si Parla, Si Canta, in Arona, Italy, under the leadership of Benton Hess.

With baritone Andrew Garland, presented by the Marilyn Horne Foundation, she performed their first concert of Living American Composers, at Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection, the Modern at Fort Worth, and other important venues.  Composers who have been featured include: Tom Cipullo, David Conte, Jake Heggie, Lee Hoiby, Steven Mark Kohn, Lori Laitman, Thomas Pasatieri, Stephen Paulus, and Jeffrey Wood. Their CD of Steven Mark Kohn’s folk song settings, On the Other Shore,  has garnered much praise.  Their most recent CD, American Portraits, has received much acclaim, and features the premiere recording of Tom Cipullo’s America 1968.

Ms. Loewy is the voice consultant and co-author of the Inner Game of Music Vocal Workbook, written with Barry Green, author of the Inner Game of Music.

PROGRAM

Five Greek Folk Songs…………………Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937)

1. Chanson de la mariée
2. Là-bas, vers l’église
3. Quel galant m’est comparable?
4. Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques
5. Tout gai!

Quatre poèmes hindous…………….Maurice Delage (1879 – 1961)

1. Madras: Une belle
2. Lahore: Un sapin isolé
3. Bénarès: Naissance de Bouddha
4. Jeypur: Si vous pensez à elle

Les Illuminations……………………Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976)

1. Fanfare
2. Villes
3. Phrase – Antique
4. Royauté
5. Marine
6. Interlude
7. Being Beauteous
8. Parade
9. Départ

INTERMISSION

Excerpts from “Canciones Clásicas Españolas”…………Fernando Obradors (1897 – 1945)

1. Al amor
2. Del cabello mas sutil
3. ¿Corazón, porqué pasáis?
4. La mi sola Laureola
5. Chiquitita la novia

Excerpts from “Genius Child”………………..Ricky Ian Gordon (1956 – )

1. Genius Child
2. Kid in the Park
3. To Be Somebody
4. Strange Hurt
5. Border Line
6. My People
7. Joy