July 29, 2024
Amphitheater at 8:15pm
Chautauqua School of Music's Music School Festival Orchestra and the Opera Conservatory come together to honor the director of the Opera Conservatory, Marlena Malas, who passed away this past winter.
Timothy Muffitt, Artistic and Music Director
Marlena Malas, Director*
John Matsumoto Giampietro, Interim Director
Jen Pitt, Stage Director
Claudia Catania, Italian Diction Coach
Julius Abrahams & Jinhee Park, Vocal Coaches
Samuel Hollister, David Effron Conducting Fellow
Theo Hayes & Katherine Malone, SAI Winners
Jiyu Kim, Soprano
This performance is made possible in part by The Hultquist Foundation, Inc.
The Chautauqua Community joins the world in mourning the passing of Marlena Malas on December 4, 2023. We honor her more than four decades of leadership and service to our Opera Conservatory. We miss her more than words can say.
Marlena Malas taught at The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music for almost 30 years. Her students can be heard in the world’s major opera houses and concert venues and her graduates also hold teaching positions at many esteemed conservatories and universities worldwide. In addition to Juilliard and her private voice studio, Malas taught on the faculty of The Curtis Institute of Music. She served as a vocal consultant and teacher for the Canadian Opera Company, the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Program, the English National Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the Castleton Festival, the Chicago Lyric Opera Young Artist Program, and also taught voice at the Hartt School of Music. Malas taught singing master classes at the Blossom Music Festival, the San Francisco Opera Center, the Santa Fe Opera, the European Center for Opera and Vocal Studies in Brussels, the Israel Vocal Studies Center, the English National Opera, the Metropolitan Opera National Council, Westminster Choir College, and Rutgers University. Most notably, in 1993, she taught master classes in collaboration with her mentors Joan Sutherland, Richard Bonynge, and Luigi Alva in association with the Sydney Opera House, at their first Opera Symposium.
A native of New York City, Malas, a mezzo-soprano, graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music. She then sang with opera companies including Santa Fe, Boston, Miami, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, San Diego, and Milwaukee, and made appearances with the Marlboro and Casals Festivals as well as concert appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. She is featured on a definitive recording of Brahms’s “Liebeslieder Waltzes” under the direction of Rudolf Serkin and Leon Fleisher.
Overture to The Wreckers, 1906 (9')
-Ethel Smyth (1858 – 1944)
Conducted by Samuel Hollister
Remarks by President of Chautauqua Institution, Michael Hill
Memories on Marlena (a video tribute)
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59 (25')
-Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)
Mir is die Ehre wider fahren
Hab'mir's gelobt
Theo Hayes, mezzo-soprano
Katherine Malone, soprano
Jiyu Kim, soprano
Intermission
I due timidi, 1950 (55')
-Music by Nino Rota (1911 – 1979)
-Libretto by Suso Cecchi d'Amico (1914 - 2010)
Nino Rota’s one-act romantic/comic opera I due timidi is the story of two young people who, having seen each other from across the courtyard, have fallen madly in love and are desperate to find the courage to speak to each other. When calamity befalls Raimondo, namely a window-shutter falling on his head and knocking him out, he feels the need to reveal his emotions to his beloved. What happens next is a charming, bittersweet love story about Raimondo and Mariuccia, who are too shy to speak to each other, too timid to let their feelings be known, and the grim consequences of the failure to communicate our true feelings.
Signora Guidotti - Alessia Vitali
Il Dottore Sinisgalli - Anthony Voiers
Lisa - Claire Coven
Maria - Daisy Sigal
La Madre di Mariuccia - Jaimie Langner
Mariuccia - Jennifer Robinson
Vittorio - Joeavian Rivera
Lucia - Mary Margaret McNeil
Il Narratore - Nicholas Gryniewski
Raimondo - Zhongjiancheng Deng
Una pensionante - Charlotte Jakobs
Violin 1
Maxwell Fairman, concertmaster
Kaitlyn McLaughlin
Kate Nelson
Pavlo Kyryliuk
Laoise Matsumoto
Jaewon Jun
Jameson Darcy
Rachel Zhao
Iris Lin
Blake Armstrong
Ayana Dalley
Miriam Koby
Violin 2
Emma Johnson, principal
Gabriel Roth
Juyoung Lee
Luke Pisani
Zak Chen
Rebekah Geller
Justine Teo
Andrew Maxwell
Juliet Swaim
Hannah Kim
Rose Haselhorst
Hila Dahari
Viola
Kate Reynolds, principal
Adrian Jackson
Casey Lebkicker
Ekaterina Eibozhenko
Jay Lipsutz
Alondra Damian-Noyola
Gordan Liu
Max Wang
Joshua Corwin
Mira Vaughn
Cello
Haozheng Sun, principal
Alexander Bloom
Dylan Jowell
Cal Walrath
Zachary Fung
Alona Sella
Aster Zhang
Alexander Smith
Maggie Slap
Sofia Puccio
Double Bass
Brennen Taggart, principal
Austin Beck
Gregory Galand
Jo Arnold
Anna Mears
Aiden Lobenstein
John Woodward
Flute
Julia Benitez-Nelson
Alexander Lehmann
Mary Miklos
Oboe
Isabel DiFiore
Abagail Espinosa
Ryan Hirokawa
Clarinet
Zih-Syuan Hsiang
Olivia Hamilton
Nathan Kock
Hongbo Liang
Bassoon
Alexander Lake
Benjamin Richard
Derek Schraufstetter
Horn
Alessandra Liebmann
Daniel Kerdelewicz (CSO)
Jenna Stokes
Irene Yi-Hsun Tang
Landon Young
Trumpet
Elijah Leonard
Brandon Richardson
Angel Ruiz
Jamie Walton
Trombone
Alvin Ho
Ethan Lehman
Bass Trombone
Darien Baldwin
Tuba
Ferran Martinez Miquel
Percussion
Jose Diaz
Benjamin Landon
Jake Kundu
Riley Wendt
Harp
Emily Reader
Beth Robinson
Celeste
Karmen Grubisic
The Chautauqua Opera Conservatory is an intensive educational program that seeks to offer the highest caliber of training for the young singer, 18 and older. Under the leadership of Marlena Kleinman Malas*, a select group of singers study, coach and perform in an idyllic setting on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institution in western New York State.
Voice lessons, role preparation, vocal coachings and masterclasses are guided by a full-time staff of voice teachers, coaches and a resident stage director, along with numerous guest artists. Students also have the opportunity to work with and perform the pieces of contemporary composers.
*The Chautauqua Community joins the world in mourning the passing of Marlena Malas on December 4, 2023. We honor her more than four decades of leadership and service to our Opera Conservatory.
Comprised of top-tier students from conservatories and universities in the U.S. and abroad, Music School Festival Orchestra members participate in a variety of musical activities during their summers at Chautauqua including chamber music and private lessons along with their meticulous orchestral training. Alumni from the MSFO can be heard in many of the world’s top orchestras and chamber ensembles and can be found on music faculties worldwide. The MSFO is led by Artistic Director Timothy Muffitt, who serves as Music Director of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.
Each summer, we enroll 83 of the most promising young instrumentalists from here and abroad to join us for an exciting summer of music making. Our students are typically 18 to 28 and enrolled in (or recently graduated from) undergraduate or graduate studies.
The School of Music at Chautauqua considers orchestral work, private study, and chamber music each to be vital components of the program. The orchestra rehearses daily for the majority of the summer and performs its concerts in Chautauqua’s 4,400-seat outdoor Amphitheater. Other facets of orchestral study include sectionals, repertoire classes and mock auditions all run by our professional faculty. Topics covered include the psychology of auditioning, performance issues/anxiety, and instant feedback providing priceless insight into the professional road ahead.
Resident Faculty
Marlena Kleinman Malas*: Director
John Matsumoto Giampietro: Interim Director
William Burden
Amy Burton
Rachel Calloway
Claudia Catania
Maxine Davis
Jenn Pitt
Matthew Worth
*In Memoriam to Marlena who passed away December 2023*
Guest Faculty
Renée Fleming
Brian Zeger
Coaches
Julius Abrahams
Martin Dubé
Donna Gill
Bénédicte Jourdois
Kanae Matsumoto Giampietro
Jinhee Park
Director, Chautauqua Schools of Performing and Visual Arts
Sarah Malinoski
Schools of Performing & Visual Arts (PAVA) and Arts Education Coordinator
Sam Minardi-Lopez
Administration
Alyssa Shimmel, office assistant
Igor Gersh, resident luthier
Mariana Mathewson-Bernstein, connections coordinator
Instrumental Faculty
Timothy Muffitt, Artistic and Music Director
Aaron Berofsky, Chair of Strings & Violin Faculty
Richard Sherman, Chair of Winds and Brass & Flute Faculty
Kathryn Votapek, Chair of Chamber Music
Pedro Fernandez, Chair of Percussion & Percussion Faculty
Jaren Atherholt, Oboe
Sheila Browne, Viola
Bill Bernatis, Horn
Curtis Burris, Bass
Yevgeny Dokshansky, Clarinet
Eli Eban, Clarinet
Daniel Kerdelewicz, Horn
Brian Kushmaul, Percussion
Owen Lee, Bass
Eric Lindblom, Bass Trombone
Dennis Nulty, Tuba
Nurit Pacht, Violin
Lynne Ramsey, Viola
Mark Robbins, Horn
Beth Robinson, Harp
Jeff Robinson, Bassoon
Brett Stemple, Tuba
Almita Vamos, Violin
Felix Wang, Cello
Micah Wilkinson, Trumpet
Chris Wolf, Trombone
Shannon Hesse, Collaborative Pianist
Akiko Konishi, Collaborative Pianist
Instrumental Guest Faculty
Michael Burritt, Percussion
Scott Hartman, Trombone