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News Release

Last modified: Thursday, December 18, 2008

Met audition 2008 ‘star search’ begins at IU Jan. 10

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 18, 2008

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University will host the state's auditions for the Metropolitan Opera National Council in the Musical Arts Center on Saturday, Jan. 10, at 1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Some previous winners of this elite competition, which identifies the best up-and-coming opera singers throughout the nation, are IU alumni Sylvia McNair (1982), Elizabeth Futral (1991), Angela Brown (1997) and Larry Brownlee (2001). Other well-known singers who were selected as past winners include Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Ben Heppner, Jessye Norman, Samuel Ramey, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt and Dolora Zajick.

Judges for this year's competition are Timothy O'Leary, new general director of Opera Theatre of St. Louis; Jane Bunnell, mezzo-soprano; and Brian Zeger, artistic director of Juilliard, representing the Met.

With a total of 30 voice and opera studies faculty members, the Jacobs School of Music has the largest voice department in any university school of music. It has consistently been ranked as the top voice department in the country. The Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater Program produces seven fully-staged operas each year in the Musical Arts Center, which gives students an opportunity to train for the international world of opera.

The following Jacobs School alumni have won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition Competition since 1965:

• 2007 Jamie Barton
• 2005 Jordan Bisch
• 2003 Christina Pier
• 2002 Twyla Robinson
• 2001 Larry Brownlee and Kristine Winkler
• 1998 Kyle Ketelsen
• 1997 Angela Brown
• 1996 Leah Creek
• 1993 Kathryn Krasovec
• 1992 Christopher Schaldenbrand
• 1991 Elizabeth Futral
• 1990 Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet and Clare Mueller
• 1988 Heidi Grant Murphy
• 1986 Mark Baker, Mark S. Doss, Marilyn Mims and Michael Sylvester
• 1985 Stephen Biggers, Richard Cowan and Julia Faulkner
• 1984 Gerald Dolter and Nova Thomas
• 1982 Sylvia McNair
• 1981 Rebecca Cook and Laura Brooks Rice
• 1980 Kevin Langan
• 1979 Jane Bunnell, Robert McFarland and Jan Opalach
• 1978 Wendy White
• 1974 Alma Jean Smith
• 1965 Richard Stilwell

For more information about the Jacobs School of Music, see https://www.music.indiana.edu/.

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