Symphony wraps up Classics at INB
The Spokane Symphony’s Classics series will bid farewell to the INB Performing Arts Center Friday night. The INB is a grand place, and conductor Eckart Preu has chosen a monumental work with which to say goodbye – Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem.
Preu will lead 180 singers and instrumentalists in Verdi’s monumental masterpiece. These include a quartet of soloists made up of soprano Mihoko Kinoshita, mezzo-soprano Jan Wilson, tenor Roy Cornelius Smith and baritone Nmon Ford. The Symphony Chorale, directed by Lori Wiest, will perform the work’s choral parts.
Verdi wrote surprisingly few sacred works. His reputation was made with his operas, but he was Italian, and Italian composers were expected to write church music. Verdi, however, was not conventionally religious. The only reason he wrote this Requiem was as a tribute to Alessandro Manzoni, an author whom Verdi admired above all other of his contemporaries.
Manzoni died in 1873. To commemorate the first anniversary of the author’s death, Verdi wrote the Requiem and conducted the first performance in Milan in 1874. The soloists at the first performance were singers who had starred in Verdi’s operas.
For Friday’s concert, Preu has also selected singers noted for their opera performances. Two previously scheduled soloists, tenor Raul Melo and soprano Angela Blasi, will not be performing. Shortly after Melo’s contract was signed, he found his Spokane performance conflicted with his Metropolitan Opera contract. And this week, Blasi fell ill.
Kinoshita was born in Kagoshima, Japan and received much of her training in Italy. The soprano was a winner in several vocal competitions in Italy, receiving second prize in the 2005 Verdi Competition. Noted for her performances in Verdi’s operas, Kinoshita has performed with companies in Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, and Serbia with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Lorin Maazel.
Wilson is also an American-born singer who lives in Manhattan. She has sung with conductors such as Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel and holds degrees from Westminster College and Pennsylvania State University. Wilson studied at London’s Royal College of Music on a Rotary Scholarship. She records for the Centaur label.
Smith hails from Big Stone Gap, Virgina, and recieved his vocal training at the University of Tennessee and at the American Conservatory in Chicago. He has sung leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Lyric Opera in Chicago. He recently performed Verdi’s Requiem in Washington D.C. with the National Symphony.
Ford is a Panamanian-American baritone who received his bachelor’s and masters degrees from the University of Southern California where he was named Outstanding Vocal Arts Graduate. He has sung with the Los Angeles Opera and San Francisco Opera and made concert appearances with the New York Philharmonic and the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. Ford has won two Grammy awards, including Best Classical Recording for his performance in the Naxos recording of William Bolcom’s “Songs of Innocence and Experience.”
After Friday’s concert, the Spokane Symphony will move its Classical series to the newly renovated Fox Theater. The first subscription concerts at The Fox will take place on Dec. 1 and 2, when the symphony changes from a single Friday evening performances to one of Saturday evening plus a Sunday matinee.
In November, the orchestra will celebrate it new home with a group of gala concerts, beginning Nov. 17 with a concert featuring mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. Check the symphony’s Web site www.spokanesymphony.org for details.
Conductor Eckart Preu will join host Verne Windham at Classical Chats, the symphony’s pre-performance conversation, at 12:15 p.m. Thursday, in the council chambers at City Hall. The 30-minute program will be televised on City Channel 5. Preu will discuss Verdi’s Requiem as a part of the Gladys Brooks Pre-Concert Talks series in the INB auditorium at 7 p.m.