Soprano Dawn Upshaw Will Perform with Ithaca College Orchestras

By David Maley, April 15, 2016

Soprano Dawn Upshaw Will Perform with Ithaca College Orchestras

ITHACA, NY—Soprano Dawn Upshaw will make a special guest appearance in a performance by the Ithaca College Symphony and Chamber Orchestras on Sunday, April 24. The 4 p.m. concert in Ford Hall is free and open to the public.

Upshaw will join the Chamber Orchestra for “Folk Songs,” a song cycle by the Italian composer Luciano Berio, then return to sing the final movement of Symphony No. 4 in G major, one of Gustav Mahler’s most profound works, with the Symphony Orchestra.

Both orchestras are directed by Jeffery Meyer. Also on the program is a new work commissioned from Max Grafe, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Combining a rare natural warmth with a fierce commitment to the transforming communicative power of music, Upshaw has achieved worldwide celebrity as a singer of opera and concert repertoire. In 2007 she became the first vocal artist to be named a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, and the following year she was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her acclaimed performances on the opera stage comprise the great Mozart roles as well as numerous new works created for her, including John Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby.”

The concert will be webcast live at www.ithaca.edu/music/live