Vocal Arts DC 2025-2026 Season Announcement - 35 Years Of Song.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact: Isabel Randall | Vocal Arts DC | Manager, Communications
communications@vocalartsdc.org | 262.960.6538

Washington, D.C. (May 15, 2025) –  As we anticipate the joy of celebrating our 35th Anniversary season, it is gratifying to realize that Vocal Arts DC has remained true to our original mission of presenting the world’s finest vocalists performing the entire gamut of song literature in intimate recitals that accentuate the beauty of the unamplified voice. We will continue these traditions with friends, both old and new, in our 2025-2026 season.

Soprano Erin Morley and tenor Lawrence Brownlee, two great favorites with DC audiences, open our season with a virtuosic duo recital, “on weekend leave” from the Met, where they’ll be rehearsing to co-star in a revival of Donizetti’s La fille du régiment. They will be joined by a returning friend of Vocal Arts DC, pianist Gerald Martin Moore.

Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke’s November 4 Goin’ Home program, with pianist Myra Huang, jump-starts celebrations of America’s 250th Birthday. Together, Sasha and Myra will perform music by composers from America and around the world who sought artistic refuge on our shores. We’ve engaged the brilliantly gifted composer Jasmine Barnes to write a new song cycle for the occasion.

French tenor Benjamin Bernheim has become today’s coveted epitome of Gallic passion and elegance of expression. He is likewise France’s ambassador to represent the tricolor on important occasions of state, including the reopening of Notre Dame and the internationally televised kick-off of the Paris Summer Olympics. We look forward to his stylings in classic French repertoire with pianist Carrie-Ann Matheson.

Baritone Quinn Kelsey’s program for us on March 1, with pianist Craig Ketter, will reveal his richly burnished sound through a tapestry of English art songs by composers Aaron Copland, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Gerald Finzi. Quinn and Craig’s program includes a sneak peek preview from an upcoming world premiere opera, The Sheltering Tree, from a fellow Hawaiian, distinguished composer Herb Mahelona. 

Bass-baritone Le Bu, 2024 Operalia International Competition Mumbai Winner,  rounds out our festivities in May with our annual Gerald Perman Young Artist Debut Recital, accompanied by Myra Huang at the piano.  A genuine new bass of such quality is rare, so be sure to be there so you can claim you “heard him first.”

Join us this season where together, we will make another 35 years of this unparalleled art form possible!

Sincerely, 

Peter Russell, Artistic Director

Vocal Arts DC