FREE EDUCATION EVENT
Danielle de Niese will lead a free master class on Friday, February 1, at 2 p.m. The master class will be held on the William Jewell College campus in Forbis Recital Hall, Pillsbury Music Center (500 College Hill, Liberty, Mo.) and will include two students from William Jewell College and two high school students from the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s “Ginger Frost Honors Artists” program. This free event is open to the public and is designed to be educational for all who attend.


Single-ticket prices $25 $45 $50 $60 $75

Soprano Danielle de Niese, who sang her 2009 American recital debut for the Harriman-Jewell Series, will return on Saturday, February 2, at 8 p.m. in the Folly Theater (300 W. 12th St.), in downtown Kansas City, Mo. The soprano will be joined by pianist Cameron Stowe for a program of arias and songs by Dowland, Mozart, Handel, Bizet, Delibes, Rossini and Donizetti.

Danielle de Niese has become the darling of critics, dubbed “opera’s coolest soprano” by the New York Times Magazine and called “not just a superb performer, but a phenomenal one” by Opera News. Marie Claire magazine named de Niese to their influential 2011 list of “Women on Top.”

De Niese has been captivating audiences since childhood, when she was a fixture of Los Angeles local television as host of a weekly arts showcase for teenagers and won an Emmy Award at the age of 16. The soprano’s career got off to a prodigious start when, at age 18, she became the youngest singer to enter the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. A year later she made her Met debut as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro in Jonathan Miller's acclaimed new production with James Levine. Soon after came important operatic debuts with the Netherlands Opera, the Saito Kinen Festival, and the Paris Opera, but it was her portrayal of Cleopatra in a David McVicar production of Handel's Giulio Cesare for her 2005 Glyndebourne Festival debut that brought her true international acclaim.

The Australian-born American singer who “looks like a pop diva but sings like a real one” according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, regularly appears on the world’s revered opera and concert stages and has an extensive selection of recordings on the Decca label.

Noted for his spirited and sensitive playing, Cameron Stowe will accompany de Niese on the piano. Stowe's distiguished honors include prizes from the Wigmore Hall International Song Competition, Tanglewood Music Center, and Juilliard. Stowe holds a doctorate from Juilliard with a specialized focus in song and vocal chamber music.