By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Conrad Art Song Competition is not about the money.
Last year the prize money was doubled to a total of $6,500
Everyone likes to win, said Chris Scholl, professor of voice who coordinates the competition. But as a faculty member, he values seeing the musical advances made by the young singers and pianists who compete as duos.
Soprano Ellie Lewis and pianist Luca Albano will split equally the $1,500 first prize..
Certainly, the increased prize money attracted more attention to the 25th Conrad competition. Eight undergraduate vocal-piano duos and nine graduate pairs participated.
The competition is funded by an endowment set up by the ate Dr. Marjorie Conrad. A local physician, Conrad returned to singing later in life.
The greater attraction, said Lewis, a student of Sarah Luebke, was “just to have more opportunities to perform and grow even if we didn’t place and get into the finals. … It was a big challenge with all the pieces.”
Each duo must prepare six songs in at least four different languages and in different styles, including a song by a living composer.
The other winners at Saturday’s event were:
- Lindsay Uhrich, mezzo-soprano and Georgios Kyriazidis, piano, first place graduate division, $1,500.
- Colleen Bur, soprano and Francisca de Castanheiro de Freitas, piano, second place graduate division, $1,000.
- Joicy Carvalho, soprano, and Kyriazidis, piano, third graduate division, $750.
- Audrey Martin, soprano, and Isabella Brill, piano, second place undergraduate, $1,000.
- Ashlyn Slocum, soprano, and Lorenzo Rambo, piano, third place undergraduate, $750.
First place graduate winner, mezzo-soprano Lindsay Uhrich had similar reasons for participating. “Why not take this opportunity to perform in a competition and further my craft?”
The first year graduate vocal performance student who studies with Scholl said this kind of opportunity is what brought her to BGSU.
In looking for graduate schools, she didn’t want to place that would pigeonhole her into opera or chorale singing, or another specialty.
The school does have a reputation as a bastion of contemporary music, but she said, “ I felt it was an environment where anything could be welcomed. There’s an aura of we will support whatever you want to do.”
Uhrich and Kyriazidis collaborated on selecting the songs they would perform.
The goal is to find music “that’s challenging for both myself and the pianist because this is really a collaborative effort. It’s not my own show or my pianist’s own show. It’s really a showcase for both of us together.”
That’s what attracts Kyriazidis to collaborating with a singer. While he also likes performing as a soloist, “I feel collaborating with musicians brings out some sort of music that if you’re alone and playing by yourself you can never do.”
Kyriazidis, who worked with the maximum three singers in the event, all of whom made the finals, studies with Solungga Liu. All the pianists in the finals were Liu’s students.
This is Albano’s second appearance in the winner’s circle this academic year. He won the Competition in Musical performance last December and performed with Bowling Green Philharmonia earlier this year.
The selection of pieces was easy, he said. Lewis presented him with a list of eight or nine songs she’d been working on and he liked them all.
He does have a preference for the pieces in Spanish and Italian. There’s just something about the long melodic lines and harmonies that’s attractive.
The most challenging, though, was “Kling!” by Richard Strauss.
It wasn’t until four days ago that the duo felt they had made the song their own, Lewis said. “It was a huge struggle all semester and was really scary.”
In Saturday’s preliminary round, the judges called for them to perform that as their second piece.
It felt so good, she said, that she and Albano decided to open with it during the finals.
Uhrich and Kyriazidis started with “The Seal Man” by Rebecca Clarke, a piece they both considered their favorite.
The folk-like song is an intense telling of a woman lured to her death by a seal she mistakes for a man. Their dramatic reading helped lift them to victory.
The competition was judged by a three-person panel: Mark Rucker, professor of voice at Michigan State, Dana Zenobi, who teaches voice at Butler University, and Sara Chiesa, visiting faculty in vocal coaching and collaborative piano at Carnegie Mellon.
Chiesa knows the competition well. She placed second in the undergraduate division when she was a graduate student here in 2009. (The division is determined by the academic standing of the vocalist.)
“It’s super special,” she said, and not offered at other schools. What sets it apart is the equal weigh given to the pianist, who she noted are never called simply accompanist. They are equals.
“As a student it was the most exciting day of the year,” she said “It’s good preparation for the real world pressures.”
Chiesa said she spent 10 years in college earning her doctorate. Her years at BGSU, from 2006-2009 as a master’s student studying with Laura Melton, and then one year as a staff pianist, were the best.
“BG was the place I felt most supported,” she said.
It was here that with the encouragement of Scholl and Kevin Bylsma that she decided to focus on vocal coaching. “I’ve never looked back,” she said.
Now she’s thrilled to return. “I’ve been on Cloud 9 since I’ve been here.”
