The Kennedy Center Presents J'nai Bridges in Free Recital Tonight, 9/10

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced that mezzo-soprano J'nai Bridges, recipient of the 2012 Marian Anderson Award-a grant for American singers in mid-career-will perform a free recital in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater tonight, September 10, 2012 at 6 p.m.

Bradley Moore, assistant conductor for the Metropolitan Opera, will accompany Ms. Bridges on piano. The program will include a variety of art songs by Alban Berg, Claude Debussy, and Xavier Montsalvatge, as well as selections from John Carter's Cantata. The concert, part of the Kennedy center Millennium Stage series, will be streamed live and archived for future viewing at www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/.

J'nai Bridges, a young artist on the roster of singers with the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, will appear in the company's season opening performance of Elektra. She will also sing in Simon Boccanegra, Rigoletto, and Cosi? fan tutte. A recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Ms. Bridges also sang with Glimmerglass Opera and Opera North while at Curtis. She is also a winner of the 2010 and 2011 Metropolitan Opera Mid-Atlantic District competitions, recipient of the 2011 Sara Tucker Study Grant, and 2011 winner of the Philadelphia OrchestrAl Greenfield Competition.
In order to perpetuate Marian Anderson's name and her musical and humanitarian accomplishments, The Marian Anderson Award Fund was established at The Fairfield County Community Foundation in 1996 by the Marian Anderson Award Foundation, under the leadership of the late June Goodman-a Danbury, Connecticut friend and neighbor of Marian Anderson. The Award, first bestowed in 1989 by the Marian Anderson Award Foundation, is given to an American singer of great promise who has already achieved some success in opera, in recital, and in the orchestra/oratorio repertory. The Kennedy Center has established a committee of music experts to identify and select the recipients of the Marian Anderson Award who have been nominated by opera companies, orchestral and choral organizations, agents, professional music critics, and other organizations across the country. This year's selection committee included Sarah Billinghurst, JoAnn Falletta, Patricia Racette, Marietta Simpson, and Frederica von Stade.

Prior award recipients include Sylvia McNair (1990), Denyce Graves (1991), Philip Zawisza (1992), Nancy Maultsby (1993), Patricia Racette (1994), Michelle deYoung (1995), Nathan Gunn (1996), Marguerite Krull (1997), Eric Owens (2003), Lawrence Brownlee (2006), Indira Mahajan (2008), and Sasha Cooke (2010).

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