rossini's Stabat Mater - The Grant Park Music Festival

Friday, July 20 and Saturday, July 21, 2012
Soprano Jonita Lattimore, born on Chicago’s South Side,
performed with the Chicago Children’s Choir before winning a
scholarship to attend the Eastman School of Music in Rochester,
New York. She pursued advanced studies at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and with Houston Grand Opera’s
Opera Studio and the Ryan Opera Center for American Artists
at Lyric Opera of Chicago. She is currently on the voice faculty
of Roosevelt University’s College of Performing Arts. Ms.
Lattimore has earned awards in the Birgit Nilsson Competition,
Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, George London Foundation
Competition, and in 2000 was included in the Chicago Sun-Times’ list of “25 Most
Intriguing Chicagoans.” Her appearances have taken her from the Bastille Opera in
Paris, Orquestra Metropolitana of Lisbon, Tonkünstler Orchestra of Vienna, Northern
Israel Symphony, Orchestra della Toscana in Italy and Edinburgh Festival to the
Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, Houston
Symphony, Eugene Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Houston Grand Opera and Lyric
Opera of Chicago. Since making her Grant Park Music Festival debut at the 4th of
July concert in 1998, Jonita Lattimore has returned regularly to perform, including
opening nights of both the Jay Pritzker Pavilion and the Harris Theater in 2004 and
the 2009 premiere of Michael Torke’s Plans, commissioned by the Festival as part of
the city-wide celebration in honor of the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham’s Plan
for Chicago; her most recent Festival appearance was in Michael Tippett’s A Child of
Our Time in July 2010.
Ohio-born mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway gained
international prominence in 2006 when as an apprentice at
the Santa Fe Opera she took over the leading role of Le Prince
Charmant in Massenet’s Cendrillon opposite Joyce DiDonato as
Cinderella. Ms. Holloway’s success led to invitations to appear
with leading opera companies, including the Opéra National de
Bordeaux, Teatro Real (Madrid), Maggio Musicale (Florence),
Glyndebourne (England), Théâtre du Capitole (Toulouse),
Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), Teatro Regio (Parma) and New
National Theatre (Tokyo) overseas, and in the American cities of Dallas, Atlanta,
Minneapolis, Portland, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Tulsa and Washington; she
made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Flora in La Traviata during the 2010-2011
season and returns to the Met stage for Don Carlos in 2012-2013. She has appeared
in concert with the orchestras of Jerusalem (for the premiere of Frédéric Chaslin’s Love
and a Question, composed for her), Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chautauqua, Omaha and
the Bard Music Festival. Ms. Holloway, a graduate of the University of Georgia and
the Manhattan School of Music, was a 2006 winner in Fort Worth Opera’s McCammon
Competition and 2005 First Place Winner of the Georgia Region of the Metropolitan
Opera National Council Auditions. She has also received grants from the Licia
Albanese Puccini Foundation, Liederkranz Foundation and Hugo Ross Foundation, as
well as the Anna Case Mackay Award following her participation in Santa Fe Opera’s
Apprentice Singer Program. These performances mark Jennifer Holloway’s Grant Park
Music Festival debut.
A30 2012 Program Notes, Book 3