PSC Brahms Program - Portland Symphonic choir

Biographies
Steven Zopfi
Hailed as one of the leading young conductors
in the Pacific Northwest, Steven Zopfi
serves as Director of Choral Activities at the
University of Puget Sound and is the Artistic
Director and Conductor of the Portland
Symphonic Choir, the official chorus of the
Oregon Symphony. Critics have hailed his
work as “magical” and “superb,” and choirs
under his direction have been invited to
sing at the local and regional conventions of
the American Choral Director’s Association,
the Music Educator’s National Conference,
and other professional organizations. Zopfi
has served on the faculties of Penn State
University, the University of Washington, and Pacific Lutheran University.
Zopfi, a native of New Jersey, attended the Hartt School of Music and the
University of California at Irvine, and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree
from the University of Colorado. He has served as Vermont State President of
the American Choral Directors Association and on the executive boards of the
Vermont Music Educators Association and the Washington Choral Director’s
Association. He has prepared choruses for Carlos Kalmar, Bernard Labadie,
Alastair Willis, Murray Sidlin, and Peter Schickele. He has sung for many
leading conductors, including Robert Shaw and Sir David Willcocks. Zopfi
has performed with the Prague Philharmonic, the Colorado Symphony, and
the New Jersey Symphony. He is the founder and past Artistic Director of The
Foundling Hospital Singers, The Boulder Schola Cantorum, The Grace Chamber
Orchestra, and The Portland Sinfonietta.
Active as an editor of early music, Zopfi is also a passionate advocate for new
music. He has commissioned and conducted the world premieres of music by
Edwin Lawrence, Timothy Melbinger, Bryan Johanson, and Judith Zaimont. His
music reviews and articles have been published in The Choral Journal and his
arrangements and editions are published by Colla Voce publishing. Zopfi is in
constant demand as a conductor, adjudicator, and clinician.
Dominique Labelle
Soprano Dominique Labelle, whose voice
has been called “angelic,” “silvery,” and
“vibrant,” could easily lay claim to the title
“diva.” Instead, she simply calls herself
a musician, and takes greatest pride not
in her rave reviews, but in her work with
colleagues and in her probing explorations
of the repertoire from the Baroque to new
music.
Throughout her career she has fearlessly
plumbed the technical and emotional depths
of music, turning in performances of “almost
alarming ferocity” (San Francisco Chronicle)
and possessed of “conviction but without exhibitionism” (De Telegraf), that
have “the audience hanging on every note” (Boston Globe). Her legendary
musicianship and passionate commitment to music-making have led to close
and enduring collaborations with a number of the world’s most respected
conductors and composers, most recently Nicholas McGegan, Sir Roger
Norrington, Iván Fischer, Jos van Veldhoven, and the Pulitzer Prize winning
composer Yehudi Wyner. She also treasures her long association with the late
Robert Shaw.
Recent and upcoming engagements include Stravinsky’s Les Noces with the St.
Louis Symphony and David Robertson, Handel’s Messiah with Kent Nagano
and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and with Gerard Schwartz and
the Seattle Symphony Orchestra; Yehudi Wyner’s Fragments from Antiquity with
the Lexington Symphony; and numerous opera and concert performances at the
Göttingen Festival in Germany with Nicholas McGegan, She and Mr. McGegan,
with whom she has recorded and performed extensively, are also collaborating
in performances of Handel’s Orlando, Messiah and Alexander’s Feast, with San
Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and for Haydn’s Seasons with the
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. In January and February 2012, she sang the lead
female role in the modern premiere of Monsigny’s Le Roi et le Fermier for Opera
Lafayette, conducted by Ryan Brown, in performances at the Kennedy Center,
Lincoln Center, and at Versailles.
Her recent appearances with Hungarian conductor Iván Fischer include
the Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro at Teatro Perez Galdos
in Las Palmas and in Budapest, a Bach B-minor Mass in Washington, DC,
and a Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
in Amsterdam. They collaborate again at Carnegie Hall in April 2012 for a
Mozart Requiem with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and in March 2013 on the
St. Matthew Passion.
In addition to her renowned Handel, Mozart, and Bach interpretations,
Dominique Labelle is drawn to contemporary music. She sang Seven Romances
on Poetry of Alexander Blok by one of her favorite modern composers,
Shostakovich, at the Mt. Desert Festival of Chamber Music in Maine in the
summer of 2011. Her recent performance of Britten’s Les Illuminations with the
New England String Ensemble and Susan Daveny Wyner was called “heated”
and “voluptuous” by the Boston Globe. She has performed and recorded John
Harbison’s The Rewaking with the Lydian String Quartet.
Dominique Labelle first came to international prominence as Donna Anna
in Peter Sellars’ daring production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, set in Spanish
Harlem, which she performed in New York, Paris, and Vienna. She has also
won great acclaim for her portrayal of Micaela in Bizet’s Carmen: “You would
have to go back to the young Mirella Freni to find a Micaela to rival the
golden-throated Labelle…her singing is enough to give you religion,” wrote
Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe.
Among her numerous recordings of opera and concert repertoire is
Monsigny’s Le Déserteur, with Opera Lafayette and Ryan Brown (Naxos), with
whom she also performed in Gluck’s Armide at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P.
Rose Hall and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC Of her performance
in the title role, Anthony Tommasini wrote in The New York Times, “Singing
with tender longing one moment and steely determination the next, Ms.
Labelle conveyed Armide’s aching conflicts.” She can also be heard on
recordings on the Virgin Veritas, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, RCA Victor
Red Seal, Koss, Denon, New World, Carus and Musica Omnia labels. Her
recording of Handel’s Arminio (Virgin Classics) won the 2002 Handel Prize.
Born in Montreal and trained at McGill and Boston Universities, Ms. Labelle
enjoys sharing her technical and musical insights with young singers, and has
taught master classes at Harvard University, McGill, Smith College, and the
University of Massachusetts, with more being planned. She lives in central
Massachusetts with her husband and two children. Visit Dominique Labelle
on her website: www.dominiquelabelle.com
Richard Zeller
One of America’s foremost baritones,
Richard Zeller is internationally acclaimed
for both his concert and operatic roles. He
is known for his sonorous dramatic voice, a
compelling stage presence, and outstanding
musicianship.
Zeller’s full 2011/12 season includes
Carmina Buranas with the Buffalo
Philharmonic and Huntsville Symphony, as
well as a Missa Solemnis with the Charlotte
Symphony, Bach’s Magnificat with Winter Park Bach Festival and Beethoven’s
Ninth with the San Diego Symphony.
Season 2010/11 featured a Brahms Requiem with the Jacksonville Symphony,
and an evening of opera arias at the Dvorak Festival in Bohemia, among other
engagements.
Highlights of the prior season included the B minor Mass with Charlotte
Symphony, a Carmina Burana wih Richmond Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Elijah
at Winter Park Festival, the Brahms Requiem with Portland Symphonic Choir,
and an Opera Gala in Lodz, Poland.
During season 2008/09, Mr. Zeller returned to the Scottish Opera, to sing
Germont in David McVicar’s new production of La Traviata, a role he reprised
with Portland Opera in the US. He also performed the title role of Verdi’s