Award-winning soprano Kate Royal to perform April 1

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. ? Internationally acclaimed soprano Kate Royal, accompanied by pianist Roger Vignoles, will perform in the Concert Hall of the Kevin P. Mahaney ‘84 Center for the Arts on Tuesday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. The evening’s program includes selections from Debussy, Strauss, Granados, Rodrigo and Canteloube.

According to reviewers worldwide, Royal is in the early stages of what seems likely to be a brilliant career. Born in London, Royal studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio. She is a winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award and the 2007 Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artists’ award, and she has sung with many great music legends, such as Sir Simon Rattle at the BBC Proms and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, at Glyndebourne, The Royal Opera House, and the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Other concert performances include Mendelssohn’s “Der Onkel aus Boston” with the Bach Akademie Stuttgart under Helmut Rilling, Mozart’s “Zaide” under Sir Charles Mackerras at the Edinburgh Festival, and her United States debut with Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra under Helmuth Rilling. She has performed operas in the role of Pamina in “Die Zauberflöte,” the Countess in “Le Nozze di Figaro,” and Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

She has recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Manchester Camerata and Schumann’s “Liederkreis” with Graham Johnson for Hyperion. In October 2006, Royal signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics.

Roger Vignoles is one of the foremost piano accompanists of our time. In a distinguished worldwide career he has partnered a long list of eminent artists, from Thomas Allen and Arleen Auger to Sarah Walker, Felicity Lott and Frederica von Stade. Among his first partners was the Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström, and he has toured Europe, the U.S. and the Far East many times with Kiri te Kanawa. With Sarah Walker he has recorded a wide range of repertoire from lieder by Schubert and Schumann to cabaret songs by Britten, Gershwin and others. Other recordings include the Britten Canticles with Anthony Rolfe Johnson and Michael Chance; Mozart with John Mark Ainsley and Joan Rodgers; Tchaikovsky with Joan Rodgers; and Beethoven with Stephan Genz. He has just embarked on a Hyperion project to record the complete songs of Richard Strauss with Christine Brewer.

The performance is sponsored by the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series. The Mahaney Center for the Arts Concert Hall is located on South Main Street (Route 30). Tickets are $15 for general admission and $12 for seniors. For more information, contact the Middlebury College Box Office at 802-443-6433 or www.middlebury.edu/arts.