2021 Festival

Edmund Connolly

Edmund Connolly, baritone A native of London, UK, Edmund Connolly studied Music at Robinson College, Cambridge, where he was Organ Scholar. He undertook postgraduate study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the City of London where he studied singing under Professor David Pollard. A year after graduating with his Master of Music degree, Edmund was appointed a Professor of Music Studies at the GSMD, a position he held from 2004-2011. Over recent years Edmund Connolly has forged a career as an opera and concert singer, organist, piano accompanist and conductor, as well as developing a reputation as a private teacher and vocal coach to young professional singers. His students have included young singers preparing roles for companies such as Glyndebourne Festival Opera, English National Opera and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, as well as advanced students from the Guildhall School, the Royal Academy of Music and the Trinity Laban Conservatoire.

Maxine Thévenot

Maxine Thévenot, pianist/organist Saskatchewan-born organist, pianist  and choral conductor Maxine Thévenot enjoys a distinguished international career and has performed throughout Europe, Great Britain, and North America at prestigious churches, concert halls and festivals. Maxine holds degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and Manhattan School of Music, New York, where she was admitted to the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance. She is an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Royal Conservatory of Music and was made an Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, UK for her ‘services to music’ in 2006. Much in demand as a recitalist, Maxine Thévenot has been described by the AGO as performing “with passion and brilliance”, and “…the music thrives with Thévenot’s superb playing and her masterful manipulation of the instrument’s myriad tonal colors”.

Kendra Colton

American soprano Kendra Colton is a versatile singer who performs repertoire from Baroque opera and oratorio to contemporary music. Trained in the United States and Europe she appears regularly in solo recital, in chamber music concerts, and with symphony orchestras. She has sung with conductors Bernard Haitink, Christopher Hogwood, Sir Neville Marriner, Nicholas McGegan, Seiji Ozawa, and Helmuth Rilling and with presenters across the country including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to name a few. Her singing has been described as “touchingly musical” in the NY Times and “skillful and imaginative” in the Boston Globe. Opera News wrote that Ms. Colton is a soprano who sings “with beauty, brightness and poise”.

Ms. Colton has developed a niche for herself in the oratorio and sacred works of Bach (including nearly all of the cantatas), Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Acclaimed not only for her performances of Handel and Mozart operas, she is also recognized as an interpreter of contemporary chamber music and has premiered and recorded numerous works. Works specifically composed for her voice are: Finite Infinity for soprano, oboe, and piano by Peter Child; Uncertainty is Beautiful for soprano and chamber orchestra and The Reckless Heart for soprano and piano by Andy Vores.

Kayo Iwama

American pianist Kayo Iwama has concertized extensively with singers such as Stephanie Blythe, Kendra Colton, William Hite, Rufus Müller, Christòpheren Nomura, Lucy Shelton and Dawn Upshaw throughout North America, Europe and Japan, and has performed in many prestigous venues including the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Tokyo’s Yamaha Hall and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Washington Post has called her a pianist “with unusual skill and sensitivty to the music and the singer” and the Boston Globe has praised her “virtuoso accompaniment…super-saturated with gorgeous colors”.

Miss Iwama is the associate director of the innovative Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where she works alongside artistic director Stephanie Blythe. She has been a faculty member of Songfest, and for over two decades taught at the Tanglewood Music Center. At Tanglewood she also assisted Maestros James Levine, Seiji Ozawa and Robert Spano in major operatic and concert productions in addition to coordinating the vocal program. As a former Boston resident, Miss Iwama was on the faculties of the Hartt School of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music and Boston Conservatory.

John Harbison

Composer John Harbison is among America’s most prominent artistic figures. He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities. Harbison has composed music for most of this country’s premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera (for whom he wrote The Great Gatsby), the Chicago Lyric Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and the Santa Fe and Aspen festivals. His works include five string quartets, six symphonies, a ballet, three operas, and numerous chamber and choral works.