Soprano Marjorie Owens and baritone Quinn Kelsey will be performing in the George London Foundation Series on Dec. 10^th, 2017.

The George London Foundation for Singers, established in 1971, awards promising young opera singers with awards of up to $10,000 to support their budding careers. In 1995 the recital series began in order to give winners of these grants exposure, and often to give them their debut in New York. One season is comprised of three recitals which feature recent winners, sometimes paired with international artists who are often previous George London Award winners, such as Joyce DiDonato, Eric Owens, Stephen Costello, Ailyn Perez, Matthew Polenzani, Christine Brewer, Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Ben Heppner, René Pape, Samuel Ramey, Frederica von Stade, Bryn Terfel and Dawn Upshaw.

Soprano Marjorie Owens has been described by the Washington Classical Review as “intense and refined, an aristocratic presence with a voice of silken softness as well as laser-focused volume that sailed over the massed instruments and chorus.” A Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, this season Owens makes her debut in Hong Kong with the title role of “Aida,” and returns to the roster of the Metropolitan Opera.

Baritone Quinn Kelsey has received much praise for his performance at Oper Frankfurt in the role of “Rigoletto.” A winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2015 Beverly Sills Award, this season Kelsey is singing several roles at Metropolitan Opera, including Peter in “Hansel and Gretel,” and Enrico in “Lucia di Lammermoor.” In August he made his Australian debut to perform in a concert of “Thais” with the Melbourne Symphony. Parterre Box said of his performance with Lyric Opera of Chicago “Quinn Kelsey was superb…. The Hawaiian baritone brought an almost noble quality to the jester, and allowed us to see the depth of his loathing for his job…. Kelsey sang with real elegance and surprising tonal beauty, always avoiding the ‘snarl and bark,’ always playing the emotion through the music.”

This recital, set at The Morgan Library and Museum, will see Owens and Kelsey singing arias from Tchaikovsky, Copland, Strauss, as well as duets “Ciel! Mio padre” from Verdi’s “Aida” and “Wie aus der Ferne” from Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman.”