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Joseph Gaines
Joseph Gaines, tenor, is a highly versatile and increasingly sought-after operatic and concert artist. His stage experience includes roles from Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute, Falstaff, L'incoronazione di Poppea, Orpheus in the Underworld, I Pagliacci, Abduction from the Seraglio, Dangerous Liaisons, Euridice, The Ballad of Baby Doe, and Eugene Onegin, among others.
Praised for his beautifully-sung and well-acted interpretations of character roles, Gaines has been described as "such an exuberant performer you couldn't help but smile" (The Minneapolis Star-Tribune). Opera News raved about several of his performances, including Indianapolis Opera's 2007 productions of Falstaff and The Magic Flute.
Opera Today received his Glimmerglass Opera debut as Mercury in Orpheus in the Underworld enthusiastically. His 2008 return to Glimmerglass Opera in Wagner's Das Liebesverbot was variously described as "impressive" (The New York Times), "entertaining" (The Wall Street Journal), and "blessedly cliché-free (Opera Today).
A favorite of critics and audiences on the concert stage, he has been a featured soloist with some of the finest American orchestras, including The Detroit Symphony, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and a number of chamber and baroque ensembles in the United States and abroad. His concert repertoire includes works of Britten, Handel, Bach, Rameau, Scarlatti, Schoenberg, as well as contemporary works, and many others.
Grants and awards include The Sullivan Foundation, The Rotary Foundation, The Anna Sosenko Assist Trust, and Central City Opera's McGlone Award for Outstanding Young Artist.
Gaines studied voice at the University of Houston and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig, Germany. He studies with Leyna Gabriele in New York and is represented by John Miller of Pinnacle Arts Management. A Houston native, Gaines currently resides in Pittsburgh.
Mimi Tung
Mimi Tung, pianist, is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and has performed as a soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra, and others. She taught music at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the St. Louis Music Conservatory, the University of California, and is now on the faculty of the McIntire Department of Music at the University of Virginia.
University Singers & Michael Slon, conductor
Active as a conductor of choral, orchestral, and operatic repertoire, Michael Slon is currently Conductor of the University Singers, Chamber Singers, and recent Interim Conductor of the Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra at the University of Virginia. He also serves as Assistant Professor of Music, and was named a member of the Mead Honored Faculty for 2006-07. Recent repertoire with the choruses has included Mozart's Mass in C minor, the Brahms Requiem, Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem, Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, the Byrd Mass for Four Voices, and a range of shorter a cappella and accompanied works. And after substituting on one hour's notice for a January 2005 performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, Mr. Slon has led the Symphony in performances of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2, Mahler's Symphony No. 4, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, and Copland's Appalachian Spring. Together with former Symphony Executive Director Bill Martin, he also launched the University Singers-CUSO Family Holiday Concerts.
Opera and musical theatre engagements have included a production of Stephen Paulus's The Three Hermits with Buffalo's Opera Sacra, Sunday in the Park with George with the Heritage Repertory Theatre, and The Light in The Piazza with the Heritage Theater Festival, and South Pacific and The Magic Flute with the Ash Lawn Opera Festival, where he served as resident conductor and coach. In addition, he has served as the music director for the Indiana University Theatre and Brown County Playhouse (Indiana), and as an assistant conductor and chorusmaster for the IU Opera Theatre. He also remains active as a guest conductor of honors choirs and orchestras.
Prior to UVA, Mr. Slon served as visiting conducting faculty at the Oberlin Conservatory, and as assistant conductor of Cincinnati's May Festival Chorus, in which roles he prepared and co-prepared choruses for concerts with the Cleveland Orchestra and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. His ensembles have received critical acclaim in The C'ville Weekly, The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Opera News, and have worked with artists including Moses Hogan, Bobby McFerrin, Meredith Monk, and Franz Welser-Möst. Mr. Slon holds degrees from the Indiana University School of Music and Cornell University, where he was named a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He is also a pianist and writer. His first book, Songs from the Hill, was published in 1998.
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