EVANSTON, Ill. --- School of Music graduate student Matthew Hanscom, baritone, was awarded First Place in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Central Region Auditions.  He sang  “Nulla! Silenzio!” from Puccini’s Il tabarro and Onegin’s Aria from Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky.  Hanscom will proceed on to the National Semi-Finals that take place on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on March 25, 2007.  Last year, another Northwestern student, bass Paul Corona, won the Central Region auditions and went on to become a Grand Winner. 

A second-year master's student, Hanscom is a student of Bruce Hall and was last year a Council Auditions Regional Finalist. Other awards include the designation 2006 Studio Artist of the Year by Central City Opera Bonfils-Stanton Young Artist Program, appointments to the Austrian American Mozart Academy as well as the Central City Young Artist Program, and a scholarship from the Northshore Musician’s Club.  Hanscom has been heard with Operamoda company in Chicago, singing in both Mark Adamo’s Little Women and Die lustige Witwe, and at Northwestern in the title roles in Verdi’s Falstaff, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, as well as roles in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Menotti’s The Telephone, and the world premiere of T.J. Anderson’s Slipknot.   

The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions is a program designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in the development of their careers. The auditions are held annually in 17 regions in the United States and Canada.  Regional winners proceed to New York to participate in the National Semi-Finals.  Approximately 10 Semi-Finalists are selected as National Finalists, and compete in a public concert where up to five Grand Winners are named who each receive a cash prize of $15,000. The remaining National Finalists receive $5,000 each.  Those singers who were National Semi-Finalists, but did not advance to the National Finals, each receive $1,500 to further their studies.