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CONTACT:
Ellen Schantz, Director of Communications and Marketing
847-491-5726
eschantz@northwestern.edu
PDF version of this statement
Graduate Student Matthew Hanscom Wins Top Award
in 2007 Metropolitan Opera Central Region Auditions
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.
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