Award-winning composer Jake Heggie presented the final Tichio Vocal Master Class of the 2016-2017 season on Thursday, April 20, 2017, in the Mary B. Galvin Recital Hall.

Heggie coached Bienen School students Eric McConnell, bass; Kaileigh Riess, soprano; Maxwell Seifert, baritone; Kevin Krasinski, baritone; Sam Grosby, tenor; and Gabrielle Barkidjija, mezzo-soprano.

Heggie will return to the Bienen School on June 17 to present the annual convocation address to graduating students. 

About Jake Heggie

Heggie’s latest opera, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” based on the classic Frank Capra movie and written with librettist Gene Scheer, premiered at Houston Grand Opera during the 2016 holiday season. He is currently working on a new opera, based on the Faustian story by Julian Green “If I Were You,” which is set to premiere at the Merola Opera Program in summer of 2019.

Heggie has composed nearly 300 art songs as well as concerti, chamber music and choral and orchestral works, including the “Ahab Symphony.”

He has collaborated as a composer and pianist with such opera-world luminaries as Kiri Te Kanawa, Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Bryn Terfel, Nathan Gunn and Robert Orth.

A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Eddie Medora King Prize from Butler School of Music at University of Texas at Austin, Heggie is a frequent guest artist and master teacher at universities, conservatories and festivals throughout North America. He was the keynote speaker for the 2016 meeting of the National Association of Schools of Music in Dallas.