JNSA Benefit Concert

Veronica Williams Is an emerging mezzo-soprano known for her thrilling instrument and “overwhelming authority” on stage. Most recently, Ms. Williams sang with Opera Theatre of the Rockies in Scott Davenport Richards’ Blind Injustice. In the fall season of 2022, she served as a recitalist for the Shivers Fund in Colorado Springs and Castle Of Our Skins in Boston. She also appeared as a background vocalist on Michael Bublé’s Higher tour, and performed the role of The Witch in Chicago Summer Opera’s production of Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel. In February 2022, Ms. Williams made her concert debut with Fort Worth Opera as a soloist in their prestigious Night of Black Excellence series. In 2019, she was personally invited by Maestro Sebastian Lang Lessing to join the San Antonio Symphony as their first ever Singer-In-Residence. As a result, she was the featured soloist in Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony 1, Manuel De Falla’s El Amor Brujo, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky. Ms. Williams received her Master of Music Degree from Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, and her Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Upcoming engagements include: The Messiah with the Austin Symphony Orchestra.

IG: @kollektivkarma.

https://www.veronicacarolynwilliams.com/

Brazilian-Italian-American soprano Asleif Willmer is a young and promising artist hailed as “a most incredible voice” by Arizona Daily Star and a “fully-engaged, fine-voiced singing actor” from La Scena Musicale. She is highly regarded for her captivating stage presence, comedic timing, nuanced artistry, and polished lyric-coloratura soprano voice.

Asleif joins Florida Grand Opera in the 2019-20 season as a Studio Artist and will debut with the company as Zerlina in Don Giovanni. With Florida Grand Opera, Asleif will also cover Kate Pinkerton in Madam Butterfly, Gilda in Rigoletto, and sing Carolina in Il Matrimonio Segreto. Previously, Asleif was a young artist with Opera Saratoga in their 2018 season and has sung several leading roles in the light-lyric and lyric-coloratura repertoire. Highlights include: Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Brevard Music Festival, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Baby Doe in The Ballad of Baby Doe at Brevard Music Festival, Adina in L’elisir d’amore, Despina in Cosi fan tutte, for which she won an AriZoni award for Best Supporting Actress, and the role of Bibi in a new works reading with Beth Morrison Projects for the new opera, Prism by Ellen Reid.

Equally at home in the concert hall and in the recording booth, Asleif is an artist with the GRAMMY-nominated True Concord Voices and Orchestra and is part of their newest album release, “Christmas with True Concord: Carols in the American Voice.” Asleif has also been a featured soloist internationally and nationally with Opera Saratoga, International Vocal Arts Institute in Montreal, Brevard Music Festival, Vianden Music Festival in Luxembourg, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Mount Desert Summer Chorale, and Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra.

She has received top awards from the Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions, Phoenix Opera Southwest Opera Competition, Dorothy Lincoln Smith Competition, Classical Singer Competition, MTNA Competition, Amelia Rieman competition, and has been a finalist for the ASPS Mary Trueman Art Song Competition. Asleif received her DMA in Vocal Performance from Arizona State University under the tutelage of Carole FitzPatrick. (Source: https://trueconcord.org/team/asleif-willmer/)

Bass-baritone Andrew Gilstrap is a first-year member of the 2019-2020 Minnesota Opera Resident Artist Program. His roles this season include The Guardian of Orest in Elektra, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Immigration Officer in Flight, and Masetto in Don Giovanni.

Most recently, Gilstrap has performed on the stage of Wolf Trap Opera, which he attended as a member of the Studio in both 2017 and 2018. There he sang the roles of Usciere (Rigoletto), Gregorio (Romeò et Juliette), andThe Goldsmith (The Juniper Tree), as well as performing in scenes programs. He has also sung as a soloist with several Texan orchestras, including Mercury: Orchestra for the World and the Denton Bach Society; works included Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and a collection of Mexican Baroque Christmas songs. He sang with the National Orchestral Institute as a soloist in their concert Pops Extravaganza: Bernstein at 100.

Gilstrap completed both his degrees (BM, 2016 and MM, 2018) at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music. In his six years there, he sang many roles, but highlights included Mustafà (L’italiana in Algeri), the leading role in the world premiere of Robert Nelson’s School for Scandal, Reverend John Hale (The Crucible), Frère Laurent (Romeò et Juliette), and Guglielmo (Così fan tutte). He is a student of Timothy Jones. (Source: https://mnopera.org/biography/andrew-gilstrap/)

Dominic Armstrong impresses audiences with his musicianship, characterization, and dynamism of repertoire.  A Metropolitan Opera National Council Finalist and winner of the George London Competition, Mr. Armstrong has made important debuts with companies in the United States and internationally.

Past performances have included productions of Tosca (Cavaradossi) with Maestro Emmanuel Plasson in a tour of southern France; a nationwide tour of the US with Mikael Eliasen and Milos Repicky for Curtis on Tour; as well as debuts with LA Opera (Edgar Allen Poe and Cecil Cheshire in Gordon Getty’s Scare Pair), Opera Omaha (Lurcanio in Handel’s Ariodante), Syracuse Opera (Macduff in Verdi’s Macbeth), and the completion of Wagner’s Die Walküre portraying Siegmund with the Miami Music Festival.  Recent highlights include a debut with the Kentucky Opera revisiting the role of Don José, and joining OnSite Opera in New York City, portraying the role of Peter Quint in Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and making his Off-Broadway debut with Lincoln Center Theatre in Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel.  Other milestones include performances with the New York City Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Philadelphia, Opera Colorado, Opera Regio Torino, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Wexford Festival Opera, Ars Musica Hong Kong, Carnegie Hall Presents, Lincoln Center Festival, Chautauqua Opera, Prototype Festival, and many others.

On the concert stage, Dominic has recently joined the Florida Symphony for Michael Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, Kaohsiung Symphony in Taiwan for a New Year’s Concert, Milwaukee Symphony for Bach’s Magnificat, and the Orchestra of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (Svetlanov) and several other Russian orchestras with Maestro Mark Mandarano on a tour celebrating Leonard Bernstein.  In the coming months, Mr. Armstrong will make debuts with both the Amarillo Symphony (Tenor Soloist, Beethoven 9) and the Portland Symphony Orchestra (Tenor Soloist, The Bells, Rachmaninoff).  Other symphonies and orchestras Mr. Armstrong has appeared with include The Russian National Symphony (Brabbins), Philadelphia Orchestra (Nizet-Seguin), Boston Symphony Orchestra (Nelsons), Detroit Symphony (Slatkin), Portland Symphony (Portland, Oregon), Rochester Symphony, Waterbury Symphony, Princeton Symphony, Symphony in C, National Symphony Orchestra, Lansing Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic (Gilbert).

In recital, Dominic has been heard with his consistent partners at The Brooklyn Art Song Society, performing most recently in an acclaimed performance of Janacek’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared with pianist Joel Harder and mezzo-soprano Kate Maroney.  Other recent collaborations include concerts in San Francisco (Lieder Alive), Davis, CA, The Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the series at the La Jolla Athenaeum. Summer of 2019 Dominic made a return to Twickenham Festival in Huntsville, Alabama, where he sang the complete songs of Henrí Duparc with Susanna Phillips and Roman Rabinovich.   Other art song collaborators have included Craig Rutenberg, Mikael Eliasen, Brian Zeger, Rachel AuBuchon, Michael Brofman, Milos Repicky, Shannon McGinnis, Joel Harder, and Wilson Southerland.  In the fall of 2019, an album of Lori Laitman art song will be released featuring Dominic collaborating with Warren Jones and Andrew Rosenberg.

Dominic has worked with many contemporary composers interpreting, creating, and workshopping operas, art songs, and oratorios by John Corigliano (Ghost of Versailles), André Previn (A Streetcar Named Desire), John Musto (The Inspector; Rhoda and the Fossil Hunt), Matthew Aucoin (The Crossing), Harold Meltzer (Beautiful Ohio), Jeremy Gill (A Whitman Portrait), Laurence Siegel (Kaddish), Frédéric Chaslin (Clarimonde), Steven Stucky (The Classical Style), Gordon Getty (Usher House; The Canterville Ghost), Missy Mazzoli (Breaking the Waves), and creating the role of Arthur Dimmesdale in Lori Laitman’s The Scarlet Letter.  He has also participated in American Opera Project’s Composers and the Voice program. (Source: http://www.dominicarmstrong.com/)