Classical Music Festival continues today

The Greencastle Summer Classical Music Festival continues at 7:30 p.m. today with a concert featuring DePauw University voice faculty members Pamela Coburn, Barbara Paré, Caroline Bradely Smith, and Jay White.

Joining the vocal soloists will be pianists Claude Cymerman, Amanda Hopson, and Keith Teepen, clarinetist Randy Salman, violinist Johna Smith, and cellist Eric Edberg. The free concert (the festival is supported by donations from individuals and businesses, including Chief's Restaurant) will be held in the sanctuary of Gobin Memorial United Methodist Church. Fesitval concerts continue every Wednesday evening through Aug.18.

Music by a wide variety of composers will be performed, including works from the Medieval period performed by countertenor White, Richard Strauss songs performed by soprano Coburn, music by Andre Previn and Reynaldo Hahn sung by mezzo-soprano Smith, and soprano Paré performing music by Mozart and Richard Cumming.

"What a spectacular array of vocal performers with international careers," says the festival's artistic director, DePauw cello professor Edberg. "This week is 'Vocal Arts at DePauw,' a week-long camp for outstanding high-school vocalists. We're incredibly fortunate that so many of the DePauw voice faculty are in town and have agreed to perform. This will also be the biggest success in our 'bring someone under 40 to a classical concert' campaign, since the camps students will be attending."

Coburn obtained her voice education at DePauw University, the Eastman School of Music, the Juilliard School in New York and studied lieder with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

In 1980 she was the winner of ARD (German Broadcasting Co.) Competition in Munich, and in 1982 she won a similar competition at the Metropolitan Opera.

Since her striking success as Rosalinde in Strauss' Die Fledermaus 1982 at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich with Carlos Kleiber conducting, American lyric soprano Coburn has held her own among the leading international singers.

She is a regular guest in the most renowned opera houses and concert halls all over the world including appearances at the Vienna State Opera, Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Opera New York, in Munich, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Paris, Toulouse, London and Tokyo's New National Theatre as well as the Salzburg and Richard-Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Coburn has made numerous recordings, among them Gounod's Faust with Sir Colin Davis, Beethoven's Fidelio with Bernard Haitink and Leonore with Marc Soustrot, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and Bruckner's Te Deum with Helmuth Rilling, Mahler's 8th Symphony with Lorin Maazel, Strauss' Gypsy Baron with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lehar's The Merry Widow with Helmuth Froschauer, Verdi's Requiem with Enoch zu Guttenberg, and a DVD of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus on Deutsche Grammophone with the late Carlos Kleiber.

In March 2004 she sang Strauss' Four Last Songs with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, opera arias with the Bahia Symphony, and Beethoven's 9th at the Festival Santo Domingo.

In April, she was soloist with the Marin Symphony (CA) for Fauré's Requiem and Mozart arias. In May, she was the soloist for performances of Beethoven's 9th for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Wolfgang Sawallisch, for whom this concert was his farewell.

Barbara Paré has extensive solo and operatic experience, having performed with a variety of nationally known opera companies, including the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, the Cincinnati Opera Summer Festival, the Ensemble Company of Cincinnati Opera, the Des Moines Metro Opera, and Opera Iowa.

She has recorded Bernard Gilmore's Five Folksongs for Soprano and Band on the Klavier Label, with the Cincinnati Wind Symphony, under the direction of Eugene Corporon. She is active as an adjudicator and clinician for the Indiana State School Music Association (ISSMA), the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), and the Indiana Music Teachers Association (IMTA).

Before joining the faculty at DePauw University, Professor Paré taught at Northern Kentucky University, Florida State University, Western State College, and Simpson College.

Smith, mezzo-soprano and professor of music, has extensive operatic, solo and chamber music experience. An active recitalist, master class clinician and adjudicator (NATS, MTNA, Classical Singer National Competition, ISSMA and Prelude Competition), she has frequently performed with concert organist, Larry Smith, throughout the United States. Smith has performed on and recorded for NPR as well as PBS.

She received a master of music degree in vocal and opera performance from Florida State University and a Bachelor of Music Degree in vocal performance from Converse College. Smith's major teachers have included Virginia MacWatters, Seth McCoy, Pauline Thesmacher, Eugene Talley-Schmitt and Jane Frazier Rolandi.

In spring 2008, she was elected to serve for a second two-year term as the Great Lakes Regional Governor for the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) after previously serving for two years as the District Governor (Indiana) and three years as the Indiana NATS President.

She also serves as Director for Vocal Arts at DePauw, a high school summer camp for vocalists and the Vocal Area Coordinator at DePauw University. She has taught at Indiana University-Bloomington (Visiting Professor of Voice) and Wabash College where she began the first solo voice training program in the school's history. Smith recently was named the Cassel Grubb University Professor, an honor she assumed after completion of being named a DePauw University Distinguished Professor for 2006-2008, which she assumed after the completion of the Martha C. Rieth Faculty Fellowship that previously she had been awarded for 2004 -2007.

Countertenor and Grammy award-winning artist White has been hailed by the press as "most impressive", "displaying beauty and flexibility", and "a voice with a full measure of passion."

He has enjoyed a variety of performing experiences ranging from the works of Bach to Britten appearing with such ensembles as the Washington Bach Consort, the Folger Consort and Santa Fe Pro Musica as well as with members of the Smithsonian Players, Tafelmusik, and the Seattle and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestras.

Sought after as an interpreter of medieval, renaissance and baroque repertoire, he has appeared at national and international early music festivals and has sung under the batons of Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan, Donald Burrows and Bruno Weill.

White sang eight seasons with the internationally acclaimed ensemble Chanticleer, with whom he traveled to over 40 states and 15 foreign countries, appeared in such venues as Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Cleveland's Severance Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY), the National Theatre of Taipei (Taiwan), performed at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Interlochen, Schleswig-Holstein, and Brisbane (Australia) Music Festivals, and shared the stage with Frederica von Stade, Dawn Upshaw, the San Antonio, Atlanta, and Virginia Symphonies, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.

No stranger to the recording process, White's discography includes Chanticleer's two GRAMMY® Award-winning recordings and recordings on the Angel/EMI, Focus, New Albion, and Teldec labels. He has also been heard on National Public Radio and Public Radio International programs such as Harmonia, St. Paul Sunday, Around New York, Weekend Edition Sunday, and Performance Today as well as radio broadcasts in eight foreign countries.

Having received his training at the Early Music Institute of Indiana University and the School of Music at the University of Maryland, White has taught at the University of Maryland, Columbia Union College (MD), the University of Delaware and is currently an Assistant Professor of Voice, teaching applied voice and related subjects.