“Kurt Weill”

Artist Series Concerts of Sarasota presents “Kurt Weill” Stella Zambalis, soprano, David McFerrin, baritone and Joseph Holt, piano at the Historic Asolo Theater on Sunday, June 3 at 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m.

 Soprano Stella Zambalisis a regular guest of leading opera companies throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and South America. Ms. Zambalis has created several new roles including Cherubino in The Ghosts of Versailles for the Metropolitan Opera and The Sorceress in Robert Moran’s Desert of Roses for Houston Grand Opera. On the concert stage she has performed with Houston Symphony, San Francisco and Houston Ballets, the Opera Orchestra of New York, the Little Orchestra Society in New York, and internationally with the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Berlin and the Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra of Berlin. On recordings, Ms. Zambalis may be heard as Juliet in Tchaikovsky’s unfinished work: Romeo and Juliet: Overture Fantasy (completed by Taneyev) with the Moscow Radio and Television Orchestra.

Baritone David McFerrin was praised by The New York Times for his “appealingly textured sound.” McFerrin has sung with the country’s leading opera companies and is a critically acclaimed perormer of concert and recital repertoire. Mr. McFerrin won 2nd place in the 2008 Metropolitan Opera National Council New England Region, and was recently awarded a Richard F. Gold Carrer Gant from the Shoshana Foundation, given annually to promising young American opera singers. He is a former member of the Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist program. He has also been a Young Artist with the Sarasota and Central City opreas, and Completed a two-year residency in the Floirda Grand Opera Studio in Miami.

More than sixty years after his death, Kurt Weill’s music continues to be performed both in popular and classical contexts. In Weill’s lifetime, his work was most associated with the voice of his wife, Lotte Lenya, but shortly after his death “Mack the Knife” was established by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darlin as a jazz standard. His music has since been recorded by many performers, ranging from The Doors, Judy Collins, Lou Reed, Todd Rundgren, to New York’s Metropolotan Opera and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Singers as varied as Teresa Stratas, Ute Lemper, Gisela May, Anne Sofie von Otter, Max Raabe, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Marianne Faithfull have recorded entire albums of his music.

Apart from “Mack the Knife” and “Pirate Jenny” from the Threepenny Opera, his most famous songs include “Alabama Song” from Mahagonny, “Speak Low” from One Touch of Venus, “Lost in the Stars” from the musical of that name, “My Ship” from Lady in the Dark, and “September Song” from Knickerbocker Holiday.

Kurt Weill

Sunday, June 3 at 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Historic Asolo Theater

To purchase tickets call the Historic Asolo Theater at 941.360.7399 or visit the box office from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. daily