Mary Wilson, Soprano
3 pm, Sunday, November 19, 2023
St. John's Church
1670 Route 25 A, Cold Spring Harbor, New York
General Admission Tickets: $30
Student Tickets: $15
R. Timothy McReynolds, piano; Lisa Westervelt, flute; Gergana Haralampieva, violin
About the Program:
Vocal Fireworks! Enjoy an afternoon of music composed by Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart.
About Mary Wilson, soprano
Soprano MARY WILSON has been hailed as one of today's most exciting artists, receiving critical acclaim for a voice that is “lyrical and triumphant, a dazzling array of legato melodies and ornate coloratura” (San Francisco Chronicle). Opera News heralded her first solo recording, Mary Wilson Sings Handel, stating “Wilson’s luminous voice contains so much charisma,” they dubbed her recording one of their “Best of the Year.”
In consistent high demand on the concert stage, she has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Detroit Symphony, Colorado Symphony, Charlotte Symphony, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, National Symphony of Costa Rica, Singapore Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, Virginia Symphony, Alabama Symphony Orchestra, Eugene Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Dayton Philharmonic, Boulder Philharmonic, San Antonio Symphony, Santa Fe Symphony, Colorado Music Festival, IRIS Chamber Orchestra, VocalEssence, Berkshire Choral Festival, and at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. She has frequently worked with conductors Jeffrey Thomas, Nicholas McGegan, Martin Pearlman, Martin Haselböck, Robert Moody, Carl St. Clair, JoAnn Falletta, Giancarlo Guerrero, John Sinclair, Anton Armstrong, and Leonard Slatkin. With the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, she sang the World Premiere of the song cycle “Songs Old and New” written especially for her by Ned Rorem. She was named an Emerging Artist by Symphony Magazine in the publication’s first ever presentation of promising classical soloists on the rise.
An exciting interpreter of Baroque repertoire, “with a crystal clear and agile soprano voice perfectly suited to Handel's music” (Early Music America), Ms. Wilson has repeatedly appeared with American Bach Soloists, Philharmonia Baroque, Musica Angelica, Boston Baroque, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Grand Rapids Bach Festival, Bach Society of St. Louis, Chatham Baroque, Musica Sacra Festival de Quito Ecuador, Baltimore Handel Choir, Florida Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Colorado Bach Festival, Sarasota Bach Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, and the Carmel Bach Festival.
Equally at home on the opera stage, she is especially noted for her portrayals of Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Susannah in Le Nozze di Figaro, and Gilda in Rigoletto. She has created leading roles in North American and World Premiere performances of Dove’s Flight, Glass’ Galileo Galilei, and Petitgirard’s Joseph Merrick dit L’Elephant Man. A National Finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she has appeared with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Minnesota Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Dayton Opera, Arizona Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Memphis, Opera Southwest, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Goodman Theatre.
Ms. Wilson is the Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the highly-anticipated Bach Festival Society of Winter Park Oratorio Competition for young American singers specializing in oratorio repertoire. The inaugural competition is scheduled for February 2025. In addition, she is on voice faculty and leads the Teaching Fellowship Program for the International Performing Arts Institute taking place in Kiefersfelden, Germany, every July.
An accomplished pianist, Ms. Wilson holds vocal performance degrees from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She is an Associate Professor of Voice and Vocal Area Coordinator at the University of Memphis, and resides in Bartlett, Tennessee, with her husband, son, and two dogs. MaryWilsonSoprano.com
R. Timothy McReynolds, piano:
Enjoying a career that embraces art song, opera, chamber music, piano, and cabaret, pianist R. TIMOTHY McREYNOLDS is also active as a piano teacher and vocal coach. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Townsend School of Music at Mercer University. He is a former member of the Voice/Opera faculty of the University of Maryland, School of Music, and the former Principal Coach of Towson University’s Music for the Stage. He has participated as vocal coach/pianist for the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute and the Aspen Music Festival. He was formerly Instructor of Piano at American University in Washington, D.C.
He has toured internationally in concerts, cabarets, and masterclasses in Mexico, Germany, Italy, and Austria, as well as across the United States. He also performed in recital with acclaimed bass-baritone, the late William Warfield. He has been heard with, among others, Delores Ziegler, Michael Mayes, Emily Pulley, Catherine Cook, Isabel Leonard, Timothy Mix, and Corinne Winters. The Washington Post hails him as the “perceptive accompanist”, the Baltimore Sun, as an “excellent pianist”, while the website Classical Journal proclaims him as the “brilliant accompanist” in a recital with mezzo-soprano, Delores Ziegler. He continues his close association as principal pianist with UrbanArias and Vocal Arts DC, both of Washington, D.C. Recent concert venues include the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater and the German Embassy in Washington, D.C., a state tour of Maryland with the Annapolis (MD) Symphony, the Egyptian Embassy Concert Series in Vienna, Austria, and both the Stern Auditorium with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In the Spring of 2012, he played (and sang) the world premiere of Dominick Argento's Cabaret Songs with Linda Mabbs at the University of Maryland. In the summer of 2013, he was invited to play recitals at International ClarinetFest in Assisi, Italy. In January 2015, he was the Artist-in-Residence at Lynn University in Boca Raton, FL. Most recently Dr. McReynolds was the Artist-in-Residence Collaborative Pianist for the Summer Music in Tuscany in Sarteano, Italy and the Pikes Falls Chamber Music Festival in Jamaica, Vermont. He also played a recent recital at the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland, ME, and continues his work as Keyboardist for the Baltimore Symphony and Young Victorian Opera Company of Baltimore.
Dr. McReynolds received his B.M. from Indiana University, M.M. from the University of Michigan, and completed his D.M.A. at the University of Maryland. His teachers have included Edward Auer, Martin Katz, Jeffrey Gilliam, Robert McCoy and Rita Sloan.
He has several recordings with the Grammy-nominated Inscape Chamber Orchestra of Washington, D.C. on the Sono Luminus label. Other recent recordings include Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with tenor Bryce Westervelt, another with the chamber music group, Greenbrook Ensemble, and most recently with tenor Duane Moody, Sur mon Voyage. His concert schedule includes venues in New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Florida, Texas, Vermont, Maine, and Italy. He will continue concerts and recording engagements with the Inscape Chamber Orchestra through the National Gallery of Art in D.C. and UMBC’s Concert Series and more innovative new opera with UrbanArias, D.C.
Director of Music
