Toledo Opera resident artists Sara Mortensen (soprano), Imara Miles (mezzo soprano), Brendan J. Boyle (tenor), Matthew Payne (baritone), and Steven Naylor (pianist) have arrived in Toledo for the 2022-2023 season.
All five will serve as touring artists for the Opera on Wheels program which travels extensively, visiting local educational institutions and bringing live opera to the furthest reaches of the Toledo area. Annually, the program is performed for 20,000 students from Findlay to Ann Arbor and Sandusky to Archbold.
This season, the traveling production will be a newly adapted children’s opera, which sources its music and story from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. Joshua Borths of Virginia Opera is adapting the score and writing the libretto. James M. Norman, Toledo Opera’s Co-Artistic Director and Director of Production, will direct the production. “Continuing a decades long tradition, I look forward to working with the next generation of opera artists who will call Toledo Opera home next season. This group is absolutely fantastic,” shared Norman.
The five will also perform Toledo Opera’s fifth and sixth installments of Opera Outdoors. Opera Outdoors is a series of pop-up live performances at outdoor community hubs throughout Toledo. Vocal selections from the classical repertoire, along with musical theater and other American standards will be heard in the fall of 2022 and the spring of 2023.
The Resident Artists will also sing smaller roles in Toledo Opera’s mainstage productions of Suor Angelica/Cavalleria, The Merry Widow, and Celebrazione del Coro which are slated for this season.
Noted for her shimmering, soaring voice, soprano Sara Mortensen is a proud Michigan native. She earned her bachelor’s degree in music from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee where she was a vocal scholarship recipient. In the May of 2022, Ms. Mortensen received her master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music. During her time at the Manhattan School she had the privilege to perform the title role in Massenet’s Cendrillon in MSM’s opera outreach, scenes from Idomeneo (Ilia), The Crucible (Ann Putnam), as well as preparing the role of Cupid in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, scenes from A Quiet Place (Dede), and Falstaff (Nannetta). Ms. Mortensen has also performed abroad in both Italy and France including scenes from La bohème (Musetta), Le Villi (Anna) at Opera Viva!, Faust (Marguerite), Les Contes D’Hoffmann (Antonia) and Cendrillon (Cendrillon) at Classic Lyric Arts. Other previous credits include Lucinda (Dark Sisters) and Solo Nina (Ainadamar) at The Miami Music Festival. In the fall of 2022, Ms. Mortensen looks forward to singing Bachianas Brasilerias No.5 with the Broadway Bach ensemble in New York City.
Hailed for her expressiveness and lush sound, Imara Miles, mezzo-soprano, is originally from the Washington, DC area. With experience in both operatic and musical theater repertoire, Ms. Miles has been a featured performer in shows such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Berta), The Drowsy Chaperone (Title Role), Gianni Schicchi (Zita), and Little Women (Cecelia March) to name a few. As a graduate of York College of Pennsylvania (B.A.) and Indiana University (M.M.), she has been a young artist of programs such as The Glimmerglass Festival, Grant Park Music Festival, Pensacola Opera, and will soon be joining both Des Moines Metro Opera and Toledo Opera as an Apprentice Artist and Resident Artist, respectively. Her past awards and recognition include being a finalist for the Jette Parker Young Artist program with the Royal Opera House, a semi-finalist for The Ryan Opera Center with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Encouragement award winner from the Metropolitan Opera’s Laffont Competition, and a semi-finalist in the George Shirley Vocal Competition. Ms. Miles’ upcoming credits include Lily (Porgy & Bess) with Des Moines Metro Opera, Nettie Fowler (Carousel) with Pensacola Opera, and Marcellina (Le Nozze di Figaro) with Knoxville Opera.
Hailing from Topeka, Kansas, tenor Brendan Boyle has been praised for a heroic sound and imposing stage presence. Having developed a strong reputation across central Texas for his passionate work in vocal education, Mr. Boyle has since begun to appear on large performing stages across the country. He has most recently been seen performing Rodolfo (La bohème) under the baton of Arthur Fagen and has privately workshopped some of opera’s most well-known roles with legendary soprano Carol Vaness. Mr. Boyle also boasts an extensive list of operatic roles across Texas venues on stages such as the Austin Opera House, the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center, and Waco Hall. Equally comfortable across musical genres, he has been seen in works spanning the artistic spectrum, in roles such as Sir Joseph Porter (H.M.S Pinafore), the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, and covering the role of the Duke of Mantua (Rigoletto). A student of world-renowned bass Peter Volpe and an enthusiastic trainee at an internationally acclaimed powerlifting gym, Mr. Boyle brings a striking combination of a rich, dramatic tenor sound and a heroic physicality to the operatic stage.
Matthew Payne, English-American baritone, will complete his Master of Music degree at the prestigious Maryland Opera Studio (University of Maryland) in May 2022. Mr. Payne has also received bachelor’s degrees in vocal performance and in biology from Oberlin Conservatory and College. Last summer, he was a young artist at Central City Opera, where he covered the role of Marullo and Count Monterone (Rigoletto). During the 2021/22 season Mr. Payne recently played the role of Papageno (Die Zauberflöte) at the Maryland Opera Studio, premiered the role of Aaron in Nailah Nombeko’s new opera Sunder (Annapolis Opera and Maryland Opera Studio), and in the spring will portray Joe Harland in John Musto’s Later the Same Evening (Maryland Opera Studio). In 2019, Mr. Payne performed as a baritone fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. While there, he participated in a masterclass with Renée Fleming (broadcast on The Today Show), performed Othmar Schoeck’s Notturno with the New Fromm Players, and sang Schlendrian in Bach’s Coffee Cantata with conductors John Harbison and Killian Farrell. Mr. Payne has also been an artist at the Chautauqua Institute (2018), where he studied with the esteemed Marlena Malas. Mr. Payne’s previous roles include: Roberto (cover) (La finta giardiniera), Billy Bigelow (Carousel), Mr. Gobineau (The Medium), Charlie (Three Decembers), Executor in John Kander’s workshopped production of The Enchanted, Victor in (Cabaret), Lysander in Purcell’s Fairy Queen (Opera Neo), and Massetto (cover) (Don Giovanni). As a soloist, Mr. Payne has performed in concerts with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra, the Society for New Music, Bel Cantanti Opera Company, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony, Central City Opera, and with the French Embassy. He has also been a finalist in the Sigma Alpha Iota Competition and a semi-finalist in the Orpheus Vocal Competition. Mr. Payne is currently studying with the notorious Kevin Short.
Steven Naylor graduated from Bowling Green State University in 2022, earning undergraduate degrees in performance and composition. A Michigan-native, he graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in 2017. His piano mentors have included Laura Melton, Thomas Rosenkranz, Michael Coonrod, Catherine McMichael, and Steve Rodriguez; his composition mentors have included Elainie Lillios, Mikel Kuhn, Marilyn Shrude, Christopher Dietz, and Catherine McMichael. Mr. Naylor has presented seven solo piano and composition recitals, performing music from the Renaissance through the present. A fierce advocate for contemporary music, he performed solo works at the 8th International Conference on Music and Minimalism and the 2020 Bowling Green New Music Festival; he also frequently collaborates with living composers. Mr. Naylor won 1st place in the graduate division of the 2022 Marjorie Conrad Art Song Competition, performing alongside Carolyn Anderson, soprano; he also won 1st place in the undergraduate division of the 2019 Douglas Wayland Chamber Music Competition, playing alongside Gretchen Hill, clarinet, and Taylor Francis, flute. His micro-opera Visionary won BGSU’s 2021 Competition in Music Composition and will be performed at the 2022 BG New Music Festival. His score to the short film A Study of Weathering and Erosion, directed by Michael Miller, won the award for “Best Original Score” at the 2021 BG University Film Organization Film and Media Award Ceremony. His recent compositions focus on astronomical and ecological themes, and have included works written for the icarus Quartet, the Newphonia Ensemble, and the Heidelberg University Single Reed Ensemble. While attending BGSU, Mr. Naylor was awarded the Hansen Music Fellowship, which provides funding to selected undergraduate students for musical experiences vital to students’ long-term advancement. His debut album, idyll, was released in 2021 and features his own solo piano compositions. Mr. Naylor is an engraver for St. James Music Press
For more information about the 2022-2023 Resident Artists and/or Opera on Wheels, please visit toledoopera.org. For media access, please contact Rachael Cammarn at rcammarn@toledoopera.org.
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