Penn State Altoona offers solo concert by faculty member

Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - 701 hits

A solo concert by Bonnie Cutsforth-Huber, assistant professor of music, will be held Thursday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m. in Paul R. and Margery Wolf Kuhn Theatre of the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts. The concert is free and open to the public.

The concert will include the premiere of Saskatchewan Songs, a setting of five poems written by the singer and set to music by composer Martha Hill Duncan. The concert will also include arias by George Frederic Handel, Gioachino Rossini, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as well as art songs by Gustav Mahler, Pauline Viardot, Henri Duparc, Richard Hundley, William Bolcom, and Judith Cloud.

With a voice that has been described as “rich and dusky, but so beautifully clear and expressive,” Canadian-born contralto Cutsforth-Huber is active in oratorio, cantata, and operatic circuits. She has appeared as a soloist with such organizations as the Bach Concert Series, Nittany Valley Symphony, Annapolis Chorale, Friday Morning Music Club Chorale of Washington D.C., NIH Philharmonica, Susquehanna Valley Chorale, and the Harford Choral Society. Highlights include Bach’s St. John Passion, Handel’s Alexander’s Feast and Messiah, Mozart’s Solemn Vespers of the Confessor, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Haydn’s Mass in Time of War, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and several cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. Recent recital credits include concerts in Rome, Scala, and Italy. This April, Cutsforth-Huber debuted as the alto soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with the New York City Chamber Orchestra and Masterworks Festival Chorus at Carnegie Hall.

Among Cutsforth-Huber’s operatic credits are performances with Kentucky Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Center Stage Opera, Rome Festival Opera, Amalfi Festival Opera, and Amici Opera; roles include Dalila in Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila, Marcellina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Carmen in Bizet’s Carmen, Meg in Verdi’s Falstaff, Isabella in Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, and Zita in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.