Lawrence Brownlee, tenor
Eric Owens, bass-baritone
Craig Terry, piano

Bass-baritone Eric Owens has a unique reputation as an esteemed interpreter of classic works and as a champion of new music. Equally at home in orchestral, recital and opera performances, Owens brings his powerful poise, expansive voice and instinctive acting faculties to stages around the world.

Mr. Owens began his 2013-2014 season in Berlin, performing Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle. After mentoring the next generation of opera stars at the American Singers' Opera Project at the Kennedy Center with friend and collaborator Renée Fleming, Owens appeared as Sarastro in Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera. He made another role debut as Vodnik in Rusalka at Lyric Opera Chicago at the start of 2014. In the spring, Mr. Owens joins what director Peter Sellars calls his "dream cast" in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Handel’s Hercules as the title role alongside Alice Coote, David Daniels, and Richard Croft. 2013-14 also sees a duo recital with soprano Susanna Phillips presented by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Throughout the season, Mr. Owens will bow as Alberich in the Deutsche Opera Berlin Ring Cycle, and in the summer, he will perform in the Wiener Staatsoper Ring Cycle.

Eric Owens has created an uncommon niche for himself in the ever-growing body of contemporary opera works through his determined approach to new and challenging roles. He received great critical acclaim for portraying the title role in the world premiere of Elliot Goldenthal’s Grendel with the Los Angeles Opera, and again at the Lincoln Center Festival, in a production directed and designed by Julie Taymor. Mr. Owens also enjoys a close association with John Adams, for whom he performed the role of General Leslie Groves in the world premiere of Doctor Atomic at the San Francisco Opera, and of the Storyteller in the world premiere of A Flowering Tree at Peter Sellars’s New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna and later with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Doctor Atomic was later recorded and received the 2012 Grammy for Best Opera Recording. Mr. Owens made his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut under the baton of David Robertson in Adams’s Nativity oratorio El Nií±o.

Eric Owens’s career operatic highlights include his San Francisco Opera debut in Otello conducted by Donald Runnicles; his Royal Opera, Covent Garden, debut in  Norma; Aida at Houston Grand Opera; Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Bohème at Los Angeles Opera; Die Zauberflöte for his Paris Opera (Bastille) debut; and Ariodante and L’Incoronazione di Poppea at the English National Opera. He sang Collatinus in a highly acclaimed Christopher Alden production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at Glimmerglass Opera. A former member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Mr. Owens has sung Sarastro, Mephistopheles in Faust, Frère Laurent, Angelotti in Tosca, and Aristotle Onassis in the world premiere of Jackie O (available on the Argo label) with that company. Mr. Owens is featured on two Telarc recordings with the Atlanta Symphony: Mozart’s Requiem and scenes from Strauss’ Elektra and Die Frau ohne Schatten, both conducted by Donald Runnicles. He is featured on the Nonesuch Records release of A Flowering Tree. Eric Owens has been recognized with multiple honors, including the 2003 Marian Anderson Award, a 1999 ARIA award, and second prize in the Plácido Domingo Operalia Competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition.

A native of Philadelphia, Eric Owens began his musical training as a pianist at the age of six, followed by formal oboe study at age eleven under Lloyd Shorter of the Delaware Symphony and Louis Rosenblatt of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He studied voice while an undergraduate at Temple University, and then as a graduate student at the Curtis Institute of Music. He currently studies with Armen Boyajian. He serves on the Board of Trustees of both the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and Astral Artistic Services.

Named 2017 “Male Singer of the Year” by both the International Opera Awards and Bachtrack, American-born Lawrence Brownlee has been hailed by the Associated Press as one of “the world’s leading bel canto tenors.” Brownlee captivates audiences and critics around the world, and his voice has been praised by NPR as “an instrument of great beauty and expression… perfectly suited to the early nineteenth century operas of Rossini and Donizetti,” ushering in “a new golden age in high male voices” (The New York Times). Brownlee also serves as Artistic Advisor at Opera Philadelphia, helping the company to expand their repertoire, diversity efforts, and community initiatives.

One of the most in-demand singers around the world, Brownlee has performed with nearly every leading international opera house, opera company, and festival, as well as major orchestras. His latest album, Allegro Io Son, received a Critic’s Choice from Opera News, among numerous other accolades, and followed his previous Grammy-nominated release on Delos Records, Virtuoso Rossini Arias, which prompted New Yorker critic Alex Ross to ask “is there a finer Rossini tenor than Lawrence Brownlee?” The rest of his critically acclaimed discography and videography is a testament to his broad impact across the classical music scene. His opera and concert recordings include Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, Armida at the Metropolitan Opera, Rossini’s Stabat Mater with Academia di Santa Cecilia, and Carmina Burana with the Berlin Philharmonic. He also released a disc of African-American spirituals entitled Spiritual Sketches with pianist Damien Sneed, which the pair performed at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, and which NPR praised as an album of “soulful singing” that “sounds like it’s coming straight from his heart to yours.”

Brownlee is the fourth of six children and first discovered music when he learned to play bass, drums, and piano at his family’s church in Youngstown, Ohio. He was awarded a Masters of Music from Indiana University and went onto win a Grand Prize in the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions. Alongside his singing career, Brownlee is an avid salsa dancer, accomplished photographer, football fan, and champion for autism awareness.

Lauded for his “sensitive and stylish” (New York Times) and “superb” (Opera News) playing, pianist Craig Terry has launched an international career regularly performing with some of the world’s leading singers and instrumentalists. Currently Mr. Terry is Music Director of The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center and is in his eleventh season as Assistant Conductor at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Previously he served as Assistant Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after joining its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.

Mr. Terry has performed with such esteemed vocalists as Jamie Barton, Stephanie Blythe, Christine Brewer, Nicole Cabell, Sasha Cooke, Eric Cutler, Joyce DiDonato, Giuseppe Filianoti, Denyce Graves, Susan Graham, Bryan Hymel, Brian Jagde, Joseph Kaiser, Quinn Kelsey, Kate Lindsey, Ana María Martínez, Susanna Phillips, Luca Pisaroni, Patricia Racette, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Hugh Russell, Bo Skovhus, Garrett Sorenson, Heidi Stober, and Amber Wagner. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchester, and the Pro Arte String Quartet.

Craig Terry was recently named Artistic Director of “Beyond the Aria,” a new concert series presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with the Ryan Opera Center and Lyric Unlimited. His discography includes “Diva on Detour” with Patricia Racette, “As Long As There Are Songs” with Stephanie Blythe, and “Chanson d’Avril” with Nicole Cabell.

Mr. Terry hails from Tullahoma, Tennessee, received a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Tennessee Technological University, continued his studies at Florida State University and received a Masters of Music in Piano Performance/Accompanying from the Manhattan School of Music where he was a student of pianist Warren Jones.