A Song by Mahler

A naturally gifted singer known for her commanding stage presence and profound artistry, Jennifer Johnson Cano has garnered critical acclaim for committed performances of both new and standard repertoire. In response to her performance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera News praised her “impressive tone and dead-on pitch throughout a wide range, and a fierce command of words,” calling her “a matchless interpreter of contemporary opera.” The New York Times noted her “mellow sobriety — and, in Woolf’s darkest moments, stricken intensity.” As Offred in Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale she was lauded by the Times as “towering…restless, powerful, profound, she is as formidable as this astonishingly demanding role deserves." With more than 100 performances on the stage at The Metropolitan Opera, her most recent roles have included Nicklausse, Emilia, Hansel and Meg Page.

Cano undertakes a balance of orchestral, opera and chamber music performances each season.  She appears with major orchestras and conductors, and has collaborated on numerous projects with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel in both the US and Europe. She has performed with the New York Philharmonic in both New York and Vail, as well as the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck.

Highlights of Ms. Cano's 2021-22 season included performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in a world premiere of Kevin Puts's The Hours, a debut with the Chicago Symphony and Riccardo Muti and a return to the San Francisco Symphony for Beethoven's Ninth. She starred in the New York premiere of A Song By Mahler, a new chamber opera by Marc Neikrug at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  She made operatic debuts in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites (Mother Marie) with the Houston Grand Opera, the world premiere of Gregory Spears' Castor and Patience (Celeste) with the Cincinnati Opera and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle (Judith) with the Roanoke Opera.

This season she performs at the Metropolitan Opera in Falstaff (Meg Page) and makes her company debut with the Atlanta Opera in Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira); she also appears with the New York Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony and Atlanta Symphony.  Jennifer returns to the Chamber Music Society of New York, where she performs Mahler's Rückert-Lieder; and to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society in an All-Bach Program with the Gamut Bach Ensemble.

Previous operatic appearances have included Donna Elvira, Carmen and Offred with the Boston Lyric Opera; the role of the Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen with the Cleveland Orchestra and Welser-Möst; the Mother the Dragonfly, and the Squirrel in L'enfant et les sortilèges with the San Francisco Symphony; performances of El Niño with John Adams and the London Symphony Orchestra; Carmen with the New Orleans Opera and the title role in Orphée with the Des Moines Metro Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

A native of St. Louis, she earned degrees from Rice University and from Webster University, where she was honored as a distinguished alumna and commencement speaker in May 2017. Her debut recital recording with pianist Christopher Cano, “Unaffected: Live from the Savannah Voice Festival,” was recorded live and unedited. Recent recordings include a live performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 "Jeremiah" with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She also recorded Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble.

Ms. Cano joined the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera after winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and made her Met debut during the 2009-10 season. Among her honors are Winner of the Young Concert Artist International Auditions, a Sara Tucker Study Grant, a Richard Tucker Career Grant and a George London Award.

Young American baritone Ryan Bradford is quickly creating a name for himself with his "warm,  and sumptuous baritone."

He recently made his Lincoln Center debut with Chamber Music Society Lincoln Center in the world premier chamber opera A Song by Mahler by Marc Neikrug. Other performances include the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and The Royal Conservatory in Toronto.

He was a Marc and Eva Stern Fellow with LA Opera and Songfest and during the 2018-2019 season made a return to the Oakland Symphony, San Rafael Symphony, Rapides Symphony, and Livermore Valley Opera as well as joined Chamber Music Silicon Valley as a vocal fellow. He completed a residency with Opera Colorado for their 2016-2017 season singing Happy and covering Jake Wallace in La Fanciulla del West as well as covering Hannah Before in As One. For their touring productions he sang Belcore in L'elisir d'amore and covered Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

During the 2015-2016 season Ryan was a Mosher Studio Artist with Opera Santa Barbara. There he performed Masetto and covered the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni. A strong proponent of new music, Ryan sang the role of Henry in David Conte's The Gift of the Magi with Hidden Valley Opera in Carmel, CA conducted by former Glimmerglass conductor, Steward Robinson. In the summer of 2016, he premiered the role of Michael in the world premiere opera Ours (Estacio, Chafe) with Opera on the Avalon. 

Ryan Bradford made his Virginia debut as John Brooke in Little Women with Opera on the James and performed a German Lieder recital series with legendary mezzo-soprano Fredericka Von Stade as graduate student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. During the 2014-2015 season he completed a residency with Shreveport Opera where he sang The Baron in La Traviata, Samuel in The Pirates of Penzance, as well as Dandini in La Cenerentola. Other 2013 engagements for the San Francisco native came as John Brooke (Little Women) for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) for both SFCM and the Santa Cruz Symphony, and Masetto (Don Giovanni) for Hidden Valley Opera, Carmel, CA.

Oratorio credits include recent soloist roles in Handel's Messiah with the Rogue Valley Symphony, Poulenc's Le bal masqué with Opera Parallèle, Bach's B Minor Mass with American Bach Soloists, and Schubert's Mass in G with DePaul University. A DePaul University alumnus (BM in Voice Performance and BA in Italian), he received a master of music degree from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has received distinction from the East Bay Opera League, Florida Grand Opera Young Patronesses, and Pacific Musical Society.

One of only four wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award's inception in 1974, David Shifrin is in constant demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber music collaborator. He has appeared with many of the major orchestras in the United States and abroad, and has served as principal clarinetist with the Cleveland Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra (under Stokowski), Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and others. A sought after a chamber musician, he collaborates frequently with distinguished ensembles and artists. Shifrin has been an artist member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 1989 and served as its artistic director from 1992 to 2004. He is currently the artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest in Portland, Ore. Shifrin also continues to broaden the repertoire for clarinet and orchestra by commissioning and championing the works of 20th and 21st century American composers.

Shifrin is Professor in the Practice of Clarinet at Yale University, where he teaches a studio of graduate-level clarinetists and coaches chamber music ensembles. He is also the Artistic Director of Yale’s Oneppo Chamber Music Series and the Yale in New York concert series. Previously, Shifrin served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, University of Southern California, University of Michigan, Cleveland Institute of Music, and the University of Hawaii.

Mr. Shifrin's recordings have consistently garnered praise and awards. He has received three Grammy nominations - for a collaborative recording with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center of the collected chamber music of Claude Debussy (Delos), the Copland Clarinet Concerto (Angel/EMI) and Ravel's Introduction and Allegro with Nancy Allen, Ransom Wilson, and the Tokyo String Quartet (Angel/EMI). His recording of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, performed in its original version on a specially built basset clarinet, was named Record of the Year by Stereo Review.

The FLUX Quartet, "one of the most fearless and important new-music ensembles around" (San Francisco Chronicle), has performed to rave reviews in venues worldwide, including the Tate Modern with BBC Radio3, Park Avenue Armory, Kennedy Center, Mount Tremper Arts, EMPAC, Walker Art Center, Carnegie's Zankel Hall, as well as international festivals in Australia, Europe and Asia. It has also premiered new works on numerous experimental incubators, including Roulette, The Music Gallery, and Mount Tremper Arts. FLUX’s radio appearances include NPR’s All Things Considered, WNYC’s New Sounds and Soundcheck, and WFMU’s Stochastic Hit Parade. The group’s discography includes recordings on the Cantaloupe, Innova, New World, Passin Thru, and Tzadik labels, in addition to two acclaimed releases on Mode encompassing the full catalogue of Morton Feldman’s output for string quartet.

Strongly influenced by the "anything-goes" philosophy of the fluxus art movement, violinist Tom Chiu founded FLUX in the late 90's. The quartet has since cultivated an uncompromising repertoire that combines late twentieth-century iconoclasts such as Cage, Nancarrow, Scelsi, and Ligeti with today's visionaries, including Oliver Lake, Michael Hersch, David First, Alvin Lucier, Michael Schumacher, Sean Shepard, Wadada Leo Smith, Julia Wolfe, Matthew Welch, and others. Having premiered over 100 new works, FLUX has been awarded grants from the American Composers Forum, Aaron Copland Fund, Meet-The-Composer, New Music USA, and Chamber Music America. FLUX also discovers emerging composers from its many college residencies, including Wesleyan, Dartmouth, Williams, Princeton, Bard, and the College of William and Mary.

The spirit to expand stylistic boundaries is a trademark of the FLUX Quartet, and to that end the quartet avidly pursues interdisciplinary projects, resulting in acclaimed new works with choreographers Pam Tanowitz and Christopher Wheeldon, avant balloonist Judy Dunaway, digital collective The OpenEnded Group, and visual artist Matthew Barney. In the upcoming season, FLUX will perform and record the full string quartet output of Toshi Ichiyanagi, widely acknowledged as an influential pioneer of the Japanese avant-garde.