Featured Artists

Dana Varga • Soprano

Praised for her “stunning voice”, soprano Dana Lynne Varga was the first place winner in the 2016 Classical Singer National Vocal Competition. Dana continues to amass accolades for her numerous operatic roles that include Musetta in La bohéme, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, and Anna Maurrant in Street Scene. Ms. Varga sings regularly with Boston Lyric Opera, and has performed with Opera Boston, Connecticut Lyric Opera, and the Aldeburgh (Britten-Pears) Festival, among others. An avid concert soloist, highlights of Dana Varga’s recent concert and oratorio performances include the Beethoven Mass in C in Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall, the DvoÐák Te Deum in NEC’s Jordan Hall, and the Fauré Requiem and Neilsen’s Symphony No. 3 with the Springfield Symphony. She has performed the Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony and Dona Nobis Pacem as well as the Brahms Requiem with the Metropolitan Chorale, Beethoven’s Mass in C and Handel’s Israel in Egypt with the Newton Choral Society, the Vivaldi Gloria and Handel’s Messiah with the New England Classical Singers and the Bach Magnificat, Mozart Requiem and Mendelssohn St. Paul with the Choral Art Society. In addition to her recent Classical Singer Competition win, Dana won second place in the 2016 Rochester Oratorio Society Classical Idol Competition and was a semifinalist in the 2016 Oratorio Society of New York Competition. Ms. Varga was awarded the 2012 St. Botolph Emerging Artist Grant for excellence in music. Upcoming engagements for the 2016-2017 season include the solos in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra and Schubert’s Mirjam Siegesgesang with the Commonwealth Chorale, as well as professional ensemble in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress with Boston Lyric Opera.

Clare McNamara • Alto

Praised for her “lushly evocative mezzo” and “attentive and precise” musicianship, Clare McNamara is a soloist and ensemble musician with a passion for early and new music. Her affiliations include Lorelei Ensemble, Skylark Vocal Ensemble, Handel & Haydn Society, Cut Circle, and several other prestigious vocal ensembles with which she sings throughout the United States and abroad. In recent seasons, Clare been featured in several Lorelei concerts in the Boston area, has appeared on the group’s first two commercial recordings, and has participated in Lorelei’s professional residencies at Pittsburg State University and Mt. Holyoke College. Clare is in her second season as an active member of the performing roster of the prestigious Handel & Haydn Society in Boston. Clare has also performed with Skylark Vocal Ensemble as a soloist in a series of successful concerts blending Poulenc’s notoriously difficult and rarely-performed cantata “Figure Humaine” with American Civil War songs, in addition to recording the group’s second album, “Crossing Over.” Solo engagements from past seasons include a critically-acclaimed Jordan Hall debut with Boston Cecilia in J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, and featured alto for both Heinrich Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien with Newton Choral Society and for Boston Cecilia’s winter concert “The Miraculous Rose.” On the baroque opera stage, Clare has sung Antippo in Telemann’s Der Geduldige, Socrates with Amherst Early Music Festival, and Athamas in John Eccles’ Semele with Harvard Early Music Society, among others. In the recording studio, Clare most recently provided solo vocals for “On the Nature of Things,” commissioned by the internationally-recognized modern dance troupe Pilobolus Dance Theatre from composers Michelle DiBucci and Ed Bilous. Clare earned her Masters of Music in Early Music (Vocal Performance) from Longy School of Music and her Bachelor of Arts in Music from Princeton University. She currently resides in Boston.

Matthew Anderson • Tenor

Matthew Anderson has been praised for the warm tenor voice and polished musicality he brings to oratorio, opera, and musical theater. An accomplished interpreter of the music of Bach, Mr. Anderson sings regularly as a soloist in Boston’s renowned Emmanuel Music Bach Cantata Series. He appeared at the Aldeburgh Festival as a soloist in the Saint Matthew Passion and spent several summers at the Carmel Bach Festival. He has received particular acclaim for his portrayals of the Evangelists in Bach’s Passions, which he has performed throughout the United States. Mr. Anderson is a two-time prizewinner in the American Bach Society Competition and winner of the second prize in the Oratorio Society of New York Solo Competition, in which he also won the Westenberg Award for 18th Century Stylistic Interpretation. Recent performances from Mr. Anderson’s varied repertoire include Handel’s Acis and Galatea (Damon) with the Mark Morris Dance Group; Bach’s Coffee Cantata with Boston Baroque; and Mozart’s Requiem with the National Chorale at Avery Fisher Hall. He has sung with conductors Masaaki Suzuki, Nicholas McGegan, Paul Goodwin, Harry Christophers, Martin Pearlman, John Harbison, Craig Smith, Julian Wachner, and Laurence Cummings and appeared as soloist with ensembles such as the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Cantata Singers. Also recognized as a gifted performer of the American songbook, Mr. Anderson won high praise for his performances with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops in Carousel (as Mr. Snow), A Richard Rodgers Celebration, and An Evening of Cole Porter. Mr. Anderson spent two seasons as a vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and was a Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Fellow with Emmanuel Music. Mr. Anderson is a Kansas native and resides in Boston, where he studied Classics at Harvard and voice at the New England Conservatory.

Thomas Jones • Bass

Baritone Thomas Jones has appeared with orchestras, opera companies, choral ensembles and on recital series throughout North America, Europe and the West Indies. Richard Buell of The Boston Globe calls the vocal and stage presence of Thomas Jones “irresistible.” Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times proclaims that Mr. Jones sings “with plush sounds and musical vigor.” Solo engagements include Santa Fe Symphony, The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society, The Apollo Chorus of Chicago, The San Francisco City Chorus and Orchestra, The Vancouver Chamber Choir and The Canadian Broadcast Orchestra, The Phoenix Bach Choir, The Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, New York’s St. Cecilia Orchestra, Baltimore Choral Arts Society, The Pacific Chorale and The Pacific Symphony in Southern California, The Louisville Bach Society at The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, The Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra of Washington, DC, The Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic Orchestra, The Bucks County Choral Society and The Philadelphia Festive Arts Orchestra under conductor Robert Page. Festival appearances include Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Berkshire Choral Festival, The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, Great Waters Music Festival and Monadnock Music. Opera companies include Boston Lyric Opera, The Harrisburg Opera Company of Pennsylvania and Opera New England. In the Boston area, appearances include The Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, Boston Civic Orchestra, The Back Bay Chorale, Coro Allegro, The Worcester Symphony, The Nashua Symphony. The Masterworks Chorale, and Cape Cod Symphony. Mr. Jones has appeared with well over 150 choruses throughout the US, appearing under the baton of notable maestros such as Christopher Hogwood, Nicholas McGegan, Thomas Dunn, John Alexander, Jon Washburn, Daniel Beckwith, Joel Revzen, Robert Page, John Oliver, Tom Hall, Gerald Mack, Jung-Ho Pak, and Stephen Simon. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Jones sang a concert tour of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, including performances at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.

Darryl Hollister • Piano

Darryl Hollister was born in Detroit, Michigan. He received his B.M. from Michigan State University where he studied with Ralph Votapek and Deborah Moriarty, and his M.M. from New England Conservatory of Music where he studied with Patricia Zander. He is an active accompanist and performer in the Boston area. He serves as accompanist and assistant conductor to the Dedham Choral Society, Coro Allegro, the Framingham Choral Society, and Commonwealth School Chorus and Chorale.

Since he has started championing the works of African and African-American composers, he has performed premieres of works by various leading composers. At the Festival of African and African-American Music in St. Louis in 2000 he premieredThe Spring of Esentre by Gyimah Labi, Concertino Africana for Piano and Orchestra by Paul Konye and participated in the North American premiere of Baptism of Fire: Symphony Concertante for Three Pianos and Orchestra by Gyimah Labi. In December of 2002 he performed a recital of African piano music at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In April 2003 he gave the world premiere of Three Ivory Magnolia Fantasies by Gary Nash in a recital at Mississippi Valley State University. In August 2003 at the 2nd International Symposium and Festival on Composition in Africa and the Diaspora at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, he performed world premieres of works by Paul Konye, Wallace Cheatham, Akin Euba, Gary Nash, Robert Kwami, and Joshua Uziogwe. At FESAAM 2004 in Kansas City he performed solo recitals and performed with Flutist Wendy Hymes in a recital of the music of Ghanian composer J. H. Kwabena Nketia.

He has collaborated with soprano Dawn Padmore in recitals devoted to the music of African and African-American composers. Their performances include recitals at Cambridge University; England, Le Festival International des Musiques Sacrées, Profane, et Populaires in Fort-du-France, Martinique; St. Thomas and St. John, Virgin Islands; Harvard University; and Pittsburgh University where they recently premiered a song cycle Contemplating Life by Akin Euba. In July 2005 they were invited to perform at the New Music Indaba Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa where they premiered Indaba Songs, songs written by five South African composers in five indigenous languages. In August 2005 they returned to St. Thomas and St. John where they performed Indaba Songs. In January of 2007 they performed a recital of African piano and vocal music at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

Fred Onovwerosuoke • Composer

Award-winning composer Fred Onovwerosuoke was born in Ghana to Nigerian parents. Onovwerosuoke grew up in both home countries and eventually naturalized in the United States. His influences are wide and varied, and is much at home discussing Handel, Mozart and Jazz, as he is talking about the African gonje, mbira, kora, kontingu and balafon riffs, or foremost exponents of traditional African music. Onovwerosuoke’s works have been featured in a variety of recordings, films, documentaries and radio, including Robert De Niro’s film, The Good Shepherd, Niyi Coker’s Pennies for the Boatman, IMI Chamber Players’ Dances & Rhapsodies: Works for Wind Quintet, William-Chapman Nyaho’s CD, ASA, Hymes/Hollister’s CD African Art Music for Flute, Peter Henderson’s CD, Twenty-Four Studies in African Rhythms for Piano, among others. His book, Songs of Africa: 22 Pieces for Mixed Choirs published by Oxford University Press has quickly become a favorite among choral directors across the United States and globally, and his Twenty-four Studies in African Rhythms is acclaimed as one of the most-demanded African-rhythm influenced piano studies known. Onovwerosuoke is a Voting Member of the Recording Academy (The Grammy) and a Fellow of the Regional Arts Commission. For more information, please visit www.fredomusic.com. Fred Onovwerosuoke is represented by IMI Artists (www.imusici.net).