New York City Opera soprano Pamela Jones will present her New York City solo recital debut on Thursday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Produced by B. Arts Presenter the one-night-only recital will be performed at Merkin Concert Hall, at Kaufman Center, 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023 (67th Street and Broadway).
Jones will be accompanied by Elaine Rinaldi, artistic director of Orchestra Miami. Also performing at the concert will be Donald Batchelder, principal trumpet of the New York City Opera orchestra, and tenor Kevin Bagby, who has performed everywhere from the Metropolitan Opera to Broadway.
The program will include a Bach cantata, French melodies, the Bernstein cycle, I Hate Music!, spirituals, Duke Ellington sacred songs, and excerpts from Verdi’s La Traviata.
Jones is currently the sole African American woman in the regular chorus at New York City Opera. For the past 10 years she has performed roles as diverse with the company as Miss Rose in the New York premiere of “Séance on a Wet Afternoon” by Stephen Schwartz, Oasis in “L’Étoile,” Lolette in “La Rondine,” the soprano in the “Letter Quintet” in Sondheim’s Sweeny Todd, Feisty Girl in “Cinderella,” and La Conver sa in “Suor Angelica.”
She performed the role of Winnie Mandela in excerpts from Chandler Carter’s “No Easy Walk to Freedom” in VOX, City Opera’s Contemporary American Opera Lab, and in 2009 she made her Alice Tully Hall debut as soloist in the company’s performance of Olivier Messiean’s “Trois petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine.”
Jones is a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania and a graduate of Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University.
In a review from the Greenfield Recorder, Don Stewart said of Ms. Jones’ portrayal of Eurydice in Orpheus in the Underworld, “The robust and emotional soprano Pamela Jones as Eurydice, not only fills the auditorium she conveys a powerful, balanced voice that never disappoints on the high registers.”
From the same performance Clifton J. Noble from Union News, said of Ms. Jones’ portrayal of Eurydice, “The singing was headed by Pamela Jones’ magnificent portrayal of Euridice. Jones’ potent, agile soprano could have scaled the heights of Mount Olympus. She filled the earth and the underworld with songs of sinewy sweetness, warbling effortlessly to high B’s and C-charps and essaying a stunning high E in the third act. Her wide-eyed, somewhat loftily mischievous character was conceived perfectly.”
