Hot off the Press! Nice article about the Festival

Click Here for nice article from Times Herald Record.

Interview on NPR with Maria, Louis and Kerry

Check out our latest interview about the Festival on NPR. Thank you, Sarah LaDuke!

Click Here

It's here! Festival opens next thursday

We can’t believe it’s festival time again. This year we have 20 extraordinary vocal events over 4 days, beginning with the return of gopel diva Rozz Morehead and her band on Thursday 4th August. Voices of Distinction on Friday 5th features Time Magazine’s “thinking man’s diva” Lauren Flanigan and Saturday evening “Don Giovanni” explodes on the Festival stage with a celebrated cast and full orchestra thanks to our successful campaign through Pledge Music! Thank you everyone. Top notch sound will be added this year courtesy of our friends at Live Sound in Troy, NY and super titles by Digitech will make the whole experience so much more enjoyable.

Don’t miss Palistinian ‘oud master, Simon Shaheen on Sunday, nor Vivaldi’s "Gloria: with massed choirs and soloists. Smaller events in surprising locations all over town.

We’re excited! Come join us in Phoenicia and share the magic.

Just in from Pledge Music!

Just in from Pledge Music!

Phoenicia International Festival of The Voice, Joe Brooks, Radar Music Videos, Kyle Patrick Charity: MTV Exit

Phoenicia International Festival of The Voice

Phoenicia International Festival of The Voice PledgeMusic is very proud to work with the Phoenicia International Festival of The Voice in launching their project to bring the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra to their festival in Phoenicia, NY. The festival grew from a one-day event last year to a full-blown four-day celebration with over a dozen gospel, opera, and jazz acts performing between August 4-7, 2011. Now that the project is past their target, the founders are able to realize their dream of bringing the Orchestra to accompany the live performance of Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni." Pledging is still available for a limited time. Even if interested pledgers can't make it to the festival itself in August, all PledgeMusic exclusives include a digital download of the highlights of the opera after it is performed on August 6th.

My Love Affair with Don Giovanni

by Jen Dragon, Guest Blogger

The first time I ever saw Don Giovanni it was under the direction of Peter Maag and I was 11 on a class trip to the Metropolitan Opera. I had many preconceived notions about opera then: corny love stories, lots of incomprehensible singing, static production. But I returned on the school bus completely changed as this opera was anything but that! Yes, the language of the singing would not become clear to me until many years later after I learned Italian, but the language of Mozart's music grabbed my heart! The story was unlike anything I had ever read before and worlds different from the hokey musicals I had seen on Broadway. And the dynamics of voice, orchestra and drama was like something I had never imagined. It became clear to me that Opera was the culmination of all the arts, working together in some magnificent whole: music, voice, painting, sculpture, dance, theater- there is absolutely nothing else like it!

Peter Maag's Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera

The next break through I experienced with opera was about 10 years later when I was attending SUNY Purchase and Peter Sellers directed Don Giovanni at Pepsi Summerscape. As a student, I could get a ticket for 1.00 and I was introduced to a kind of opera that was pulled off of the stage and recast on the streets. Mr. Sellers had taken the story of the Don and had set it in late 20^th century Harlem with two African American twin brother baritones, Eugene and Herbert Perry. This casting underlined the ambiguity between the characters of Leporello and Don Giovanni and setting the production in Harlem gave the opera a heightened sense of danger and power. Most importantly, it made Mozart's opera more real, more contemporary, than the Baroque costumes and sets that were usually associated with more traditional productions. Sellar's Don Giovanni changed forever what I thought about opera- it was no longer an experience that I appreciated- but became a visceral, passionate, moving experience that I lived.

Peter Sellar's Don Giovanni at Purchase College

Since then I have seen various versions of Don Giovanni and no matter how they are handled, set in the past or moved up to today, the music and the story tranfixes me. The only way I have not seen Don Giovanni is about to happen this summer at the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice. This outdoor presentation will be under the stars on a grassy field encircled by the Catskill Mountains. The unique venue offers the amazing experience of hearing operatic singing echo off the surrounding mountains in a most wonderful acoustic phenomenon that I have never heard anywhere else in the world. Since it is early August, there will be shooting stars throughout the evening, the mountain night will be cool and refreshing and the performing artists have all sung in the greatest opera houses in the world! To hear Mozart's Don Giovanni this way, outside of a concert hall, not via film or broadcast, but pure singing with a full orchestra in the night air will be my third greatest experience with the Don. To buy tickets to this magical evening, please go to: http://bit.ly/ndNJXY Be sure to pack a blanket or lawn chair, bring a picnic and enjoy the magic!

Louis Otey Featured in the New York Times

Read this wonderful article featuring our very own Louis Otey, and his powerful performance in A Quiet Place with New York City Opera.

Lauren Flanigan to Perform at the Festival!

We are proud to announce that the internationally acclaimed soprano, and "thinking man's diva" Lauren Flanigan will be performing in our Artists of Distinction concert on Friday, 5th August.

Here is Ms Flanigan's biography:

Named by TIME Magazine as "the thinking man's diva" and awarded by ACSAP and the Center for Contemporary Opera for her commitment to performing the works of living composers, soprano Lauren Flanigan has firmly established herself as a unique musical presence in the world today. She has been featured on the telecast "Live from Lincoln Center" in performances of I Lombardi (opposite Luciano Pavarotti), The Richard Tucker Gala, Lizzie Borden and Central Park which was written for her. She has performed at many of the world’s leading opera houses including La Scala, Teatro San Carlo, Bayerische Staatsoper, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera. With American Opera Projects, she created the starring role in the premiere of Marina: A Captive Spirit by Deborah Drattell, and a workshops of Best Friends, by Mrs Drattell with a libretto by Wendy Wasserstein/Christopher Durang. She most recently performed at New York City Opera the role of Myra written for her by Stephen Schwartz in his first opera Seance on a Wet Afternoon , which was developed by American Opera Projects.

Recordings include: Symphony No. 6 Plutonian Ode written for her by Philip Glass, The Cabildo, Merrymount , Die Liebe der Danae, Sun Cantata, and Frau Margot written for her by Thomas Pasatieri. DVD’s include Nabucco from Teatro San Carlo and the motion picture Death to Smoochy where she appears as the Ice Skating Opera Diva.