The 2023-2024 Siril Concert Series at Northern Michigan University will open with “An Evening at the Opera,” featuring soprano Tara Jamshidian and tenor Adam Lowe. The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 8, in Reynolds Recital Hall.
Jamshidian is based in New York City. She attended The New England Conservatory of Music, where she worked with John Moriarty and Helen Hodam. She was a finalist in NYIOP's Anonymous Audition Project: German Repertoire, and a semi-finalist in Premiere Opera Foundation's Competition in 2022. In October, she will perform as Cio-Cio-San in The Metropolitan Opera Guild's presentation of Madama Butterfly. This past March, she performed “Die Walküre's” Act 1 final scene as Sieglinde. Jamshidian was also one of 12 singers in The Boston Wagner Institute's inaugural year, when she worked with Wagnerian greats Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner.
Lowe recently stepped in for an ailing star of Mill City Summer Opera's production of Carmen, and received positive reviews for singing "valiantly" from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He was also the lead tenor in a revival and North American premiere of a work by Cole Porter, and was billed as the "standout vocalist, easily the best voice of the night…” by The Stages of MN. Lowe's career has been varied. In addition to singing in opera houses, he has performed as a trombonist with orchestras, acted in the classic works of Shakespeare and tap danced to Cole Porter tunes.
There will also be an opera appreciation lecture at 11 a.m. and a vocal masterclass at 1 p.m. the day of the performance. Both take place at the Reynolds Recital Hall and are free and open to the public.
Tickets for the concert are $12, with NMU students and those under 18 able to enter for free. They can be purchased here.
The concert series at NMU is made possible by the Siril Endowment for the Musical Arts.