JULIA MORGAN

• Franz Schubert: Nachtviolen

“Morgan’s light mezzo very well suited to the style and simplicity of the melodic content [of the Schubert and Sibelius] while demonstrating a natural ability for phrasing and capturing the proper highlights of the text… Partner Amanda Johnston provides equitable and engaging support in a fine acoustic. Morgan is definitely one to watch."

Steven Ritter, Audiophile Audition [March 2014]

“Ms. Morgan has a fine, rich voice and her German diction is faultless. … she has some lovely vocal colors…The piano work is technically adept“

Marcuse, American Record Guide [March/April 2013]

“On this handsome disc Canadian mezzo Julia Morgan goes well beneath the surface of songs by Sibelius, Brahms, Schubert and Mahler. She is keenly sensitive to words and phrases with a natural penchant for expressive facilities… Morgan’s voice is a glowing work-in-progress, a light mezzo whose bright timbre often veers into lyric-soprano territory… Amanda Johnston [applies] superb definition to the piano parts… Even at this point in her career…Morgan claims the concentration and poetic insight to illuminate these transcendent tributes to love, nature and the ebbing of life.”

Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone [February 2013]

“Morgan has a pleasant, lyric mezzo voice with a silvery quality that fits nicely with many of these songs… Morgan’s diction is excellent and her German seems good… Morgan has a smooth transition from midrange to high notes and excellent control of dynamic range... this is an attractive recital program showcasing an attractive young voice if you are interested.”

Bill White, Fanfare Issue 36:3 [Jan/Feb 2013]

Featured in the 100th Show Celebration of Canadian radio station CKWR’s Women In Music series.

“Canadian mezzo-soprano Julia Morgan, with the close collaboration of pianist Amanda Johnston, gives deeply insightful, intriguing performances….  her voice has…a velvet smoothness and a flawless way of handling a musical line that serves these songs very well. Most important, she has the requisite intelligence to bring out the subtleties in poetic texts in which meaning and emotion are not always perfectly straightforward or transparent.”

Phil Muse, Audio Society of Atlanta [June 2012]

 

 

Canadian mezzo-soprano Julia Morgan has a burgeoning career in opera and recital. She appeared as Dido in Opera on the Avalon’s Dido and Aeneas (2011); as Hansel in Opera Saskatchewan’s school tour of Hansel and Gretel (2010); as Carmen with Summer Opera Lyric Theatre (2010); as a
member of Opera York’s Greek Chorus in the North American première of Ella Milch-Sheriff’s And the Rat Laughed (2009) and as Rosine in Pasatieri’s Signor Deluso with Highlands Opera Studio (2008). In 2009, she performed Elgar’s The Music Makers with the Toronto Choral Society and collaborated with Amanda Johnston as part of Toronto’s “In Recital” series. Further performances have taken her to the Castello di Verrazzano of Greve in Chianti, Italy; to Victoria, British Columbia; to the Theater am Steg and Festsaal des Congress Casino Baden in Austria; and to the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto. Morgan has received many awards, including the Johann Strauss Scholarship to attend and perform at the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Baden bei Wien, and was selected to study Mahler and Strauss with Dame Anne Evans at the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme in Aldeburgh, supported by the Canadian Aldeburgh Foundation.

Canadian collaborative pianist Amanda Johnston is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Mississippi where she is Music Director and Vocal Coach for the Opera Theatre, teaches courses in Advanced Diction and Collaborative Piano and coaches students at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Her recently published diction textbook, English and German Diction for Singers: A Comparative Approach [Scarecrow Press, 2011], has been credited with “enlivening the study of diction” by the Journal of Singing. She is on faculty at the Taos Opera Institute of New Mexico and has
previously held positions at the University of Toronto, Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, York
University, as well as Lied Austria in Leibnitz. Since 2004, she has been Artistic Director of “In Recital”, a series held at the Heliconian Hall in Toronto designed to both showcase Canadian  singers and to cultivate the art song. She was educated at Queen’s University at Kingston, the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar, Germany, and the Janácek Academy of Music in Brno, Czech Republic. Johnston has been broadcast on CBC Radio 2 and NPR and has performed worldwide, including the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Austria, and Scotland.

JEAN SIBELIUS (1865-1957)
SECHS LIEDER, OP.50
Lenzgesang (A. Fitger)
Sehnsucht (E.R. Weiss)
Im Feld ein Mädchen singt (M. Susman)
Aus banger Brust (R. Dehmel)
Die stille Stadt (R. Dehmel)
Rosenlied (A. Ritter)

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897)
ZWEI GESÄNGE, OP.91
Gestillte Sehnsucht (F. Rückert)
Geistliches Wiegenlied (E.v. Geibel)

FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828)
Abendstern (J. Mayrhofer)
Nachtviolen (J. Mayrhofer)
Auf der Donau, Op.21, No.1 (J. Mayrhofer)

GUSTAV MAHLER (1860-1911)
RÜCKERT-LIEDER
Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder
Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft
Um Mitternacht
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
Liebst du um Schönheit




MSR Classics