Centennial Gala Concert

Two time Grammy® Award-winning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (The New York Times), and “calmly commanding stage presence” (The New Yorker) has been “marked out at and early stage as a singer headed for top flight” (Financial Times), gracing the world’s top opera and concert stages.

In Ms. Bridges’ upcoming 2024-25 season, she will make her role debut as Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto at The Metropolitan Opera. Her concert engagements include performing alongside the National Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Tacoma, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She will perform a solo recital as an artist in residence at the Kaufman Music Center, and will feature as the mezzo-soprano soloist alongside the Dessoff Choirs in Verdi’s Requiem for a concert at Trinity Church. Returning to Seattle Opera, she will debut the role of Didon in performances of Les Troyens, and in Spring 2025, will play the title role in Carmen at the Wiener Staatsoper. Bridges made her Lincoln Center debut performing Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs, and “with a voice both voluptuous and statuesque, sang with depth and serenity” (The New York Times) had a huge success performing the role of Mary in John Adams’ El Niño at the Metropolitan Opera.

Internationally renowned American soprano Amanda Majeski is a celebrated interpreter of Mozart, Strauss, Wagner and Handel. She is also highly acclaimed for her portrayal of Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová, making her debut with that role at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Best New Opera Production at the 2019 Olivier Awards), and having been described as “Katya of the moment”, following the London Symphony Orchestra concert performance conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in 2023.

During the 2023/24 season, Majeski returns to the Teatro Real Madrid as Marta The Passenger and performs Káťa in a new production directed by Calixto Bieito at the Semperoper Dresden. Recent highlights include her return to the Teatro Real Madrid as 3rd Norn and Gutrune Götterdämmerung, her debut with the Dutch National Opera as Donna Elvira Don Giovanni, Káťa in concert at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Beethoven 9 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Vitellia La clemenza di Tito for the Opéra national de Paris.

Majeski made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Countess Almaviva in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro, returning for a revival of Don Giovanni conducted by Fabio Luisi and new production of Così fan tutte under David Robertson. She made her mainstage debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Countess Almaviva with conductor Sir Andrew Davis, returning as Vitellia La clemenza di Tito, Eva Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Marschallin Der Rosenkavalier, Marta and Donna Elvira. She sang Blanche de la Force Dialogues des Carmélites for Pittsburgh Opera, Countess Almaviva in her debut for the Washington National Opera, and Countess Madeleine Capriccio, Komponist Ariadne auf Naxos and Fiordiligi Così fan tutte for the Santa Fe Opera. Majeski made her European debut at the Semperoper Dresden, where she performed in new productions of Alcina and La clemenza di Tito, along with revivals of Le nozze di Figaro and Capriccio. She sang Countess Almaviva and Eva for the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, performed the title role Rusalka and her first Marschallin for Oper Frankfurt, made her debut with the Opernhaus Zürich as Marguerite Faust, and appeared at the Staatstheater Stuttgart and Teatro Colón.

Majeski sang Gutrune in a concert performance of Götterdämmerung with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Jaap van Zweden that was released on Naxos Records. Other concerts include Beethoven Symphony No.9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Gustavo Dudamel) and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Strauss Vier letzte Lieder at Verizon Hall Philadelphia, National Concert Hall Dublin and with the Nürnberger Symphoniker, Berg Sieben frühe Lieder and Mozart Requiem with the Sinfonieorchester Aachen and Wagner Wesendonck Lieder with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Her many recital appearances have included Italienisches Liederbuch at 92nd Street Y with pianist Julius Drake and her solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall.

Majeski holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Northwestern University. She was a member of San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, the Gerdine Young Artist Program at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Steans Institute at Ravinia, and is alumnus of the Ryan Opera Center. Awards include the George London Foundation Award, first prize of the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition, and a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation.

American baritone Jarrett Ott (Opera ’14), one of Opera News’ twenty-five “Rising Stars,” and called “a man who is seemingly incapable of an unmusical phrase,” is enjoying an international career at the age of 36. In the 2023–24 season, Mr. Ott will sing the title role in a world-premiere work with Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the title role in Pascal Dusapin’s Macbeth Underworld with Opéra Comique, Colonel Álvaro Gómez in a new production by Calixto Bieito’s of The Exterminating Angel by Thomas Adès with Opéra national de Paris, and Don Pedro de Alvarado in Purcell’s The Indian Queen with Teodor Currentzis and the Salzburg Festival. In concert, Mr. Ott joins the Colorado Symphony and Oregon Bach Festival for Vaughan-Williams’ A Sea Symphony, the US Naval Academy in Annapolis for Messiah, and Symphoria in Syracuse, NY, for an evening of opera favorites.

In the 2022–23 season, Mr. Ott made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu as Lescaut in Manon, the Opéra Comique as Jan Nyman in Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, Dandini in La Cenerentola with Staatstheater Stuttgart, the prisoner in David Lang’s prisoner of the state with Malmö Opera and Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and Maximilian in Candide with the Hamburg Symphoniker at the Lausitz Festival. In the US, he performed Conte in Le nozze di Figaro with Pittsburgh Opera, reprised the role of John Seward for a performance and recording of The Lord of Cries with Odyssey Opera, and joined colleagues for the inaugural Sag Harbor Song Festival on Long Island.

A native of Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, Jarrett Ott is based in New York and received his master’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Praised for her “sizeable voice that captured all of the vacillating emotions” (The New York Times), GRAMMY® Award-winning soprano Karen Slack is celebrated as both an extraordinary performer and a change-maker in classical music.

Highlighting Slack’s 2024-2025 season is the nationwide tour of her new commissioning project, African Queens, a recital of new art songs by Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon and Joel Thompson. In July 2024, she released her debut commercial recording, Beyond the Years, alongside pianist Michelle Cann and ONEcomposer on Azica Records, and the project won the 2025 GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.

Slack has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Scottish Opera and many others. In concert, her credits include the Melbourne and Sydney symphonies, Bergen Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall and Philadelphia Orchestra. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in May 2024.

A recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Slack is an Artistic Advisor for Portland Opera, serves on the board of the American Composers Orchestra and Astral Artists and holds a faculty position at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. In the 2024-2025 season, she serves as Artist-in-Residence at both Lyric Opera of Chicago and Babson College.

A native Philadelphian, Slack is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program. Learn more at www.karenslack.com.

Born in Bratislava, Slovakia and raised in France and Canada, Miloš Repický has developed a diverse musical presence as pianist, conductor, chamber musician, educator, and producer. He is on the music staff at the Metropolitan Opera, where he serves as assistant conductor and prompter, played harpsichord continuo for Le nozze di Figaro, and has led the musical preparation of Jenufa, La fanciulla del West, Anna Bolena, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, among many other operas. He has collaborated regularly with the Cleveland Orchestra for operas including Tristan und Isolde, Cunning Little Vixen, Ariadne auf Naxos, Pelléas et Mélisande, and Daphne; Vienna’s Musikverein; Luxembourg Philharmonie; Lincoln Center Festival; and the Joffrey Ballet. He works regularly with the Santa Fe Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, and has also worked with Houston Grand Opera, Spoleto Festival, San Francisco Opera, the Dallas Symphony, the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman, and the Orquestra Sinfónica de Galicia. Mr. Repický is also the artistic director of Music for Montauk, on Long Island, N.Y.

Credits as music director with Toronto-based Against the Grain Theatre include #UncleJohn and the development of a new, immersive work, No One’s Safe, at the Banff Centre. At Kennedy Center’s World Stages Festival, he conducted Tobin Stokes and Heather Raffo’s opera, Fallujah. He has performed chamber music and partnered singers at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, Alice Tully Hall, Curtis on Tour, Carnegie Hall, Four Seasons Centre, Manchester Music Festival, Medici TV, TED, Jeunesses-Musicales de Montréal, and the Banff Centre. He is featured pianist on the Sundialtech Pictures multimedia DVD of Pierrot Lunaire. In addition to the Met’s HD, radio and SIRIUS satellite broadcasts, his performances have been heard on NPR, Performance Today, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, New York’s WQXR radio, and CUNY TV.

Mr. Repický studied at the University of Victoria with Robin Wood and Winifred Scott Wood, at the Manhattan School of Music with Warren Jones, and is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, San Francisco Opera Center, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He has served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, Yale Opera, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Castleton Festival.

Mr. Repický joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2016 and was named the Hirsig Family Chair in Vocal Studies in 2022.