" ...singing with flair, vocal balance and great cadenzas"
"I feel so thankful and honored to be chosen as an ARIA Award recipient.
Not only is the Award helpful with career costs, but it is such an encouragement
to know that people believe in and support what I'm trying to accomplish
as an artist. I feel incredibly grateful."
Celena Shafer is being recognized
as one of the premiere artists of her generation following her internationally
acclaimed performances of Ismene in Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto
with the Santa Fe Opera in the summer of 2001. The New York Times wrote,
"It takes the debutante Celena Shafer, an alumna of the apprentice
program here, to show how it should be done, singing the Oriental princess
Ismene with flair, vocal balance and great cadenzas."
The 2004/05
season for Ms. Shafer includes her New York Philharmonic debut in Handel's
Messiah conducted by Alan Gilbert, Vivaldi's Gloria
and Bach's Cantata No. 51, 'Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen', with Bernard
Labadie and Tytania in A Midsummer Night's Dream led by Keith
Lockhart both with the Utah Symphony & Opera and Mahler's Symphony
No. 8 with the Madison Symphony. Celena Shafer debuts in the Far East
with a recital in Tokyo at the Mashushino Cultural Foundation; in Washington
D.C. singing the title role of Massenet's Esclarmonde with
the Washington Concert Opera; and at the Los Angeles Opera singing Nanetta
in Falstaff with conductor Kent Nagano. In the summer of 2005
Ms. Shafer sings Giunia in a new production of Mozart's Lucio Silla
for a return to Santa Fe.
The The 2003/04 season
for Ms. Shafer began with her debut at the Concertgebouw as Zerbinetta
in a concert performance of Ariadne auf Naxos led by Lothar Zagrosek
with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest Holland, followed by a return to the
Phoenix Symphony for Bernstein's Symphony No. 3 "Kaddish,"
and later Handel's Messiah as well as a debut with the Madison
Symphony in a series of holiday concerts. The summer of 2004 found her
reprising La Fille du Regiment for her Cincinnati Opera debut
before returning to the Santa Fe Opera as Hero in Beatrice et Benedict.
Recent seasons for Ms. Shafer Recent seasons for Ms. Shafer have included
a succession of company and role debuts including her European debut as
Gilda in a new production of Rigoletto with the Welsh National
Opera, Johanna in a new production of Sweeney Todd with the Lyric
Opera of Chicago, Blonde in a new production of The Abduction from
the Seraglio with the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Tytania in A
Midsummer Night's Dream with Pittsburgh Opera, Adele in Die Fledermaus
with both Vancouver Opera and Utah Symphony & Opera, Musetta in La
Bohème for Minnesota Opera, Marie in La Fille du Regiment
with Kentucky Opera, and Costanza in the U.S. stage premiere of Mozart's
Il Sogno di Scipione with the Henry Street Chamber Opera.
Celena
Shafer's orchestral appearances have included Aithra in a concert performance
of Strauss' Die Aegyptische Helena with the American Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein - recorded and released on the
Telarc label, Carmina Burana for her debut with the San Francisco
Symphony, Handel's Messiah and Mendelsohn's Elijah
with the Phoenix Symphony, Brahms' Deutsche Requiem with the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with
the Kansas City Symphony led by Nicholas McGegan.
In addition
to receiving the ARIA Award, Ms. Shafer is also the recipient of a 2000
Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation and can be
heard as the Coloratura on the Chant du Monde recording of Laurent Petitgirard's
Joseph Merrick dit L'Elephant Man with the Orchestre Philharmonique
de Monte-Carlo.
MANAGEMENT:
Lee Prinz, Colbert Artists Management 111 West 57th Street New York,
NY 10019 (212) 757-0782/FAX: (212)541-5179 http://www.colbertartists.com
