Community Invited to Open Dress Rehearsal with Diane Kalinowski
Aug. 6, 2014 — The Music Department at Allegheny College will host an open dress rehearsal with Diane Kalinowski at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, August 17, in Shafer Auditorium.
Kalinowski will perform five arias she has sung in the competition for the Elizabeth Connell Prize, an international singing competition for dramatic sopranos. Admission is free for the performance, which is expected to last about 30 minutes.
A voice instructor at Allegheny College, Kalinowski has been selected as one of only five sopranos worldwide who will compete in the finals for the 2014 Elizabeth Connell Prize. She won a spot in the final five after her performance in the competition’s semifinals, which were held in July at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
The five finalists will compete in a private judging and a public concert in Sydney, Australia on September 13 in conjunction with the Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award Finals. In addition to monetary prizes for all finalists, the winner of the Elizabeth Connell Prize will be granted an audition at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London.
The Elizabeth Connell Prize honors Elizabeth Connell, a South African soprano who had an illustrious career. Fully aware of the difficulty of establishing an operatic career as a dramatic soprano, Connell bequeathed a generous gift to create a charitable trust to administer and fund an international operatic singing prize.
Kalinowski is the 2014 winner of the American Opera Idol Award from Connecticut Concert Opera, a winner of the Alfredo Silipigni Vocal Competition at the New Jersey State Opera and a grand prize winner of the Rochester Lyric Opera LaDue Professional Recital Competition.
A native of Cochranton, she began her study of voice with Vicki Jamison, instructor of music at Allegheny College, and continues to coach with Vicki and Ward Jamison. “I consider them my most trusted ears,” Kalinowski says.
She received her master’s of music in opera from the University of Kansas while singing as a soprano apprentice with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and received her bachelor’s of music in vocal performance from Mercyhurst University.
Kalinowski has been a voice instructor at Allegheny College since 2011.