Drake Dantzler, tenor and Victoria Shively, piano

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An Evening of 21st Century Art Song

Featuring works by Tom Cipullo, Jennifer Higdon, John Luther Adams, Brad Mehldau and Dan Welcher

Biographies

Drake Dantzler is a frequent performer of Opera, Oratorio and song. Mr. Dantzler was recently hailed in Opera News as “a real find: he has a voice of molten silver, immaculate musicianship and an expressive stage persona.” Recently, Mr. Dantzler appeared with the Opera Theater of the Rockies as Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus and with Arbor Opera Theateras Rodolfo in La Bohème. Mr. Dantzler also recently debuted the role of Mr. Bingley in Pride and Prejudice: the Musical for Chicago Chamber Opera, where his voice was lauded as “honey-toned” (Steadystyle Chicago). 

Other recent opera credits include Ohio Light Opera as the Caliph in Kismet, Rene in The Count of Luxembourg, and the Duke of Dunstable in Patience, recorded and released on Albany Records. Mr. Dantzler has appeared with Central City Opera as Mr. Erlansen in A Little Night Music and as Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor. Mr. Dantzler was seen as Ufficiale in Sarasota Opera’s Barbiere di Siviglia, as Camille from The Merry Widow with the Breckenridge Music Festival, and with Des Moines Metro Opera’s Apprentice Opera as Charlie in Mahagonny Songspiel. Mr. Dantzler has portrayed Ernesto in Don Pasquale with both Opera Iowa and The Living Opera. In 2005, he made his Austin Lyric Opera debut as Ruiz in Il Trovatore and he appeared with the Astoria Music Festival as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. As a young artist, Mr. Dantzler has appeared with Sarasota Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and Central City Opera.

Recent concert engagements for Mr. Dantzler include Tenor Soloist in Haydn’s The Creation with the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers, Carmina Burana with the Warren Symphony, the Britten Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings with the Pontiac Oakland Symphony, Oakland Chamber Orchestra and the Adrian Symphony, a recording of Friml’s Katinka with the Comic Opera Guild of Ann Arbor, Messiah with the Adrian Symphony, performances with the Macomb Symphony, Rochester (MI) Symphony Orchestra, Canton Symphony, and Verrada in Sousa’s El Capitan with the Tupelo Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Dantzler was also a resident artist at the Vancouver International Song Institute this past summer as well as giving recitals in Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio. Upcoming engagements include recitals and solo engagements in Michigan and Ohio, Rogers and Hammerstein reviews with the Toledo Symphony and Warren Symphony, Messiah performances in Grand Rapids and Detroit, and Carmina Burana in Orchestra Hall. Mr. Dantzler is an assistant professor at Oakland University. More information can be found at www.DrakeDantzler.com.

Victoria Demaree Shively graduated from Indiana University South Bend with a B.Mus. in piano performance as a student of John Owings. During her studies at I.U.S.B., she received every honor possible awarded to music majors, including the Performer’s Certificate in Piano. She spent a year in Vienna, Austria studying with Paul Badura-Skoda and Akira Imai, and then earned the M.Mus. in Vocal Coaching and Accompanying at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, studying with John Wustman.

She was the junior division winner of the 1984 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Victoria Demaree Shively has played for master classes and in the studios of William Warfield, Mignon Dunn, Sherrill Milnes, and Martin Katz, and has accompanied the choirs of Robert Shaw, Don V Moses, and Donald Nally. Her collaborative work includes performances with Nathan Gunn, Fritz Kaenzig, Carl Kaiser, and Zheng Zhou, and recordings with Edward Bach (Infinity) and Nathan Daughtrey (Spiral Passages). In 1992, she was invited to become the first American coach/accompanist at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, by then principal conductor, Valery Gergiev.

Over a period of nine years at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she appeared in approximately two hundred faculty, graduate, and undergraduate instrumental and vocal recitals, as well as teaching upper-level undergraduate classes for voice and piano majors, including a course on Nineteenth-Century Lieder. She has also worked at Kansas State University, teaching music theory and applied piano.

In 2004, she joined the faculty at Oakland University, where she is now a full-time special lecturer (instructor), teaching Music Theory, Aural Skills, and History and Literature of Western Tonal Music. She was active in the development of the new undergraduate history curriculum, and has developed a portfolio of materials specially designed for the MUS131 music history class, which is designed to be the first college-level music history course taken by freshmen at Oakland University.

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Scheduled
Event Types
New Music Vocal Arts