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Sunday, September 1, 2024
— a “hybrid” event —
Les Amorces
Amanda Densmoor, Soprano
Ceylon Mitchell, Flute
Yejin Lee, Piano
A Shared Legacy:
Honoring Women Composers
Join Les Amorces as we celebrate the legacy of women composers, featuring a program that includes both their works and those of their male counterparts. This concert blends the voices of piano, flute, and soprano to highlight the creativity and influence of women in music.
BIOGRAPHY
Indonesian-American soprano Amanda Densmoor has delighted audiences across the United States and Southeast Asia. The 2024/2025 season will see her debut with Aula Simfonia Jakarta in Jakarta, Indonesia, as the Soprano II soloist in Mendelssohn’s Elijah and a return to Annapolis Opera as Girl/1 st Trio Member in Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. Recently, Amanda was seen as Papagena in Die Zauberflöte and as one of the bridesmaids in Le nozze di Figaro with Annapolis Opera, as the soprano soloist in Carmina Burana with the Manassas Ballet Theatre, and as Bella/Juliette in Bel Cantanti Opera’s Franz Lehár Operetta Gala. With the Maryland Opera Studio, Amanda performed the roles of the Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte) and Valentina Scarcella (Later the Same Evening), and covered Dalinda (Ariodante) and Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro). Other roles include Servilia (La clemenza di Tito), Nella (Gianni Schicchi), Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica), Patience (Patience), Counsel (Trial by Jury), Second Woman (Dido and Aeneas), and Kate (The Pirates of Penzance). As a concert soloist, Amanda has sung solos in Carissimi’s Jephte, Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis, Fauré’s Requiem, and Mozart’s Requiem. Amanda is passionate about new music, and has premiered the roles of Mother in Joseph C. Phillip Jr.’s Four Freedoms, and Meera in Omar Najmi’s This Is Not That Dawn.
Equally at home as a choral singer, Amanda has sung many large choral works with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Amanda has also sung as a soprano chorister with the Washington National Cathedral, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, The Thirteen, and Lux Choir. Highlights of her choral repertoire include Mozart’s Requiem, Brahms’s Requiem, Holst’s The Planets, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Liszt’s Dante Symphony, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Kaddish, Talbot’s Path of Miracles, and the world premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s Across the Line of Dreams. Amanda earned her Master of Music from the Maryland Opera Studio, and earned her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, summa cum laude, from the University of Maryland.
Dr. Ceylon Mitchell II embodies the 21st-century arts leader as a contemporary classical flutist, curator, educator, and entrepreneur. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Dr. Mitchell earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Maryland School of Music, under the tutelage of Dr. Sarah Frisof. He has performed in venues such as Boston’s Symphony Hall, the Music Center at Strathmore, the Arts Club of Washington, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with Robert Glasper. In the United States, Dr. Mitchell has been a featured artist at the National Flute Convention, flute societies and associations, and multiple chamber music series. Recent achievements include the Strathmore Artist in Residence Class of 2021, a Prince George’s County Forty UNDER 40 Award in Arts & Humanities, and numerous state an county-level artist fellowship grants. An avid chamber musician, Dr. Mitchell leads his own music collective, Raíces Negras, celebrating Black and Latine voices with repertoire spanning from contemporary classical music to contemporary Pan-American jazz and everything in between. As a music educator, Dr. Mitchell is an adjunct flute professor at Bowie State University and the Woodwinds Department Chair with Levine Music, the Washington D.C. region’s preeminent center for music education. A devoted teaching artist, he has served as an ensemble director, sectional coach, adjudicator, and panelist for numerous youth orchestras, arts programs, and arts grantmakers. He also supports creatives, arts organizations, and beyond with multimedia production and digital marketing consulting as the co-founder, creative director, and principal consultant of M3 | Mitchell Media & Marketing, LLC. Dr. Mitchell resides in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and two sons.
Pianist Yejin Lee is an active soloist and a chamber musician based in the United States. Yejin’s performances have been praised for her “coloristic and poetic expressions” and “compelling and thrilling rhythmic senses,” and she has been invited to perform in many prestigious venues around the world. Yejin had her solo debut at Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall in New York with the invitation from the Annual Velia International Music Festival, and her appearances include as a guest artist at the Cultural Art Center in Jaen, Spain and the Tyler Recital Hall in Florida, and Seoul Arts Center and Yong San Art Hall in Seoul, Korea. Claimed top awards at a number of national and international competitions, including at Dallas International Piano Competition, Kingsville International Piano Competition, Wideman International Piano Competition, Yejin also had a privilege to perform at leading music festivals and masterclasses at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg, Banff Music Festival, Gijon Music Festival in Gijon, Spain and Piano Texas International Academy & Festival, where she shared musical inspiration with great pedagogues and pianists in this century like Richard Goode, Dmitry Bashkirov, Stephen Hough, John O’Conor, John Perry, and Karl-Heinz Kammering. Yejin holds both piano performance and vocal accompanying degrees from Oberlin Conservatory with honors under Haewon Song and Philip Highfill and Masters and Doctorate degrees under Boris Slutsky from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
She currently serves as a piano faculty at Washington Conservatory of Music and a professorial lecturer at George Washington University. In addition, Yejin is a current member of MTNA and NVMTA, and she manages a private piano studio dedicated to teaching. As a founder and an artistic director of Matinee-M (www.matinee-m.org) and a pianist member of Baltimore Musicales, she is also committed to bringing classical music into the community.
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