A native of North Carolina, he made his New York City Opera debut in 1973 as Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni. He later joined the Metropolitan Opera as a principal artist in 1978, where he sang for 22 seasons. Best has sung with many of the country's major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra. He has sung in France, Italy, and Canada, with the Casal's Festival in Mexico City, and toured Japan with the Metropolitan Opera.
Concert highlights have included Messiah with Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society (conducted by Christopher Hogwood), the National Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Nicholas McGegan), and the Masterwork Chorus at Carnegie Hall; Iago in Rossini’s Otello and Rodrigo in Rossini’s La Donna Del Lago with the Caramoor Festival; and a Pops Concert with the National Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Leonard Slatkin).
Highlights of her repertoire include Handel’s Ariodante, Thomas’ Mignon, and Bellini’s La Straniera at the Wexford Festival; Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess at the Glyndebourne Festival; Berg’s Lulu at the Chatelet in Paris and Offenbach’s Robinson Crusoe at the Opera Comique. She sang leading roles in several premieres, including Thea Musgrave’s Voice of Ariadne, which was her New York City Opera debut, Anthony Davis’ Under the Double Moon, Minoru Miki’s Actor’s Revenge, and Myron Fink’s Chinchilla. The role of Carmen has been the cornerstone of her career, and she has sung the role in Houston, Toronto, Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Innsbruck, Budapest and Australia. She toured in seven countries with Peter Brook’s innovative La tragedie de Carmen.
Her concert career has included performances with the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Houston Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and the Jerusalem Symphony.
Cynthia’s recordings include Duffy’s A Time for Remembrance, Berg’s Lulu, Tippett’s The Ice Break and A Child of Our Time, Weill’s Lost in the Stars, and the Grammy nominated Porgy and Bess conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. The films of Porgy and Bess and L’incoronazione di Poppea are available on DVD.
Recent seasons have included performances at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall, Chicago's Orchestra Hall, Opera Theatre of St. Louis (American Premier of Goehr's Arianna), Seattle Opera (Handel's Giulio Cesare), San Diego Opera (Handel's Giulio Cesare), Lyric Opera of Chicago (Handel's Partenope), and the Kennedy Center. Equally at home on the recital and concert stage, Mr. Crayton has performed on Chicago's Jewel Box and Dame Myra Hess series as well as recitals with Ars Musica Chicago, at Washington, D.C.'s Phillip's Collection, at Weill Hall in New York City, as well as Amstelrande in Amsterdam and Grovesnor Chapel in London. Mr. Crayton has been a return guest artist every summer with the Oberlin Baroque Orchestra at Oberlin Conservatory's Baroque Performance Institute since 1993. This past summer he also taught at the Italian Operatic Experience in Montecatini Terme Italy.
Mr. Crayton has appeared with the Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Sarasota Symphony, Fargo Symphony, Sheboygan Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Chicago's Music of the Baroque, Chicago Baroque Ensemble, Ensemble Voltaire, La Pettite Bande, the Netherlands Kammerkoor, El Ayre Español, as well as many others. Mark Crayton has developed quite a reputation for his interpretation of Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, which he has performed 162 times. This past season's Chicago appearances included Ulnufo in Handel's Rodelina as part of Handel Week, appearances with Haydn by the Lake as well as a new project of music based on the writings of Henry VIII and his wives with Yasuko Oura, piano and Susanna Phillips, soprano, at Roosevelt University's Ganz Hall. Outside of Chicago, Mr. Crayton sang recitals in London, New York City, and Washington D.C. as well as presenting masterclasses here in the United States as well as Europe. www.markcrayton.com.
Ms. Haddon studied at the University of Illinois and the American Opera Center at the Juilliard School, and was a winner of the prestigious National Opera Institute Grant two years in a row. Her teaching promotes a strong foundation based on her own international education; her teachers include the legendary Marlena Malas, and she has coached with such greats as Peter Herman Adler, Janine Reis, Joan Dornemann, Walter Tausig, John Wustman, Luigi Ricci, Mirella Freni, Renata Scotto, and Ileana Cotrubas. In addition to her students at CCPA, she teaches privately and has done master classes in Chicago, New York, Wisconsin, Michigan, Santa Fe, Italy, England and Japan. Her students are performing in opera houses and concert venues around the world.
Mr. Holloway made his New York debut with the New York City Opera as Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte. He sang with the City Opera for eight seasons altogether, while performing with major opera companies across the United States, including Boston, Central City, Cincinnati, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Kansas City, New Orleans, Omaha, San Diego, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. His repertoire of over seventy-five major roles encompasses Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Figaro and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Giovanni in Don Giovanni, Onegin in Eugene Onegin, Caesar in Julius Caesar, Scarpia in Tosca, Papa Germont in La Traviata, and Rigoletto in Rigoletto.
As Chair of the Performance Department and one of the leading voice teachers at CCPA, Mr. Holloway still makes some major appearances: Most recently, he returned to the Chicago Opera Theater for performances as the Traveler and the six nemesis characters in Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. He also sang in COT's highly acclaimed production of Comedy on the Bridge of B. Martinu and appeared as Don Alfonso in Cosî fan tutte in 2002. Mr. Holloway continues to perform in recitals and concerts, both in Chicago and around the country. In the fall of 2003, he was featured with bass Samuel Ramey (also a member of the CCPA faculty) singing the duet from I Puritani with the CCPA Orchestra, at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. In 2007, Mr. Holloway completed his third season as Director of the Apprentice Singers Program with the Santa Fe Opera, one of the most prestigious young artist programs in the U.S.
Recent season highlights have included a debut with Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, Serena in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of Porgy and Bess, the Fauré Requiem with Eugene Symphony, Verdi’s Requiem with the Virginia and Colorado symphonies, the Louisiana Philharmonic under Carlos Miguel Prieto in Brahms’ Requiem, Szymanowsky’s Stabat Mater at Grant Park, Villa-Lobos’ Three Songs from Floresta do Amazonas with the Houston Symphony, a special Christmas concert tour in Lisbon with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, a concert commemorating Martin Luther King with the Chicago Sinfonietta, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Calgary Philharmonic, Verdi's Requiem with Helena Symphony and a recital, "Dvorak & American Soul," presented by New York Festival of Songs at Weill Recital Hall.
Other recent oratorio and symphonic highlights include the Dvorak Requiem with the N. O. Tonkünstler Orchestra of Vienna, the Brahms Requiem in her debut with the Northern Israel Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Winter Park Bach Festival, Elgin Symphony and Albany Symphony, Britten’s Spring Symphony as well as the Brahms Requiem and Rosenkavalier all at Grant Park Music Festival, and Bernstein’s Songfest with the Chicago Sinfonietta. In 2003 she performed Mozart’s Exultate Jubilate and a Live at Ravinia concert of Berlioz selections, which aired live on WFMT, Chicago’s public broadcast radio network. With Boston Landmarks Orchestra she sang operatic arias and a world premiere ensemble work for three sopranos, May We Live, by Boston composer, Patricia Van Ness. Overseas, she appeared at the Edinburgh Festival and debuted in Italy with the Orchestra della Toscana in concerts and radio performances. She is the soprano soloist in Robert Avalon’s Sextet de Julia de Burgos, recorded on Centaur.
Please visit Ms. Lattimore's website here.
Although famed in particular for his “devil” roles in Faust, Mefistofele, La damnation de Faust, and The Rake’s Progress, and for his blockbuster “Date with the Devil” concerts, Ramey’s 50-plus admired portrayals also include the title roles of Le nozze di Figaro, Bluebeard’s Castle, Attila, Don Giovanni, Boris Godunov, Gianni Schicchi, and Don Quichotte, along with Olin Blitch/Susannah, Claggart/Billy Budd, Georgio/I Puritani, the four villains of Les contes d’Hoffmann, Raimondo/Lucia di Lammermoor, Zaccaria/Nabucco, Fiesco/Simon Boccanegra, Escamillo/Carmen, and Scarpia/Tosca, among many others. Ramey has performed these roles on all the major opera and concert stages of the world, and has made more recordings (more than 80) than any other bass in history.
Stilwell has collaborated with Leopold Stokowski, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Colin Davis, Andre Previn, James Conlin, and Lorin Maezel. His recordings include Nozze di Figaro (Haitink), Pelleas et Melisande (von Karajan), the CBS Il Ritorno d’Ulisse by Monteverdi, and both Messiah and the Brahms Requiem with the Atlanta Symphony (Robert Shaw). Stilwell also appears in the Unitel film of Falstaff with Sir Georg Solti, and on the soundtrack of the Academy award winning film, Amadeus.
His work in the training and development of singers has taken him to positions with the Centre de formation lyrique of the Opéra national de Paris, London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the San Francisco Opera Center and the young artist programs of Cologne Opera, Opera Australia, Santa Fe Opera, and Florida Grand Opera. He is an adjudicator for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He was co-artistic director with Christine Bullin of Opera Overture, a program in Malibu, California for singers aged 16-21, and is a guest faculty member of Dr Doreen Rao’s Choral Music Experience, directing opera workshops for children. He is a contributing editor to Boosey & Hawkes’ Choral Music Experience series, translating and editing scenes from operatic literature for young people. The San Francisco Chronicle dubbed him “a singer’s colleague and best artistic friend.”
He is currently Director of Musical Studies at Chicago Opera Theater, and Assistant Professor of Opera and Vocal Coaching and Director of the Professional Diploma in Opera Program at Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University, where he studied piano with Dr Ludmila Lazar.
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