PLNU Student and Alumni Win Met Awards

One current PLNU student and two recent alumni have been recognized by the Metropolitan Opera National Council, and two of the three will be going on to compete at the regional level with the hope of advancing to the national finals.

Soprano Christen Horne, a senior music and biology double major at PLNU, and mezzo-soprano Karin Wilcox, a PLNU mathematics alum from San Diego, won first place awards of $1,000 each at the Metropolitan Opera National Council (MONC) Auditions in San Diego on Oct. 1. Both will compete in the MONC Western Regional Finals on October 21 and 22 in Los Angeles. If they advance, the national finals take place onstage at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in March 2012. Horne and Wilcox are both students of PLNU associate professor of music Dr. John Craig Johnson

The MONC auditions were held for the second time at Crill Performance Hall on the campus of PLNU. The auditions are open to singers between the ages of 20 and 30 who attend school or are citizens of the United States or Canada. This year’s competition attracted singers from as far away as Philadelphia and New York City. All three first-place winners have ties to San Diego. The third winner was mezzo-soprano Sasha Hashemipour, who grew up in San Diego but is now attending the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, having just graduated from Manhattan School of Music. 

In addition to the first place awardees, Austin Thompson, who graduated from PLNU last May with a B.A. in music, earned two monetary “Encouragement Awards.” Thompson, a bass-baritone from Scottsdale, Arizona, is currently attending graduate school at USC’s Thornton School of Music. 

Over the past four years, Johnson’s PLNU students have garnered nine of the 11 total awards given to undergraduates, a remarkable record considering that prior to 2009, PLNU had never produced a student winner in the MONC Auditions. 

“It is the highest honor for our voice students to be recognized by the Met in this way,” said Johnson. “For an undergraduate student from a small program like ours to actually be passed on to the regional competition is almost unbelievable.” 

“I must give credit where it’s due though,” Johnson said. “Both of these wonderful ladies also coach with our incomparable staff piano-voice coach, Ines Irawati. Without Ines, this feat would not have been possible. She pours as much into playing and coaching them as I do teaching them to sing. We are extremely blessed to have her in our department, and that’s one of the most significant things that sets us apart from other schools of our size.”

The San Diego MONC Auditions were adjudicated this year by three top-tier panelists: Gayletha Nichols, executive director of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions; Sally Wolf, internationally known dramatic coloratura soprano and voice faculty member of Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ; and David Effron, professor of music and chair of orchestral conducting at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.

“I could not be happier that these two singers have been recognized in this way,” said Johnson. “Never have I had two students who were more dedicated to the constant pursuit of improvement, day in and day out. Tireless and persistent are two adjectives that adequately describe them both. What is so incredible about both of these ladies is that they both came to school with little to no desire to become classical singers. Opera was the furthest thing from both of their minds.”