Centenary artist-in-residence Twyla Robinson recognized internationally
February 8, 2017
SHREVEPORT, LA — A February 2016 performance in Montréal featuring Centenary College of Louisiana Artist-in-Residence Twyla Robinson has won an Opus Prize for Concert of the Year, Mixed Repertoires. The Opus Prizes, given annually by the Conseil Québécois de la Musiques, were announced during a gala ceremony in the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts on February 5, 2017.
The winning concert was with the Chamber Orchestra Musici de Montréal, conducted by Jean-Marie Zeitouni. They played Shostakovich’s Symphony 14 on February 25, 2016, with soprano Twyla Robinson and bass Stephan Klemm. Footage from the awards ceremony is available online (in French) at the Conseil Québécois de la Musiques website.
“I stepped into the concert on two weeks’ notice, having never performed this difficult piece,” says Robinson. “I had to pull out every knowledge stop I possess to get it learned in time, even though I make these last minute “step-ins” something of a specialty. In the business, such a step-in is known as an einsprungen. I’ve built my career on the einsprungen, using the tools and skills I was taught at Centenary.”
On February 10 and 12, Robinson sings the Mahler 4 in Milan, Italy, with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi. The concert, led by American conductor Robert Trevino, will feature Schubert’s 5th Symphony, as well as the Mahler. The Mahler 4 is famously built around a previously composed song by Mahler. Entitled “Der himmlische Leben” (The Heavenly Life), the song presents a child’s vision of heaven and is the heart of the 4th movement of the symphony.
Robinson graduated from Centenary and attended graduate school at Indiana University before becoming an Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera. Her career was firmly launched when she won the Grand Prize of the Metropolitan Opera Auditions in 2002. Under management with Columbia Artists, Robinson has sung opera, oratorio, and symphonic solo concerts all over the world. Recent performances include the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. In the summer of 2010, she was seen in a performance of Mahler’s “Symphony No. 8” at the opening night of the BBC Proms, broadcast worldwide on BBC television.