soprano
Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 4PM
Ticket: $60

Our season finale—an all-Gershwin extravaganza celebrating America’s iconic composer and the 100th anniversary of Rhapsody in Blue. This musical tribute features a stellar ensemble of artists: celebrated pianist and Gershwin specialist Tom Pandolfi, Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone Kevin Short, rising opera star Jouelle Roberson, double bassist Tom Baldwin, R. Timothy McReynolds pianist/tenor, and host/soprano Carolyn Black-Sotir.

A master of both the grand gesture and the sensual line...
Washington Post
It’s the finest performance of Gershwin I have heard since the composer himself.
Morton Gould

Thomas Pandolfi

Thomas Pandolfi is one of the leading pianists of our time, hailed a “phenomenon.” He began his career early on while at The Juilliard School (BM & MM) where the young prodigy caught the influential ear of Vladimir Horowitz, who would become his mentor, and legendary composer, Morton Gould. Since then he has been an audience favorite, selling out the world’s most prestigious stages, including Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Strathmore, The Kennedy Center, Kiev Opera House, Bucharest’s Romanian Athenaeum, London’s Cadogan Hall, and many others.

DC Metro Arts calls him, “exhilarating… a rare mix of technical accuracy and cool confidence.” “His artistry and technique were simply astonishing,” said the Metropolitan Arts Reviews. The Washington Post boasted his “large-scale pianism seemed under tight control yet in no way muted the passion of his performance… projected with an exquisite sense of lyrical gesture.” “A standout among today's young pianists... His virtuosity and strength… might have had some believing that Liszt himself had taken over the keyboard,” said the Asheville Citizen-Times.

In addition to being recognized as one of the greatest interpreters of the Polish masters such as Chopin, Paderewski, and Godowsky, this versatile pianist has received accolades from everything from Bach to Gershwin. His original and virtuosic transcriptions of popular works, such as West Side Story and Phantom of the Opera, are one-of-kind, jaw-dropping, and dramatic encores that keep audiences of all ages returning to his performances again and again.

Mr. Pandolfi is a Steinway Artist and will begin recording for Steinway Spirio later this year. Mr. Pandolfi’s performances have been broadcast by PBS, WETA (Washington, DC), WQXR (NYC), WRCJ (Detroit), DCN TV (China), The Sound (DC), and many others worldwide. During his 2019-2020 season, he completed a 20-state tour of the USA, his fourth tour in China, third tour of the UK, and seventh tour of Romania and Moldova.

Born in Washington, DC into a musical family, Pandolfi began his studies with his father and continued on with principal teachers Sasha Gorodnitzki, Adele Marcus, Gyorgy Sandor. He holds a BM and MM from The Juilliard School.

Kevin Short was nothing less than brilliant...continued to amaze with outstanding tone and the quality of his interpretation.
Venice Gondolier Sun
Kevin Short stole the performance with his exceptionally robust, centered bass-baritone...
U.K. Magazine

Kevin Short

Bass baritone Kevin Short is thrilling audiences around the globe in repertoire ranging from the depths of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail to Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, to Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

A sample of the companies he has performed with in North America include The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Washington National Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Florida Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, Edmonton Opera, and Opera de las Americas.

His European and Asian operatic credits include performances with Paris’ Opéra Comique, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Festival Montpellier, l’Opéra Rouen, Welsh National Opera, Grand Theatre de Luxembourg, Oper der Stadt Köln, Semperoper Dresden, Stadttheatre Stuttgart, Bregenzer Festival, Baden-Baden Festival, Theatre Basel, Savonlinna Festival, Saito Kinen Festival, and additional festivals in China, Vietnam, Granada, Valencia, Santiago de Compostela in Spain and numerous tours throughout Russia, Finland and Japan.

Kevin also enjoys an active concert career and has performed with the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony in the United States and in Europe and Asia he’s sung with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Marseille Philharmonic, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Radio France Orchestra, Swiss and Italian RAI Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Symphony, Siberian State Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Hiroshima Symphony, and the Nagano Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies Orchestra.

Kevin received his training from Morgan State University, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School of Music during which he won numerous competitions and awards such as the Metropolitan Opera Competition, the Internazionale Concorso di Voce Verdiane, the Rosa Ponselle International, Liederkranz Competition, and awards from the Sullivan Foundation, Shoshana Foundation, and the George London Foundation.

Kevin can be heard on his CD “Mephistopheles and other Bad Guys”, “Otello”, issued by Pentatone Records, “La Fanciulla del West”, “Madama Butterfly”, “Un Ballo in Maschera”, issued by San Francisco Classics, “The Death of Webern” on Albany Records and “Amahl and the Night Visitors” and “L’enfant et les Sortileges” issued by Naxos.

In addition to his performance calendar, Kevin is now teaching at both the Juilliard School of Music and the University of Maryland in College Park.

Jouelle Roberson

Jouelle Roberson, soprano, is a rising star in the vocal world. She was a finalist in the Vincerò First Italian Worldwide Opera Competition in 2022, receiving both the Renata Tebaldi Award and the Public Award. As a member of Saratoga Opera’s Young Artist Program and Atlanta Opera Studio, Jouelle has won kudos for her performances in both lead and supporting roles. Most recently, she sang the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica with Opera Lucca.

Originally from Washington DC, Jouelle attended Duke Ellington School for the Arts. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Vocal Performance at Morgan State University studying with Marquita Lister. She then continued at Manhattan School of Music where she completed the Professional Studies Program Certificate.

Bassist Tom Baldwin is one of the best of the new breed that I have heard in a number of years. He accompanies the trio flawlessly and has impeccable intonation and accuracy.
Vic Juris

Tom Baldwin

Tom Baldwin is a jazz bassist, educator, composer, and arranger in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. For 30 years, he has been one of the most in-demand bassists in the region. Baldwin has taught at the University of Maryland since 1996, and performs on over 50 CDs as a side man.

Tom earned a BM in Jazz Studies at Ithaca College where he studied with Steve Brown, Henry Neubert, and Rick Beato. Soon after returning to his home town of Baltimore, Baldwin won 2nd place in the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Bass Competition. He has performed and recorded with scores of top jazz artists. A partial list would include instrumentalists Eric Alexander, Peter Beets, Gene Bertoncini, Marc Copland, Stanley Cowell, George Garzone, Tutti Heath, Fred Hersch, Tim Hagans, Roger Humphries, Lee Konitz, Harold Mabern, James Moody, Walt Weiskopf, and James Williams, as well as vocalists Anne Hampton Calloway, Michael Feinstein, Eartha Kitt, Stacey Kent, Bernadette Peters, and Kenny Rankin.

Some of Baldwin’s more notable recordings include his self-produced Glom on This which features all original compositions and arrangements. Steve Herberman’s Ideals from 2009 resided on the Jazzweek national airplay chart for 28 weeks and peaked at number 10. Tony Martucci’s Life In Hand features pianist Marc Copland, 3 of Tom’s compositions, and was voted by the Washington Post among the best of 2011. Two more Baldwin originals appear on 2014’s Angel Eyes by the Grammy- winning Afro Bop Alliance. More recently, a series of performances with Dutch pianist Peter Beets culminated with the 2019 release Our Love Is Here To Stay and a tour of Holland.

In the academic realm, Baldwin teaches Jazz Bass and coaches small ensembles at both the College Park and Baltimore County campuses of the University of Maryland.

excellent pianist
The Baltimore Sun
brilliant accompanist
Classical Journal

R. Timothy McReynolds

Enjoying a career that embraces art song, opera, chamber music, and cabaret, pianist R. Timothy McReynolds is also active as a teacher and vocal coach. He is Associate Professor of Collaborative Piano at Mercer University’s Townsend School of Music in Macon, Georgia. Previously, he was a member of the Voice/Opera faculty of the University of Maryland, School of Music.

He has presented concerts, cabarets, and master classes in Mexico, Germany, Italy, and Austria, as well as across the United States. As an accompanist, Tim has performed in recital with such acclaimed artists as Delores Ziegler, Michael Mayes, Emily Pulley, Catherine Cook, Isabel Leonard, Timothy Mix, Corinne Winters, and the late William Warfield. Tim holds the distinction of playing (and singing) the world premiere of Dominick Argento's Cabaret Songs with Linda Mabbs at the University of Maryland. He has travelled to Italy on numerous occasions to play recitals at International ClarinetFest in Assisi and to serve as the Artist-in-Residence Collaborative Pianist for the Summer Music in Tuscany in Sarteano. A little closer to home, Tim was the vocal accompanying Artist-in-Residence at Lynn University in Florida.

Tim enjoys a close association with UrbanArias and Vocal Arts DC. He is a founding member of AMTA--American Music Theatre Artists, an ensemble of singers and instrumentalists dedicated to preserving and celebrating the American music theatre repertoire. Recent concert venues include the Kennedy Center and the German Embassy in Washington, D.C, the Egyptian Embassy in Vienna, Austria, and both Stern Auditorium and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. In addition to playing chamber music, he continues his work as Keyboardist for the Baltimore Symphony.

Tim holds a B.M. from Indiana University, M.M. from the University of Michigan, and D.M.A. from the University of Maryland. His teachers include Edward Auer, Martin Katz, Jeffrey Gilliam, Robert McCoy and Rita Sloan.

Recordings include Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin with tenor Bryce Westervelt, and Sur mon Voyage with tenor Duane Moody. Tim has several recordings with Grammy-nominated Inscape Chamber Orchestra on the Sono Luminus label.

brilliant, shining, expressive, and confident
Philadelphia Inquirer
a wonderful singer, with beautiful tone and excellent diction; her portrayal is spontaneous and superbly characterized.
The Baltimore Sun

Carolyn Black-Sotir

Carolyn Black-Sotir is a versatile artist performing in and directing opera, oratorio, recital, musical theatre, and cabaret both here and abroad.

As guest artist, Carolyn has sung with the region’s finest orchestras and is in demand on the university and concert circuits presenting programs ranging from the lieder of Alban Berg to the songs of Irving Berlin. Carolyn’s hallmark is her innovative and collaborative programming. She continues to perform on the symphony pops and recital circuits with her original programs celebrating such composers as George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, to name a few.

Carolyn works as a producer and director of opera and musical theatre. Most recently she served as producer, writer, director, and singer for Bravo! Bernstein on Broadway featuring the Peabody Orchestra. In collaboration with Center Stage, she produced a new work: Shadowboxer, an American opera about boxing legend Joe Louis. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of American Music Theatre Artists, AMTA, an eclectic mix of musical and theatrical artists dedicated to preserving and celebrating the American music theatre repertoire. Recordings include By George! By Ira! By Gershwin!

While maintaining a private studio, Carolyn is a member of the Voice Faculty at Morgan State University. She is in demand as a clinician, conducting numerous master classes and workshops.

Carolyn’s commitment to the arts is illustrated in numerous advocacy efforts. Currently, she serves as Chair of the Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences. She hosts the arts television program Kaleidoscope, as well as numerous PBS specials. She wrote, co-edited, and co-produced a documentary on American opera composer Dominick Argento, which aired on Minnesota Public Television. She co-founded The Steinway Series at Silo Hill, dedicated to reinventing the way people experience live classical music while raising awareness and research funds for Parkinson’s [www.SteinwaySiloHill.org].

Dr. Black-Sotir is a magna cum laude graduate of Eastman School of Music with Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Vocal Performance and Literature. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance with a special concentration in Directing from University of Maryland.

Carolyn and her husband Michael live at Silo Hill, located in the picturesque farmland of Baltimore County [www.carolynblack.com].