As a former member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist
Development Program, Heidi Skok made her MET debut in 1992 as
the Young Shepherd in Tannhauser. At the MET she has also
performed in productions of Elektra, Ariadne auf
Naxos, Rigoletto,
Jenufa, and Britten’s Death in Venice. Most recently, during the
1998-99 MET season, Skok performed as Masha in Tschaikovsky’s
Queen of Spades conducted by Valery Gergiev, which was featured on
PBS Live from Lincoln Center this fall. In addition, during the 1998-99
and 99-00 season, Skok sang in the MET’s premiere of Arnold
Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron as one of the Naked Virgins, with
James Levine on the podium. The soprano has sung Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni
Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Pamina in Die Zauberflote, and Fiordiligi in
Cosi fan tutte, all for Wolf Trap Opera, as well as Micaela in Carmen for
Pittsburgh Opera and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel for Kansas City Lyric
Opera. Miss Skok is renowned as a recital and concert artist, championing new
music by American composers of which in the forefront are Martin
Hennessy, and Stefania de Kenessey. Skok has participated at the
Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y, with the late baritone, Hermann
Prey. Other New York concert appearances have included Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, also at the 92nd Street Y,
Faure’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall, and concerts with Positive Music at
Weill Recital Hall. The soprano sang Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the
Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, and Brahm’s Deutche Requiem
with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra in Florida. She has toured
South America in recital and has performed in concert in Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, Chicago, Lucca (Italy) Salzburg and Tel Aviv. This past
summer, Skok performed at the renowned summer festival
Ravinia, in Highland Park, Illinois in the Steans Institute for Young Artists. More
recently, Ms. Skok performed songs of Stefania de Kenessey on the
Derriere Guard Festival in San Francisco, with other American
composers such as Jake Heggie of the San Francisco Opera and Alva
Henderson. She also sang a concert in Cleveland with orchestra
conducted by Maestro Andrew Bisantz of the Buffalo Philharmonic.
Heidi Skok has won numerous awards and prizes including The
Sullivan Award from Opera America, the Opera Index, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and she was a
Semi-finalist for the 1997 Birgit Nilsson Prize. Her solo CD album of Ned Rorem’s Song Cycle of Women’s Voices &
Songs of Martin Hennessy was released in 1998 on the Newport
Classic label and is selling nationwide and in Canada. Highlights of upcoming engagements include a narrative-concert
appearance at the Washington National Cathedral singing songs by
American classical composer Stefania de Kenessey, accompanied by
the composer and narrated by American author of The Bonfire of the
Vanities, Tom Wolfe. During the 2000-01 opera season, Miss Skok
also begins work on a new album of Holiday favorites with orchestra in
Cleveland to be released this next season, as well as makes another
appearance during the 2000-01 season with the Metropolitan Opera in
PARSIFAL conducted by James Levine. Heidi Skok is a 1990 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a 1991
graduate of Tito Capobianco’s Pittsburgh Opera Center at Duquesne, as
well as a 1994 alum of the Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist Development Program.
For more information on Heidi Skok, including where to buy her solo CD,
please visit her web site at http://www.heidiskok.com/
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