Sunday, May 19th │3:00pm Get Tickets
The Cooper-Bing is an internationally recognized vocal competition that has celebrated and supported emerging young artists in opera. Dubbed “The Olympics of Opera”, this competition encourages talent, creates artistic opportunity, and helps welcome the next generation into the professional opera community. Five finalists compete for the grand prize of $10,000! The 2024 competition will be emceed by Christopher Purdy.
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MEET THE TOP 5 FINALISTS
Mr. Görgün was born in Istanbul, Türkiye. He performed as Antonio in Le nozze di Figaro at the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2019 and covered the role of Sancho in Don Quichotte at the Istanbul State Opera in 2018. He studied at the Rodolfo Celletti Belcanto Academy in Italy. Currently, he is a second-year resident artist at AVA and has portrayed numerous roles such as the title role in Don Pasquale, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Enrico in Anna Bolena, Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia. He has also performed as a soloist with the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and at the III.–IV. İdil Biret Music Festival. He has been recognized with prizes in various competitions, including Meistersinger Competition in Graz, Austria, Mario Lanza Competition in Philadelphia, USA, and the 13th and 14th National Soloist Competitions in Izmir, Türkiye. He continues his studies under Luis Ledesma at the prestigious AVA.Cumhur Görgün
Originally from Baltimore, baritone, DANIEL RICH is in his first year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. This season, he covered the Count of Lerma in the company’s revival of Don Carlo and made his Met debut as a Waiter in Der Rosenkavalier. For the 2023-2024 season he will sing in two revival productions taking on the roles of Paris in Gounod’s “Romeo & Juliette” and the Grammy award winning “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” by Blanchard as Chester. Credits for the 2022-2023 season include a role and company debut as Valentin in “Faust” with Opera Baltimore and Orlando in a concert production of “Furiosus” a new opera in two acts by Roberto Scarcella Perino, in collaboration with New York University’s Casa Italiana. He also has performed in the workshop (2021), world-premiere (2022) and North Carolina Production (2023) of the Pulitzer Prize winning opera “Omar” by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels as Suleiman, Ben and John while covering the roles of Abdul and Abe. Summer 2023, Daniel will be a Filene Artist with Wolf Trap Opera where he will sing a recital, concert entitled “Night and Day, USA” with Steve Blier, as a soloist for Carmina Burana and make his role debut as Masetto in Don Giovanni. This past season on the concert stage, he was a featured soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, and this summer he will sing a concert featuring works by Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams with Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and three performances of Carmina Burana with Berkshire Choral International, Richmond Symphony in collaboration with Wolf Trap Opera, and Richmond Symphony & Ballet. Past concert engagements include aria concerts for Maryland Opera, Opera Delaware and performances with Capital Singers of Trenton, DC Strings Workshop, Baltimore Musicales, Opera Ebony, and Harlem Opera Theater, among others. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in April 2019 as a soloist in Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. Additional Oratorio & Concert credits include works such as Handel’s The Messiah, Dubois’ The 7 Last Words of Christ, Faure’s Requiem, Vaughan-Williams’ Serenade to Music, Mozart’s Mass in C minor, Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts, Margaret Bonds’ Ballad of The Brown King, Brahms’ Ein Deutches Requiem, Considering Matthew Shepard, and Beethoven’s Fantasia in C minor. He is a past winner of the Harlem Opera Theater Vocal Competition, Mario Lanza Institute Vocal Competition, ALLTech Vocal Competition at The University of Kentucky Black Brilliance Art Song Competition, emerging artist prize winner of the inaugural Duncan-Williams Vocal Competition and most recently the first place winner in the pre-professional division of the George Shirley Vocal Competition. In addition to his extensive performance experience, he has worked as a musical consultant and choral librarian for music ministries, a public-school teacher, and as an adjunct professor of voice at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County. He holds degrees from Morgan State University and Manhattan School of Music, where he was a recipient of the Edgar Foster Daniels Scholarship in Voice. Named a 2019 Grand Finals Winner by the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition, nonbinary American mezzo-soprano Mack Wolz (they/them) has garnered critical acclaim for committed performances of both new and standard repertoire. Having made their European operatic debut with Konzert und Theater St. Gallen as Bersi in Andrea Chénier last summer, Mx. Wolz returned to the company in the fall of 2023 to premiere Lili Elbe, the latest work by Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman. Mack has premiered many new works in their career, including What the Spirits Show (2023) with Washington National Opera, Harvey Milk (2022) with Opera Theater of Saint Louis, and On The Edge (2021) with the same company. They made their film debut with Boston Lyric Opera in a cinematic interpretation of Svadba (2021) by Ana Sokolovic. Mx. Wolz holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music degree from The Boston Conservatory at Berklee.Daniel Rich
Mack Wolz
Mezzo soprano, Olivia Johnson has been heralded by Opera News as a “standout… commanding and reassuring, with the timbre of a contralto and the astounding upper extension of a dramatic mezzo” (Blue, Detroit Opera, 2021). In the beginning of this season, Ms. Johnson had the privilege to debut at The Metropolitan Opera as an Alto I soloist in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X by Anthony Davis. Ms. Johnson has made additional solo appearances with Seattle Opera, Berkeley Symphony, Opera Omaha, White Snake Projects, Toledo Opera, Rackham Choir, ÆPEX Contemporary Performance, and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Summer festival credits include Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Chautauqua Opera, Music Academy of the West, and American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS). Other roles include Monisha (Treemonisha), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Gertrude (Roméo et Juliette), Mercédès (Carmen), Girlfriend 3 (Blue), Conchetta (Night Trip), La Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi). She has also received awards from George and Nora London Foundation Competition, Marilyn Horne Song Competition, MIOpera International Vocal Competition, and NANBPWC Inc.Olivia Johnson
Maggie Reneé, a mezzo-soprano from Los Angeles, California, is a Metropolitan Opera Competition Grand Finalist Award Winner, Saengerbund Awards Winner, Rochester Oratorio Society Emerging Artist Winner, Opera Index Award Winner, Igor Gorin Memorial Award Recipient and an Honors BM and MM graduate of The Juilliard School where she is pursuing her ADOS. This season performances include: Carmen with Music Academy of the West, Carmen with Juilliard Opera, Baba the Turk with Barbara Hannigan’s production of The Rakes Progress with the Swedish Orchestra, and Venus with Vienna Volksoper. This past summer at Des Moines Opera she covered Carmen and sang Nicolette in The Love for Three Oranges. Last season she sang Irene in Atalanta at Juilliard, Zweiter Knabe at Merola, and Baba the Turk at Juilliard Opera. Maggie Reneé writes her own music, has a black belt in Karate, and entertains over 285,000 of her subscribers on her YouTube channels daily.Maggie Reneé
COMPETITION HISTORY
Under the leadership of Irma M. Cooper, Opera Columbus launched its vocal competition in 1983, two years after the company was founded. Ms. Cooper believed a vocal competition would help fill young singers’ need for exposure to, and constructive feedback from, well-respected professionals from the opera industry. The competition has helped to launch the careers of many singers, including world renowned mezzo -soprano Denyce Graves and Metropolitan Opera artists Dina Kuznetsova, Richard Paul Fink, Lucas Meachem, Nicole Heaston, Richard Zeller, Susan Foster, and Alyson Cambridge. Several of Columbus’ performance venues have hosted the event, including the Palace Theatre (1983–1991), the Ohio Theatre (1992), Mees Hall at Capital University ’s Conservatory of Music (1992–2003), Weigel Hall Auditorium at The Ohio State University (2004–2012) and our current venue and new home of Opera Columbus, the Southern Theatre (2013–present). In addition to being a co-founder of Opera Columbus, Ms. Cooper was Director of the Opera Columbus Vocal Competition and served on the Opera Columbus Board of Trustees, where she was honored as a Life Trustee. In 2014, thanks to a generous donation from Arthur and Hetty Bing that will help to ensure the future sustainability of the competition, the name of the event has been changed to the Cooper-Bing Vocal Competition. The competition is also supported by six life trustees and others who made major financial commitments to endow our competition including, Sheldon and Becky Taft, Dr. Henry Sauls, the Ruth and Dick McNeal Fund, Katie and Willie Grové, Lyman Leathers, Johanna Destefano, Polly Lindeman, and Charlie Warner.