OPPORTUNITY TO JOIN ACCESS TO ART’S MUSIC SERIES AUGUST 15^TH

BRINGING ACTOR/MUSICAL THEATRE TENOR AND OPERATIC SOPRANO TO AREA

Avalon:  An actor, who also performs in musical theatre, opera, T.V. , stage and cabaret  will join an opera diva,  a soprano, to bring an evening of song to the Sam Maitin Summer/Fall Chamber Music Festival.  Access to Art  presents “Operatunity” on August l5th at 7 p.m. at the first United Methodist Church on 34^th St. and Dune Drive, Avalon, featuring soprano Dr. Laura Mann and tenor Parker Scott in works by Puccini, Bizet, Camille Saint-Saens, George F. Handel, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Meredith Wilson, Georges Bizet, Frank Loesser and Giuseppi Verdi will be included.

Parker Scott has appeared in the operas Gallantry, HMS Pinafore, The Magic Flute, Our Town, Amahl and the Night Visitors, and in opera scenes at Towson University and the Aspen Opera Theatre Center.  He was the principal vocalist in The Silver Whistler on a Cruise Ship.  In Theatre he has performed in  My Way:  A Tribute to Frank Sinatra, Play it Again Sam, Into the Woods, The Secret Garden, Evita, The Mousetrap, Camelot, Waiting for Lefty, A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet and the Contract.  In TV/film he has performed in “Sex and the City,”  “All My Children”, “The Peacemaker”, “The Contract,” and in Cabaret in performances at Don’t Tell Mama, Eighty Eight’s, Judy’s, The Duplex, Danny’s Skylight Room. For recordings, he has appeared in the original celebrity cast recording of Zorro –the musical with  Deborah Gibson, Marc Kudish and Sean McDermott.  His solo CD Company of Strangers was nominated for the prestigious MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) Award for Outstanding Pop Vocals.  He is the founder of Parker Scott Voice Studio, private voice instruction.  He has his Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the University of Maryland, College Park, and his Master of Music from Towson University. 

Concert/opera artist Laura Mann is a singer who lives on the continual cutting edge of creativity – well-known for performing and recording world premieres of solo vocal music by women as well as men composers.  Featured in 2004 and 2005 by “Who’s Who in America” for the broad scope of her work in music, she has again been selected for inclusion in that publication for 2006, as well as by “Who’s Who of American Women” for their 25^th Silver Anniversary Edition.

Mann, who has sung over 40 opera and operetta roles in multiple productions in both the USA and Europe where she resided for l0 years, is currently touring with “The White Cliffs,” a one-act, one-person opera/monodrama based on the true life story of American Susan Donne.  This work, based on a 1940 poem and later made into a movie, is by Natalia Raigorodsky.  Washington Review Magazine called her ”The Voice of Unknown Women” after a recent Washington National Cathedral recital and wrote:  ”Her clear, shimmering soprano ascending to the heights of the cathedral ceiling and fluttering down over the audience…provided a musical performance of sophisticated tranquility.” 

She has appeared at international festivals, and as soloist with many prestigious orchestras among them the Berlin Philharmonic, Swiss Chamber Orchestra, Prague Chamber Ensemble, Rochester and Buffalo Philharmonics, Richmond, Oklahoma City, and Asheville Symphony, and the Dallas Baroque Ensemble, and others.  A resident of the Washington, D.C. area, Laura has been soloist at The Kennedy Center Concert Hall, German, French and Mexican Embassies, and is frequently featured on many area recital series, singing repertoire in 8 languages.  Dr. Mann is winner of Fulbright, Rockefeller, and Arts Council grants and is a 7^th season Touring Artist for the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

A couple of seasons ago she was selected from 80 singers across 3 continents to be a semi-finalist in the International Opera Singers Competition sponsored by the Center for Contemporary Opera in New York City.  A versatile and sparkling diva, Laura has also appeared with Concord Jazz recording artist Stefan Scaggiari in her own cabaret show “The Many Faces of Love.”

To date, she has recorded 3 solo CD’s on 3 separate labels with 2 more appearing with the coming season.  Orpheus Magazine, Berlin, Germany said of her voice:  “”Laura Mann stood above all the women in the cast, delivering a gripping study of Antonia.  Her exquisite voice alone would have sufficed.” (Orpheus Magazine, Berlin, Germany),

Dr. Mann is a Professor of  Voice, and teaches Stage Movement as well as French and German Diction for singers at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Parker Scott has performed at Aspen Music Festival and the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival. Tickets are $20 adults; $l5. seniors.  The evening is presented by Sturdy Savings Bank, the Kyriakos Tsaakopoulis Fund of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, the Falls Run Family Foundation and the Cape May County Board of Chosen Freeholders, administered by the Cape May County Cultural & Heritage Commission.  For information, call Access to Art, Inc. at (609) 465-3963.  Send checks to ATA, 417 E. Pacific Ave., Cape May Court House, N.J. 08210.  Please call for reservations.  Tickets available at the door on the evening of the performance from 6 p.m.