Jonita Lattimore
Encyclopedia
Jonita Lattimore is an American opera
tic soprano
and a faculty member of Roosevelt University
's College of Performing Arts. She is a lyric soprano
from Chicago's South Side
who has performed a wide range of operatic roles as well as oratorio
performances with major orchestras both internationally and domestically.
Lattimore performed with the Chicago Children's Choir
and trained both voice and instruments as a youth. She obtained a vocal scholarship to the Eastman School of Music
and obtained subsequent graduate training at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She then trained in two developmental artist programs: Houston Grand Opera
's Opera Studio and Lyric Opera of Chicago
's Center for American Artists.
Domestic highlights include having performed as part of the Grant Park Music Festival
's celebration of the grand opening night at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion
and with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra
in their first performance at their current home, Hatch Memorial Shell. Her first decade as a touring professional saw her become one of, if not, the leading operatic soprano in Chicago: she not only opened the city's new outdoor performing venue in 2004, but also was the choice as the soprano to perform in the 2009 city-wide celebration of the centennial of the 1909 Plan of Chicago and has been scheduled for yearly appearances at the Grant Park Music Festival.
Her international performances have included engagements with at the Opéra Bastille
and the Edinburgh Festival
. She has had performances with the Tonkünstler Orchestra
, Northern Israel Symphony, Opole Philharmonic, Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Calgary Philharmonic and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico.
lessons at age three. She also played the trumpet
. She performed with the Chicago Children's Choir as a youth and was a frequent soloist. She took piano lessons in from Angela Wright. She was raised in the Pill Hill
neighborhood of Chicago's South Side. Lattimore attended Kenwood Academy
in the Kenwood
community area
, which is also on the South Side. Upon graduation in 1987, she attended The University of Rochester
's Eastman School of Music on the William Warfield scholarship, a vocal scholarship named after her mentor, William Warfield
. She pursued graduate studies at the University of Illinois. Lattimore is from a family of musicians: She has a Rhythm and blues
and jazz
musician younger brother named Alex, a father who performed in a vocal quartet, aunts who sang (one professionally), a music teacher for a grandmother and another grandmother who was a singer and violinist. Her paternal grandmother lived with her and had taught music and math at Piney Woods Country Life School
where she took a music group on regular national tours. Lattimore has a daughter Joyelle, who was age five in December 2008. Lattimore was the soprano soloist in Robert Avalon's 1998 Sextet de Julia de Burgos.
Lattimore's father, Joseph, was a recurring contributor to the oral history
musings of Studs Terkel
. Lattimore was an insurance salesman whose thoughts were depicted in Terkels works such as Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do and Race: What Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession. His interviews with Terkel that were incorporated in these works continue to be available to the public.
Lattimore has earned numerous awards including honors from the Birgit Nilsson Competition, the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, the Sullivan and George London Foundations, and Opera Index, Inc. In 1999 at age 29, she was named by the Chicago Sun-Times
in their Chicago's arts and entertainment scene 30 under 30 series. The following year, they named her as one of the 25 most intriguing Chicagoans. Lattimore, who lives in Chicago, teaches at Roosevelt University's The Music Conservatory of Chicago College of Performing Arts
. She has been profiled on Artbeat Chicago, an arts television program on WTTW
, which is Chicago's Public Broadcast Service
affiliate in an episode entitled "Home Grown Diva", and WTTW also featured her on Opera Philes, a program of favorite opera arias and ensembles.
. She appeared in their production of composer
Virgil Thomson
and librettist
Gertrude Stein
's Four Saints in Three Acts
. She also performed as the leading soprano in the Goodman Theater's August 1993 adaptation of Alan Paton
's Cry, the Beloved Country
. In 1994, Lattimore began performing with the Houston Grand Opera Studio, a young artist training program at the Houston Grand Opera
(HGO). She also appeared as a soloist with the Houston Symphony. During the 1995 Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, Pavarotti
personally selected her to advance to the finals. In 1995, her HGO performance in Bright Sheng
's The Song of Majnun became part of her early discography. One of her 1996 Houston Symphony performances was as part of a sextet that performed "Libiamo ne' lieti calici
" from Verdi's La traviata
. In 1997, when the HGO commissioned Jackie O
from Michael Daugherty
, Lattimore played the Liz Taylor role. That same year, she performed in the HGO's performance of Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute
as one of the Three Ladies. Also in 1997, she performed a music from Charles Gounod
's Faust
on multiple occasions. Later that year in an opera about Carlota of Mexico, she sang an aria
. She continued as a featured performer with the Houston Symphony in 1998. Among her other performances with the Houston Grand Opera, were the world premieres of Harvey Milk by Stewart Wallace
and The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Ricky Ian Gordon
. She made her Paris debut in a performance at the Opéra Bastille
performing as Serena in Porgy and Bess
.
In 1998 she worked with the Lyric Opera of Chicago
's Center for American Artists, which focuses on developing young singers. She debuted for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Kurt Weill
's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. That year she performed Michaela's prayer from Georges Bizet
's Carmen
on the July 4th
fireworks
celebration at Navy Pier
with accompaniment from Grant Park Symphony Orchestra
. She continued training with the Center through 1999 when she performed Handel
's Alcina
and Verdi's La traviata: Dite alla giovine at the center's open house. In March 1999, she was featured in the 20th Anniversary season final concert of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra
, where she performed Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate
, Carlisle Floyd
's "Trees on the Mountain" from "Susannah
" and George Gershwin
's "My Man's Gone Now
" from Porgy and Bess. In 1999, she was one of four center artists to return for a second year in the 12 member program. She performed as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni
. That year she served as a featured performer for the Grant Park Music Festival
featuring music from Edvard Grieg
's Peer Gynt
and Gustav Holst
's First Choral Symphony
under the baton of James Paul
. She earned the role of Michela in the Center's 1999–2000 season-ending production of Carmen. In 2000, she returned as a featured performer in a quartet that sang Schoenberg
's A Survivor From Warsaw op. 46 and Beethoven's, Symphony No. 9
in D Minor, op. 125, "Choral" at the Grant Park Music Festival. In 2000, her Dame Myra Hess
Recital Series and Ravinia season box-office opening performances were broadcast live over WFMT
.
such as Knoxville: Summer of 1915
. That same month, she performed from Bach
's St Matthew Passion, St John Passion, Cantata 151 and Jauchzet Gott as well as a world premiere of Five Songs of Laurence Hope by Henry Burleigh as part of American Concerto Orchestra, an ensemble of Chicago's leading musicians. In 2001, she performed with the Tulsa Opera
in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
as Countess Almaviva. She was featured in the Chicago Sinfonietta
's 2001 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tribute in which she performed "Alleluia" from Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate and an aria from Alfredo Catalani
's La Wally
as well as two spirituals
. In May 2001, she performed Leonard Bernstein
's Songfest
with the Chicago Sinfonietta. She also performed a musical tribute at the opening of the August 2001 Musical Papa's Child, based on the life of Etta Moten Barnett
. In 2001, she returned to the Grant Park Music Festival to celebrate the centennial of Verdi's death by performing his Requiem
.
On December 31, 2001, she was scheduled to perform at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
's New Year's Eve
celebration, but she took ill and was replaced by Erin Wall
. Coincidentally, it was the second year in a row that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had to find a last minute replacement for its New Year's Eve gala. She also made appearances in 2001 and 2002 with the Houston Symphony. In February 2002, she teamed again with Gordon for a celebration of the centennial of Langston Hughes
' birth in musical theater with his words set to music at the Dayton Art Institute
in a performance entitled Only Heaven. The performance was produced as a compact disc
later that year. In March 2002, she appeared again with the Tulsa Opera in Don Giovanni as Donna Anna. During an April 2002 performance with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
at Kleinhans Music Hall
, she was singled out from a quartet of soloists for the only solo curtain call
. Also in April 2002, she performed Antonín Dvořák
's Requiem
with the Tonkunstler Orchestra
of Vienna
. Her 2002 appearance at the Grant Park Music Festival included performances of Ildebrando Pizzetti
's De profundis and Brahms
' A German Requiem in July. She also performed Brahms' Requiem in her debut with the Northern Israel Symphony. She also took part in the June opening weekend of the 2002 festival by performing Bernstein's Symphony No. 3
("Kaddish
"). During the 2002–03 season, she performed spirituals and operatic arias with Poland's Opole Philharmonic. That season she also appeared on the final weekend schedule in August.
In 2003, she performed with the Chicago Sinfonietta: She performed a Puccini set that included "Quando me n’vò
", "Mi chiamano Mimi" and "Donde lieta usci" (all from La bohème
) and "O mio babbino caro
". Her 2003 Grant Park Music Festival appearance was for an All-Mozart concert featuring Serenade No. 9
in D major, K. 320 ("Posthorn") and the composer's C minor Mass ("Great"). Later that summer she performed with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra
, in a presentation entitled "Three Landmarks Sopranos" featuring arias and show tune
s from Mozart, Verdi, and Gershwin. She also presented world premiere ensemble work for three sopranos entitled May We Live that was composed by Boston's Patricia Van Ness. Also in 2003, She had a Ravinia performance of Hector Berlioz
selections broadcast on WFMT. Internationally that year, she performed at the Edinburgh Festival
and made her Italian debut with the Orchestra della Toscana in both concerts and radio performances.
In 2004, she performed at the Chicago Gospel Music Festival in as a special guest in a tribute to Mahalia Jackson
featuring her performance of Take My Hand, Precious Lord
. She performed at the opening night of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion
during the opening weekend of Millennium Park
as well as a performance two nights earlier at the Park's Harris Theater. She was featured in a duet from Richard Strauss
' Arabella
. When the Harris Theater decided to dedicated its spring 2005 season to the memory of Irving B. Harris, who had died on September 25, 2004, Lattimore opened the season as part of a tribute to Marian Anderson
and Mahalia Jackson. Also, in 2005, she performed at the 20th anniversary season-ending Concertante di Chicago show. She performed a duet of Ralph Vaughan Williams
's A Sea Symphony at the opening weekend of the Grant Park Music Festival's first full season at the Pritzker Pavilion in June 2005. The performance was set to texts by Walt Whitman
. She performed in Dvorak's Stabat Mater
at the Grant Park Music Festival in August 2006. In July 2006, she performed as part of a quartet with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra when they opened their summer series with a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth in their first performance at Hatch Memorial Shell, which is now their regular home. She performed in Dvorak's Stabat Mater at the Grant Park Music Festival in August 2006. During the 2006–07 season she also performed a Christmas
concert tour with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Calgary Philharmonic, Verdi's Requiem with Helena Symphony and a program entitled "Dvorak & American Soul," presented by New York Festival of Song
. Also that season, she returned to perform with the Houston Symphony on Heitor Villa-Lobos
’ Three Songs from Floresta do Amazonas. Lattimore performed in the 2007 King Day celebration by Chicago Sinfonietta. Another one of her 2006 performance at the Grant Park Music Festival, which was rescheduled to August 17 and 18, 2007, included performances of John Adams' The Wound Dresser, Sinfonia da Requiem
by Benjamin Briten, and Dona Nobis Pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The performance was united thematically by more Williams texts. In February 2008, she returned to the New York Festival of Song for its 20th anniversary season at Carnegie Hall
for the "Harry
, Hoagy
& Harold
" performance. On January 28, 2008 she performed with the Oakland East Bay Symphony
in Verdi's Requiem. She appearanced with the Louisiana Philharmonic under Carlos Miguel Prieto
with Gershwin selections on May 9 and 10, 2008. Her 2008 performance at the Grant Park Music Festival was of Tchaikovsky's 6th
and Karol Szymanowski
's Stabat Mater
on July 9 and 11.
In 2008, Lattimore helped enable the Lyric Opera of Chicago
overcome the strict all-black cast racial requirement of Gershwin's estate in a production of his 1935 opera Porgy and Bess in the role of Serena. Her performance was broadcast on Harvard College
's WHRB
. Her performances of "Oh Doctor Jesus" and "My Man's Gone Now" were praised. It was the first time the Lyric Opera had performed Porgy and Bess since Warfield and Leontyne Price
starred in it at the Civic Opera House in 1952. She has been featured by the Houston Symphony as recently as 2009. In June, she helped Chicago celebrate the centennial of Daniel Burnham
's 1909 Plan of Chicago by performing a commissioned work by Michael Torke
entitled Plans at the Grant Park Music Festival on June 19 and 20, 2009. Another one of her 2009 performances at the Grant Park Music Festival was with the Luna Negra Dance Theater
. Other 2008-09 highlights included Gabriel Fauré
's Requiem
with Eugene Symphony
and Verdi's Requiem with both the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
and Colorado Symphony Orchestra
.
In September 2009, she performed with the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico. She was included in the annual Chicago Sinfonietta 2010 King Day tribute. She is scheduled to perform Sir Michael Tippett
's A Child of Our Time
on July 24 and 25, 2010 at the Grant Park Music Festival.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
and a faculty member of Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
's College of Performing Arts. She is a lyric soprano
Lyric soprano
A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenues and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have...
from Chicago's South Side
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
who has performed a wide range of operatic roles as well as oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
performances with major orchestras both internationally and domestically.
Lattimore performed with the Chicago Children's Choir
Chicago children's choir
The Chicago Children's Choir is a choir founded in 1956. It was founded in the neighborhood of Hyde Park in Chicago by the late Rev. Christopher Moore. The choir is located at the Cultural Center at 78 E. Washington Street...
and trained both voice and instruments as a youth. She obtained a vocal scholarship to the Eastman School of Music
Eastman School of Music
The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...
and obtained subsequent graduate training at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She then trained in two developmental artist programs: Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
's Opera Studio and Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
's Center for American Artists.
Domestic highlights include having performed as part of the Grant Park Music Festival
Grant Park Music Festival
Grant Park Music Festival is an annual ten-week classical music concert series held in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It features the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Chorus along with featured guest performers and conductors. The Festival has earned non-profit organization status...
's celebration of the grand opening night at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan...
and with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra
Boston Landmarks Orchestra
The Boston Landmarks Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.- History :The Boston Landmarks Orchestra was founded in January 2001 by Charles Ansbacher to perform free concerts for the Boston community in significant locations around the city...
in their first performance at their current home, Hatch Memorial Shell. Her first decade as a touring professional saw her become one of, if not, the leading operatic soprano in Chicago: she not only opened the city's new outdoor performing venue in 2004, but also was the choice as the soprano to perform in the 2009 city-wide celebration of the centennial of the 1909 Plan of Chicago and has been scheduled for yearly appearances at the Grant Park Music Festival.
Her international performances have included engagements with at the Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
and the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
. She has had performances with the Tonkünstler Orchestra
Tonkünstler Orchestra
The Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich is an Austrian orchestra based in Vienna and St. Pölten, Lower Austria.-Origin of the name:The orchestra's name has its origins in the Tonkünstler-Sozietät, Wien, which was organizing concerts in the era of Haydn and Mozart...
, Northern Israel Symphony, Opole Philharmonic, Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Calgary Philharmonic and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico.
Personal
Born and raised in Chicago, Lattimore began taking pianoPiano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
lessons at age three. She also played the trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
. She performed with the Chicago Children's Choir as a youth and was a frequent soloist. She took piano lessons in from Angela Wright. She was raised in the Pill Hill
Pill Hill, Chicago
Pill Hill is a neighborhood in the Calumet Heights community area on the South Side of Chicago.-Geography:According to The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago, the neighborhood is the more affluent portion of the Stony Island Heights neighborhood that occupies the eastern two-thirds of Calumet Heights...
neighborhood of Chicago's South Side. Lattimore attended Kenwood Academy
Kenwood Academy
Kenwood Academy is a public 4-year high school located in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, USA. Kenwood Academy accepts high school students living in its attendance area: From Lake Michigan to Cottage Grove Avenue east to west, and 47th to the Midway Plaisance north to south...
in the Kenwood
Kenwood, Chicago
Kenwood, located on the South Side of the City of Chicago, Illinois, is one of the 77 well-defined Chicago community areas.Kenwood was part of Hyde Park Township, which was annexed by the City of Chicago in 1889....
community area
Community areas of Chicago
Community areas in Chicago refers to the work of the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago which has unofficially divided the City of Chicago into 77 community areas. These areas are well-defined and static...
, which is also on the South Side. Upon graduation in 1987, she attended The University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...
's Eastman School of Music on the William Warfield scholarship, a vocal scholarship named after her mentor, William Warfield
William Warfield
William Caesar Warfield , was an American concert bass-baritone singer and actor.-Early life and career:Warfield was born in West Helena, Arkansas and grew up in Rochester, New York, where his father was called to serve as pastor of Mt. Vernon Church. He gave his recital debut in New York's Town...
. She pursued graduate studies at the University of Illinois. Lattimore is from a family of musicians: She has a Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musician younger brother named Alex, a father who performed in a vocal quartet, aunts who sang (one professionally), a music teacher for a grandmother and another grandmother who was a singer and violinist. Her paternal grandmother lived with her and had taught music and math at Piney Woods Country Life School
Piney Woods Country Life School
The Piney Woods Country Life School is a co-educational independent historically African-American boarding school for grades 9-12 in Piney Woods, Mississippi. It is one of four remaining historically African-American boarding schools in the United States...
where she took a music group on regular national tours. Lattimore has a daughter Joyelle, who was age five in December 2008. Lattimore was the soprano soloist in Robert Avalon's 1998 Sextet de Julia de Burgos.
Lattimore's father, Joseph, was a recurring contributor to the oral history
Oral history
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...
musings of Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...
. Lattimore was an insurance salesman whose thoughts were depicted in Terkels works such as Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do and Race: What Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession. His interviews with Terkel that were incorporated in these works continue to be available to the public.
Lattimore has earned numerous awards including honors from the Birgit Nilsson Competition, the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, the Sullivan and George London Foundations, and Opera Index, Inc. In 1999 at age 29, she was named by the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
in their Chicago's arts and entertainment scene 30 under 30 series. The following year, they named her as one of the 25 most intriguing Chicagoans. Lattimore, who lives in Chicago, teaches at Roosevelt University's The Music Conservatory of Chicago College of Performing Arts
The Music Conservatory of Chicago College of Performing Arts
The Music Conservatory was founded in 1867 as the Chicago Musical College, a conservatory whose primary focus was the intensive and rigorous training of young men and women preparing for careers as professional musicians...
. She has been profiled on Artbeat Chicago, an arts television program on WTTW
WTTW
WTTW channel 11 is one of three Public Broadcasting Service member public television stations serving the Chicago, Illinois market; the others are WYCC and WYIN. WTTW began broadcasting on September 6, 1955 and it is owned and operated by Window to the World Communications, Inc., a not-for-profit...
, which is Chicago's Public Broadcast Service
Public Broadcast Service
The Public Broadcast Service is a government-owned educational radio and television broadcast service located in Barbados. Public Broadcast Service owns a radio station, 91.1FM and its television programming will be introduced in 2009....
affiliate in an episode entitled "Home Grown Diva", and WTTW also featured her on Opera Philes, a program of favorite opera arias and ensembles.
Training
In 1993, Lattimore performed with the Chicago Opera TheaterChicago Opera Theater
The Chicago Opera Theater is an opera company that was founded as the Chicago Opera Studio in 1974 by Alan Stone to give vocal students performance experience, although it has grown into a professional opera company...
. She appeared in their production of composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
and librettist
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
's Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts
Four Saints in Three Acts is an opera by American composer Virgil Thomson with a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Written in 1927-8, it contains about 20 saints, and is in at least four acts...
. She also performed as the leading soprano in the Goodman Theater's August 1993 adaptation of Alan Paton
Alan Paton
Alan Stewart Paton was a South African author and anti-apartheid activist.-Family:Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province , the son of a minor civil servant. After attending Maritzburg College, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Natal in his hometown, followed...
's Cry, the Beloved Country
Cry, The Beloved Country
Cry, the Beloved Country is a novel by South African author Alan Paton. It was first published in New York City in 1948 by Charles Scribner's Sons and in London by Jonathan Cape; noted American publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers Association that there...
. In 1994, Lattimore began performing with the Houston Grand Opera Studio, a young artist training program at the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
(HGO). She also appeared as a soloist with the Houston Symphony. During the 1995 Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition, Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
right|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
personally selected her to advance to the finals. In 1995, her HGO performance in Bright Sheng
Bright Sheng
Bright Sheng is a Chinese-American composer, conductor, and pianist. He has lived in the United States since 1982 and is on faculty at the University of Michigan. In 1999, the White House commissioned Sheng to compose a piece to honor the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji at a state dinner hosted by...
's The Song of Majnun became part of her early discography. One of her 1996 Houston Symphony performances was as part of a sextet that performed "Libiamo ne' lieti calici
Libiamo ne' lieti calici
Libiamo ne'lieti calici is the most famous duet from Verdi's La traviata, one of the most well known fragments of opera around the world, and an obligatory performance for any great tenor. The song is categorised as a Brindisi, which encourages alcoholic drinking...
" from Verdi's La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
. In 1997, when the HGO commissioned Jackie O
Jackie O (opera)
Jackie O is a chamber opera in two acts composed by Michael Daugherty to a libretto by Wayne Koestenbaum. The 90 minute work, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera in 1995 and premiered in 1997, is inspired by American musical and popular culture of the late 1960s and episodes in the life of...
from Michael Daugherty
Michael Daugherty
Michael Kevin Daugherty is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. Influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism, Daugherty is one of the most colorful and widely performed American concert music composers of his generation...
, Lattimore played the Liz Taylor role. That same year, she performed in the HGO's performance of Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
as one of the Three Ladies. Also in 1997, she performed a music from Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
's Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
on multiple occasions. Later that year in an opera about Carlota of Mexico, she sang an aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
. She continued as a featured performer with the Houston Symphony in 1998. Among her other performances with the Houston Grand Opera, were the world premieres of Harvey Milk by Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace
Stewart Wallace is an American composer and cantor. He has spent much of his career composing experimental operas, from the dance-centered Kabbalah to the surrealist Hopper's Wife...
and The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon is an American composer of songs, stage musicals and opera. The death of his lover from AIDS inspired Dream True and Orpheus and Euridice...
. She made her Paris debut in a performance at the Opéra Bastille
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
performing as Serena in Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
.
In 1998 she worked with the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
's Center for American Artists, which focuses on developing young singers. She debuted for the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. That year she performed Michaela's prayer from Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...
's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
on the July 4th
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
celebration at Navy Pier
Navy Pier
Navy Pier is a long pier on the Chicago shoreline of Lake Michigan. It is located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area. The pier was built in 1916 at a cost of $4.5 million, equivalent to $ today. It was a part of the Plan of Chicago developed by architect and...
with accompaniment from Grant Park Symphony Orchestra
Grant Park Symphony Orchestra
The Grant Park Symphony Orchestra or simply the Grant Park Orchestra is a publicly sponsored symphony orchestra that provides free performances in the Grant Park Music Festival during the summer months in Millennium Park in Chicago, Illinois. Its sister organization is the Grant Park Chorus; the...
. She continued training with the Center through 1999 when she performed Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
's Alcina
Alcina
Alcina is an opera seria by George Frideric Handel. Handel used the libretto of L'isola di Alcina, an opera that was set in 1728 in Rome by Riccardo Broschi, which he acquired the year after, during his travels in Italy...
and Verdi's La traviata: Dite alla giovine at the center's open house. In March 1999, she was featured in the 20th Anniversary season final concert of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra
Charlotte Symphony Orchestra
The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Charlotte, North Carolina. As the largest and most active professional performing arts organization in the central Carolinas, the Charlotte Symphony plays approximately 100 performances each season and employs 100 professional...
, where she performed Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate
Exsultate, jubilate
Exsultate, jubilate K. 165, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was written in 1773.This religious solo motet was composed at the time Mozart was visiting Milan....
, Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd
Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he based many of his works on themes from the South...
's "Trees on the Mountain" from "Susannah
Susannah
Susannah is an opera in two acts by American composer Carlisle Floyd, who wrote the libretto and music while a member of the piano faculty at Florida State University. Floyd adapted the story from the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders, though the latter story has a more positive ending...
" and George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's "My Man's Gone Now
My Man's Gone Now
My Man's Gone Now is a song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by DuBose Heyward, written for the folk opera Porgy and Bess . Sung in the original production by Ruby Elzy, it has been covered by many female singers notably Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan, and Shirley Horn, among...
" from Porgy and Bess. In 1999, she was one of four center artists to return for a second year in the 12 member program. She performed as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
. That year she served as a featured performer for the Grant Park Music Festival
Grant Park Music Festival
Grant Park Music Festival is an annual ten-week classical music concert series held in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It features the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Grant Park Chorus along with featured guest performers and conductors. The Festival has earned non-profit organization status...
featuring music from Edvard Grieg
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...
's Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt
Peer Gynt is a five-act play in verse by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, loosely based on the fairy tale Per Gynt. It is the most widely performed Norwegian play. According to Klaus Van Den Berg, the "cinematic script blends poetry with social satire and realistic scenes with surreal ones"...
and Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
's First Choral Symphony
First Choral Symphony
British composer Gustav Holst wrote his First Choral Symphony in 1923–24. It was premiered in Leeds Town Hall on October 7, 1925, conducted by Albert Coates and with Dorothy Silk as soloist...
under the baton of James Paul
James Paul
James Paul is an American conductor. He is currently the music director and conductor of The Shedd Institute's Oregon Festival of American Music and its American Symphonia, and music director of the Oregon Coast Music Festival.-Career:James Paul studied voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of...
. She earned the role of Michela in the Center's 1999–2000 season-ending production of Carmen. In 2000, she returned as a featured performer in a quartet that sang Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's A Survivor From Warsaw op. 46 and Beethoven's, Symphony No. 9
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
in D Minor, op. 125, "Choral" at the Grant Park Music Festival. In 2000, her Dame Myra Hess
Myra Hess
Dame Myra Hess DBE was a British pianist.She was born in London as Julia Myra Hess, but was best known by her middle name. At the age of five she began to study the piano and two years later entered the Guildhall School of Music, where she graduated as winner of the Gold Medal...
Recital Series and Ravinia season box-office opening performances were broadcast live over WFMT
WFMT
WFMT is an FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk and jazz). The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two Public Broadcasting Service ...
.
Touring career
After two years in the Lyric Opera's Center for American Artists, she graduated and began touring internationally. In December 2000, she stood out in the Concertante di Chicago performance featuring the works of Samuel BarberSamuel Barber
Samuel Osborne Barber II was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. His Adagio for Strings is his most popular composition and widely considered a masterpiece of modern classical music...
such as Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is a 1947 work for voice and orchestra by Samuel Barber. The text is taken from a 1938 short prose piece by James Agee...
. That same month, she performed from Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
's St Matthew Passion, St John Passion, Cantata 151 and Jauchzet Gott as well as a world premiere of Five Songs of Laurence Hope by Henry Burleigh as part of American Concerto Orchestra, an ensemble of Chicago's leading musicians. In 2001, she performed with the Tulsa Opera
Tulsa Opera
The Tulsa Opera, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is the 18th oldest opera company in the United States and is ranked among the top 10 regional opera companies in the nation. The company produces three opera productions each season performed at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center...
in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
as Countess Almaviva. She was featured in the Chicago Sinfonietta
Chicago Sinfonietta
The Chicago Sinfonietta is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. The stated mission of the orchestra is to "serve as a national model for inclusiveness and innovation in classical music" and to "help America become a true cultural democracy, in which everyone can share fully in its...
's 2001 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tribute in which she performed "Alleluia" from Mozart's Exsultate, jubilate and an aria from Alfredo Catalani
Alfredo Catalani
Alfredo Catalani was an Italian operatic composer. He is best remembered for his operas Loreley and La Wally...
's La Wally
La Wally
La Wally is a four-act opera by Alfredo Catalani, composed on a libretto by Luigi Illica, and first performed at La Scala, Milan on 20 January 1892....
as well as two spirituals
Spiritual (music)
Spirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...
. In May 2001, she performed Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
's Songfest
Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra
Songfest: A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra is a 1977 song cycle by Leonard Bernstein. The cycle includes 12 settings of 13 American poems, performed by six singers , both singly and in various combinations.The work was intended as a tribute to the 1976 American Bicentennial...
with the Chicago Sinfonietta. She also performed a musical tribute at the opening of the August 2001 Musical Papa's Child, based on the life of Etta Moten Barnett
Etta Moten Barnett
Etta Moten Barnett was an American actress and contralto vocalist, who was identified with her signature role of "Bess" in Porgy and Bess. She created new roles for African-American women on stage and screen...
. In 2001, she returned to the Grant Park Music Festival to celebrate the centennial of Verdi's death by performing his Requiem
Requiem (Verdi)
The Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass for four soloists, double choir and orchestra. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist much admired by Verdi. The first performance in San Marco in Milan on 22 May...
.
On December 31, 2001, she was scheduled to perform at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1891, the Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival...
's New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve
New Year's Eve is observed annually on December 31, the final day of any given year in the Gregorian calendar. In modern societies, New Year's Eve is often celebrated at social gatherings, during which participants dance, eat, consume alcoholic beverages, and watch or light fireworks to mark the...
celebration, but she took ill and was replaced by Erin Wall
Erin Wall
Erin Wall is a Canadian operatic soprano.She studied at the Vancouver Academy of Music, Western Washington University, Rice University and Music Academy of the West and was a finalist at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in Wales in 2003, a competition where 951 singers from 56 nations...
. Coincidentally, it was the second year in a row that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had to find a last minute replacement for its New Year's Eve gala. She also made appearances in 2001 and 2002 with the Houston Symphony. In February 2002, she teamed again with Gordon for a celebration of the centennial of Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
' birth in musical theater with his words set to music at the Dayton Art Institute
Dayton Art Institute
The Dayton Art Institute is a museum of fine arts in Dayton, Ohio, USA. The Dayton Art Institute was rated one of the top 10 best art museums in the United States for kids. The museum also ranks in the top 3% of all art museums in North America in 3 of 4 factors...
in a performance entitled Only Heaven. The performance was produced as a compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
later that year. In March 2002, she appeared again with the Tulsa Opera in Don Giovanni as Donna Anna. During an April 2002 performance with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra located in Buffalo, New York. Its primary performing venue is Kleinhans Music Hall, which is a National Historic Landmark. Its regular concert season features gala concerts, classics programming of core repertoire, Pops...
at Kleinhans Music Hall
Kleinhans Music Hall
Kleinhans Music Hall, home of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, was built in the late 1930s and opened October 1940. It is located on Symphony Circle. The music hall was built as a part of the last will and testament of Edward L. and Mary Seaton Kleinhans, owners of the Kleinhans mens clothing...
, she was singled out from a quartet of soloists for the only solo curtain call
Curtain call
A curtain call occurs at the end of a performance when individuals return to the stage to be recognized by the audience for their performance. In musical theater, the performers typically recognize the orchestra and its conductor at the end of the curtain call...
. Also in April 2002, she performed Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
's Requiem
Requiem (Dvorák)
Antonín Dvořák's Requiem in B-flat minor, Op. 89, B. 165, is a funeral mass for soloists, choir and orchestra, composed in 1890.- Background :...
with the Tonkunstler Orchestra
Tonkünstler Orchestra
The Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich is an Austrian orchestra based in Vienna and St. Pölten, Lower Austria.-Origin of the name:The orchestra's name has its origins in the Tonkünstler-Sozietät, Wien, which was organizing concerts in the era of Haydn and Mozart...
of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Her 2002 appearance at the Grant Park Music Festival included performances of Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...
's De profundis and Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
' A German Requiem in July. She also performed Brahms' Requiem in her debut with the Northern Israel Symphony. She also took part in the June opening weekend of the 2002 festival by performing Bernstein's Symphony No. 3
Symphony No. 3 (Bernstein)
Kaddish is Leonard Bernstein's third symphony. The 1963 symphony is a dramatic work written for a large orchestra, a full choir, a boys' choir, a soprano soloist and a narrator. The name of the piece, Kaddish, refers to the Jewish prayer that is chanted at every synagogue service for the dead but...
("Kaddish
Kaddish
Kaddish is a prayer found in the Jewish prayer service. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy different versions of the Kaddish are used functionally as separators between sections of the service...
"). During the 2002–03 season, she performed spirituals and operatic arias with Poland's Opole Philharmonic. That season she also appeared on the final weekend schedule in August.
In 2003, she performed with the Chicago Sinfonietta: She performed a Puccini set that included "Quando me n’vò
Quando me n’vò
"Quando me'n vo", also known as "Musetta's Waltz", is a soprano aria in 3/4 time from act 2 of Puccini's opera La bohème. It is sung by the character Musetta, in the presence of her bohemian friends, and is directed toward Marcello in order to make him jealous.-Libretto:-External links:* at...
", "Mi chiamano Mimi" and "Donde lieta usci" (all from La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
) and "O mio babbino caro
O mio babbino caro
"O mio babbino caro" is a soprano aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi , by Giacomo Puccini, to a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is sung by Lauretta after tensions between her father Schicchi and the family of Rinuccio, the boy she loves, have reached a breaking point that threatens to...
". Her 2003 Grant Park Music Festival appearance was for an All-Mozart concert featuring Serenade No. 9
Serenade No. 9 (Mozart)
The Serenade for Orchestra No. 9 in D major K. 320, Posthorn, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Salzburg, in 1779. The manuscript is dated 3 August 1779 and was intended for the university "finalmusik" ceremony that year....
in D major, K. 320 ("Posthorn") and the composer's C minor Mass ("Great"). Later that summer she performed with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra
Boston Landmarks Orchestra
The Boston Landmarks Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.- History :The Boston Landmarks Orchestra was founded in January 2001 by Charles Ansbacher to perform free concerts for the Boston community in significant locations around the city...
, in a presentation entitled "Three Landmarks Sopranos" featuring arias and show tune
Show tune
A show tune is a popular song originally written as part of the score of a "show" , especially if the piece in question has become a "standard", more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context...
s from Mozart, Verdi, and Gershwin. She also presented world premiere ensemble work for three sopranos entitled May We Live that was composed by Boston's Patricia Van Ness. Also in 2003, She had a Ravinia performance of Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
selections broadcast on WFMT. Internationally that year, she performed at the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
and made her Italian debut with the Orchestra della Toscana in both concerts and radio performances.
In 2004, she performed at the Chicago Gospel Music Festival in as a special guest in a tribute to Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson – January 27, 1972) was an African-American gospel singer. Possessing a powerful contralto voice, she was referred to as "The Queen of Gospel"...
featuring her performance of Take My Hand, Precious Lord
Take My Hand, Precious Lord
"Take My Hand, Precious Lord" is a gospel song, lyrics by Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey , melody by George Nelson Allen .-History:...
. She performed at the opening night of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, also known as Pritzker Pavilion or Pritzker Music Pavilion, is a bandshell in Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located on the south side of Randolph Street and east of the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan...
during the opening weekend of Millennium Park
Millennium Park
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, USA and originally intended to celebrate the millennium. It is a prominent civic center near the city's Lake Michigan shoreline that covers a section of northwestern Grant Park. The area was previously...
as well as a performance two nights earlier at the Park's Harris Theater. She was featured in a duet from Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
' Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
. When the Harris Theater decided to dedicated its spring 2005 season to the memory of Irving B. Harris, who had died on September 25, 2004, Lattimore opened the season as part of a tribute to Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson was an African-American contralto and one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century...
and Mahalia Jackson. Also, in 2005, she performed at the 20th anniversary season-ending Concertante di Chicago show. She performed a duet of Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
's A Sea Symphony at the opening weekend of the Grant Park Music Festival's first full season at the Pritzker Pavilion in June 2005. The performance was set to texts by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
. She performed in Dvorak's Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater (Dvorák)
Stabat Mater for soli, choir and orchestra is a religious cantata by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. The work was sketched in 1876 and completed in 1877.- Background :...
at the Grant Park Music Festival in August 2006. In July 2006, she performed as part of a quartet with the Boston Landmarks Orchestra when they opened their summer series with a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth in their first performance at Hatch Memorial Shell, which is now their regular home. She performed in Dvorak's Stabat Mater at the Grant Park Music Festival in August 2006. During the 2006–07 season she also performed a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
concert tour with the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Calgary Philharmonic, Verdi's Requiem with Helena Symphony and a program entitled "Dvorak & American Soul," presented by New York Festival of Song
New York Festival of Song
The New York Festival of Song presents an annual series of concerts in New York City dedicated to the art of song, classical, modern and popular...
. Also that season, she returned to perform with the Houston Symphony on Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...
’ Three Songs from Floresta do Amazonas. Lattimore performed in the 2007 King Day celebration by Chicago Sinfonietta. Another one of her 2006 performance at the Grant Park Music Festival, which was rescheduled to August 17 and 18, 2007, included performances of John Adams' The Wound Dresser, Sinfonia da Requiem
Sinfonia da Requiem
Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20, for orchestra is a symphony written by Benjamin Britten in 1940 at the age of 26. It was one of several works commissioned from different composers by the Japanese Government to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire...
by Benjamin Briten, and Dona Nobis Pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The performance was united thematically by more Williams texts. In February 2008, she returned to the New York Festival of Song for its 20th anniversary season at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
for the "Harry
Harry Warren
Harry Warren was an American composer and lyricist. Warren was the first major American songwriter to write primarily for film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song eleven times and won three Oscars for composing "Lullaby of Broadway", "You'll Never Know" and "On the Atchison,...
, Hoagy
Hoagy Carmichael
Howard Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing "Stardust", "Georgia On My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul", four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.Alec Wilder, in his study of the...
& Harold
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...
" performance. On January 28, 2008 she performed with the Oakland East Bay Symphony
Oakland East Bay Symphony
The Oakland East Bay Symphony is a leading orchestra based in Oakland, California. The current music director and conductor is Michael Morgan, who has held the position since September 1990. The Paramount Theatre has been the home of the Symphony since the 1995. Bryan Nies has been Assistant...
in Verdi's Requiem. She appearanced with the Louisiana Philharmonic under Carlos Miguel Prieto
Carlos Miguel Prieto
Carlos Miguel Prieto is a Mexican conductor and violinist known for his dynamism and prolific career in conducting. Son of Mexican cellist Carlos Prieto, Carlos Miguel Prieto became a member of the Prieto quartet at a young age. He is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Universities. Since 2002, he...
with Gershwin selections on May 9 and 10, 2008. Her 2008 performance at the Grant Park Music Festival was of Tchaikovsky's 6th
Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)
The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 16/28 October of that year, nine days before his death...
and Karol Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski
Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist.-Life:Szymanowski was born into a wealthy land-owning Polish gentry family in Tymoszówka, then in the Russian Empire, now in Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father before going to Gustav Neuhaus'...
's Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater (Szymanowski)
Karol Szymanowski's Stabat Mater was composed in 1925-1926 for soprano, alto and baritone soloists, SATB choir, and orchestra. The work is divided into six movements and uses Jozef Janowski's Polish translation of the Marian hymn, Stabat Mater....
on July 9 and 11.
In 2008, Lattimore helped enable the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
overcome the strict all-black cast racial requirement of Gershwin's estate in a production of his 1935 opera Porgy and Bess in the role of Serena. Her performance was broadcast on Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
's WHRB
WHRB
WHRB is a commercial FM radio station in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It broadcasts at 95.3 MHz and is operated by students at Harvard College.-History:...
. Her performances of "Oh Doctor Jesus" and "My Man's Gone Now" were praised. It was the first time the Lyric Opera had performed Porgy and Bess since Warfield and Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
starred in it at the Civic Opera House in 1952. She has been featured by the Houston Symphony as recently as 2009. In June, she helped Chicago celebrate the centennial of Daniel Burnham
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
's 1909 Plan of Chicago by performing a commissioned work by Michael Torke
Michael Torke
Michael Torke is an American composer who writes music influenced by jazz and minimalism. Sometimes described as a post-minimalist, his most postminimal piece is Four Proverbs, in which the syllable for each pitch is fixed and variations in the melody produce streams of nonsense words. Other works...
entitled Plans at the Grant Park Music Festival on June 19 and 20, 2009. Another one of her 2009 performances at the Grant Park Music Festival was with the Luna Negra Dance Theater
Luna Negra Dance Theater
Luna Negra Dance Theater is a dance ensemble that integrates traditional Latin dances, rich musical heritage, folkloric traditions of Latino cultures as well as contemporary movements without using traditional folkloric dress nor dancing strictly traditional dance styles such as Flamenco, Tango or...
. Other 2008-09 highlights included Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
's Requiem
Requiem (Fauré)
Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48 between 1887 and 1890. This choral–orchestral setting of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead is the best known of his large works. The most famous movement is the soprano aria Pie Jesu...
with Eugene Symphony
Eugene Symphony
The Eugene Symphony is an American orchestra based in Eugene, Oregon. Its home venue is the Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.Approximately 27,000 people attend Eugene Symphony's classical and pops concert performances each year....
and Verdi's Requiem with both the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Virginia Symphony Orchestra
The Virginia Symphony Orchestra is an American regional orchestra in the Hampton Roads metro area. The orchestra performs at several venues in Virginia, including Chrysler Hall in Norfolk and the Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News....
and Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Colorado’s only full-time professional orchestra, the Colorado Symphony embraces a tradition of musical excellence by presenting a diverse array of symphonic performances throughout the year...
.
In September 2009, she performed with the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico. She was included in the annual Chicago Sinfonietta 2010 King Day tribute. She is scheduled to perform Sir Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
's A Child of Our Time
A Child of Our Time
A Child of Our Time is an oratorio written by Michael Tippett between 1939 and 1941."After more than ten years of thoughtful planning, Michael Tippett summed up his musical, political, spiritual and philosophical beliefs in his first oratorio, A Child of Our Time...
on July 24 and 25, 2010 at the Grant Park Music Festival.
Discography
- The Song of Majnun (1997)
- Sonota for Violin & Piano, OP.6 - Son. for Flute & Piano, OP.26 - Sextet to Julia De Burgos, OP.21 (1998)
- Violin Sonata, Flute Sonata, Sextet with Soprano (1999)
- Only Heaven: A Musical Work by Ricky Ian Gordon (2002)
- Let Me Fly: Music of Struggle Solace & Survival in Black America (2006)