The Performers

An acclaimed conductor, educator and lecturer, Jonathan Griffith has led performances across North America, Europe and Asia. Griffith is co-founder and Artistic Director of Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY), which has brought together, under Griffith’s artistic leadership, thousands of musicians and choral singers in concert at prestigious venues across the United States, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Disney Hall. The founder and Music Director of the Distinguished Concerts Orchestra, Griffith also oversees DCINY”s mentoring program for conductors.

Maestro Griffith made his Carnegie Hall conducting debut in 1989 and has since conducted well over 65 performances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center combined. In addition to the major works of the classical repertoire, conducting highlights include the U.S. premieres of Karl Jenkins’ Stabat Mater and Te Deum; Sergei Taneyev’s At the Reading of a Psalm; Miloš Bok’s Missa Solemnis; Luigi Boccherini’s Villancicos; and Eugène Goossens’ reorchestration of Handel’s Messiah, along with world premieres by Eric Funk, Seymour Bernstein, and Robert Convery.

Maestro Griffith’s additional conducting credits include the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City; Manhattan Philharmonic and New England Symphonic Ensemble, both at Carnegie Hall; The European Symphony Orchestra in Spain; Bohuslava Martinů Philharmonia and Philharmonia Chorus, Virtuosi Pragensis Chamber Orchestra, Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra, and Dvořák Chamber Orchestra, in the Czech Republic; and the Bialystok State Philharmonic in Poland, as well as numerous regional orchestras and choruses across the United States.

The Jonathan Griffith Singers, an ensemble drawn from singers across North America and founded in 1987, has made its mark internationally. In recent years, Griffith has led the Singers on highly acclaimed tours to Uruguay and Argentina; to the People’s Republic of China, premiering Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace in Beijing and Shanghai; and to Pisa, Italy. Dr. Griffith and the Jonathan Griffith Singers toured Turkey in June of 2013 performing the acclaimed Turkish oratorio Yunus Emre by A. Adnan Saygun in Istanbul with the Cemal Reșit Rey Orchestra and in Ankara and Eskinșehir with the Presidential Orchestra at the invitation of the TURKSOY governmental agency. Maestro Griffith is the 2014 winner of The American Prize in Conducting, professional orchestra division.

Dr. Griffith received his DMA in conducting from the Conservatory of Music/University of Missouri-Kansas City, a Masters in Music Education from Wichita State University, and Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Kansas.

Penelope Shumate has received critical acclaim for her recent performances in Messiah with DCINY; “Penelope Shumate sang the soprano solos with appealing bell-like clarity and surpassing sweetness." (The New York Times), and “One of the best “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion” that I have ever heard live” (New York Concert Review). She has appeared at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and David Geffen Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. A recipient of the Chicago Oratorio Award, her recent soloist debuts include performances with Heartland Festival Orchestra, The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, Quincy Symphony Orchestra Association, , Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra, Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra, The Virginia Consort, Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, Rapides Symphony Orchestra, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Chicago Bar Association Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and the Muddy River Opera Company. She has also performed with other opera companies and orchestras across America including Opera Company of Philadelphia, Opera Roanoke, Lake George Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Utah Festival Opera, Annapolis Opera, Opera on the James, Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra, Berkshire Choral Festival, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and the Kennett Symphony Orchestra, among others. She has also been an award winner with the Gerda Lissner Foundation, Marie E. Crump Vocal Arts Competition, MacAllister Awards, New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera Vocal Competition, Annapolis Opera Vocal Competition, Kennett Symphony Orchestra Vocal Competition, and the Altamura/Caruso International Vocal Competition. In addition to her active performance career, she serves as Assistant Professor of Voice at Western Illinois University. penelopeshumate.com

Mexican mezzo-soprano Claudia Chapa has been seen in such theatrically dynamic roles as Azucena Il Trovatore with Winter Opera St. Louis, St. Petersburg Opera Company and Opera in Williamsburg and Madame Flora The Medium and the Witch Hänsel Und Gretel with Opera in the Heights. Engagements include Mary The Flying Dutchman with Austin Opera, Verdi’s Requiem with the Alabama Symphony, Mahler 2nd Symphony and Bloody Mary South Pacific with the Gulfshore Symphony, Bruckner’s Te Deumwith the Austin Symphony, Eduige William Tell with Opera Southwest and Baltimore Concert Opera, Dryade Ariadne Auf Naxos with Austin Opera, Zita Gianni Schicchi with Opera Delaware, Berta Il Barbiere Di Siviglia for Opera San Antonio and Messiah for DCINY at Carnegie Hall. Other roles include Dame Quickly Falstaff with Winter Opera St. Louis and Opera in the Heights, Marthe Faust with Indianopolis Opera, the Third Lady Die Zauberflöte with the Glimmerglass Festival in 2015, Portland Opera To Go, and Austin Lyric Opera, and covering the Old Lady Candide with Glimmerglass Festival. Ms. Chapa has been heard in the Verdi Requiem, Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo, and Handel's Messiah with DCINY. Ms. Chapa received her training from the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas-Austin. She is an alumnus of the prestigious young artist programs including the International Vocal Arts Institute (both in Blacksburg, VA and Tel Aviv, Israel), Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Glimmerglass Festival for which she was chosen as a young artist for two consecutive seasons.

Acclaimed for his “fresh-toned and touching portrayal” by Opera News, John McVeigh continues to garner attention for his countless world-class performances at the most revered houses throughout the United States and worldwide. Recent engagements for McVeigh include Goro in Madama Butterfly with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, the tenor solo in Händel’s Messiah with DCINY, the title role of Candide with South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, and productions of Turandot and The Merry Widow with The Metropolitan Opera. Upcoming engagements include a return to The Metropolitan Opera for their productions of La Fanciulla del West, Tabarro, and Dialogues des Carmelites. He will also sing the tenor solo in Handel’s Messiah and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with DCINY at Carnegie Hall, and Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Theater of St. Louis. Recently, McVeigh performed the tenor solo in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Portland Symphony Orchestra; Phillip Glass’ Symphony No. 5 with The Washington Chorus; Händel’s Messiah with Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra, and DCINY; and a solo performance in a brand new concert entitled Rev. 23, the unpublished last chapter of the Book of Revelation as dictated by St. John the Divine which narrates the last battle to recapture Paradise-on-Earth and restore the balance of good and evil to our world, with Prototype Festival. Additionally, he performed the role of the Footman in Der Rosenkavalier with Boston Symphony Orchestra, and returned to The Metropolitan Opera for their production of Eugene Onegin.

Praised for his “commanding sonority”, Bass-Baritone Christopher Job is a “rising star on the American opera scene”. Recent engagements for Job include the role of Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte with Opera Fairbanks, Verdi’s Requiem with DCINY, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with DCINY in Barcelona and Phoenix Symphony, Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore with Opera Idaho, Ashby in La fanciulla del West with New York City Opera, Handel’s Messiah with DCINY at Carnegie Hall and Hitchcock Presbyterian Church and a return to The Metropolitan Opera for Sciaronne in Tosca and productions of Cendrillon and Roméo et Juliette. Upcoming engagements include a return to The Metropolitan Opera for their productions of La Fanciulla des West, Tosca, and Tito, Handel’s Messiah with DCINY at Carnegie Hall and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with DCINY. A house favorite at The Metropolitan Opera, Mr. Job has been engaged by the company since the beginnings of his career in his début for their production of The Nose under the baton of Valery Gergiev. Other notable engagements with the esteemed opera house include the role of Sir Gualtiero Raleigh in Roberto Devereux and their productions of Don Carlo, The Enchanted Island, The Nose, Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, and Lulu created by world-renowned artist and director William Kentridge. He also can be seen on two of their “Live in HD” broadcasts as Brühlmann in Werther and in their production of Macbeth.

Founded by conductor and educator Jonathan Griffith in 1987 as a chamber choir of 24 professional singers in Portland, Oregon, the Jonathan Griffith Singers is now a flexible ensemble of 80-120 amateur and professional singers from across the United States and Canada, based in New York City. Members of the ensemble have performed in some of the world’s finest concert halls, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Rudolfinum in Prague, the Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome, and the Cathedral Duomo of Pisa in Italy. Recognized for their appealing and accessible programming, the Singers perform a wide range of repertoire.

Recent performances include two concerts with Turkey’s Turksoy orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall in New York and at the Music Center at Strathmore in Maryland. In 2011, the Singers toured to Montevideo, Uruguay and Buenos Ares, Argentina performing Mozart’s Requiem and a work by Dinos Constantinides. In 2009, the Singers traveled to the People’s Republic of China, where they performed the Chinese premiere of Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: Music for Peace with the celebrated Xin Ya Kong Qi Symphony Orchestra at Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall and Shanghai’s Oriental Arts Center. These highly anticipated concert events were recognized internationally, as they commemorated the 30th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and China.

Additional tours have included Verdi's Requiem in Barcelona; Fauré’s Requiem and other French works in the south of France and in Paris at La Madeleine; Verdi’s Requiem, more recently at the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome and the Cathedral Duomo Pisa celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Cathedral’s designation as a World Heritage site, and before that at the Theatre Fortuny and the renowned Palau de la Musica, both in Barcelona with the European Symphony Orchestra, to sold-out audiences; two tours to the Czech Republic including Dvořák Hall of the Prague Rudolfinum with the Virtuosi Pragenses Chamber Orchestra, and with the Karlovy Vary Orchestra for two thrilling performances of the Robert Levin edition of Mozart’s Requiem; Verdi’s Requiem in Rome and Pisa, Italy; and northern Italy and southern France with an All-American program, featuring the Jazz Mass “Missa Gaia,” as recorded by The Paul Winter Consort, with guitarist Jim Scott and a nine-member jazz ensemble.

The Jonathan Griffith Singers can be heard on two Christmas recordings: Peace at Christmas on the Clarion label, and Festival of Lights on Bonneville Classics.

Founded in 1983 by Michael C. Brewer and Carl Browning, National Youth Choirs of Great Britain now comprises an educational structure of eight choirs: Boys' Choir for trebles and Cambiata Voices (for school years 5-10) which train together; Junior and Senior Girls' Choirs (for school years 6-10) which also train together; Training Choirs North and South, which are mixed boys and girls (for school years 9-13); the National Youth Choir (for school years 11 up to age 22); and the National Youth Chamber Choir for young professionals up to age 25. Entry to the junior choirs, training choirs and National Youth Choir is by audition. Around 600 people aged 9–22 attend auditions which take place in venues across Britain in November each year. Usually, around half of those auditioning are offered places. NYCGB have collaborated with a wide range of musicians, been involved in various recordings and performed on tours as well as at many venues across the UK. NYCGB have also toured internationally and have visited New Zealand, Australia, USA, Singapore, Samoa, Rarotonga and South Africa, as well as destinations in Europe.

For more than seven decades the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) has been at the forefront of music-making in the UK. Its home base since 2004 at London’s Cadogan Hall serves as a springboard for seven principal residencies as well as more than forty-five concerts per year in long-term partnership venues across the country, often in areas where access to live orchestral music is very limited. In London, the Orchestra’s regular performances at Cadogan Hall are complemented by a distinguished series at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall and a hugely popular series at the Royal Albert Hall. With a wider reach than any other UK large ensemble, the RPO has truly become Britain’s national orchestra.

Alongside its concert series, the RPO embraces twenty-first-century opportunities, including appearances with pop stars and on video game, film and television soundtracks, whilst its artistic priority remains paramount: the making of great music at the highest level for the widest possible audience. This would have been lauded by its Founder and first conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham, who set up the RPO in 1946, leading a vital revival in the UK’s orchestral life after World War II. Since then, the Orchestra’s principal conductors have included Rudolf Kempe, Antal Doráti, Walter Weller, André Previn, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yuri Temirkanov, Daniele Gatti and Charles Dutoit; and its repertoire has encompassed every strand of music from the core classical repertoire to music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and works by leading composers of recent years, such as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir John Tavener.