Sunday, December 15, 2024
4:00 PM EST

Baritone Philip Lima has regularly garnered critical acclaim for his performances on both concert and operatic stages: “His singing was glorious” (The Boston Globe) –“vibrant baritone and a commanding presence” (Cleveland The Plain Dealer) – “keen musicianship along with total dramatic intention.” (Opera News Online).

A native of New Bedford, MA and a former freelance violist, Lima has sung leading operatic roles in Germany and for regional American opera companies in repertoire ranging from traditional favorites by Handel, Mozart, Puccini, and Verdi; to important
works of twentieth century masters such as Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, and Viktor Ullmann; to the comic masterworks of Gilbert and Sullivan. Of particular note have been his featured roles in the world premieres of operas by jazz greats Leslie Burrs, Nathan Davis, and Mary Watkins, and by award-winning composer Larry Bell.

Lima has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony, multiple times with the Boston Pops, and with numerous orchestras (including the BCSO)), choral societies, and concert series across the United States and in Italy, Korea, and Ukraine in choral works of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Fauré, Handel, Mendelssohn, Orff, and Vaughan Williams, as well as works by Bernstein (Arias and Barcarolles and major excerpts from Mass), Margaret Bonds (Credo), Dave Brubeck (The Light in the Wilderness),
Copland (Old American Songs), Mahler (Kindertotenlieder), Ravel (Don Quichotte à Dulcinée), and Lee Hoiby (his setting of the I Have a Dream speech of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). Lima is featured on the recording of pioneering African-American composer Florence Price’s Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight that won the 2020 American Prize for the Performance of American Music.

Lima is a frequent recitalist whose performance with pianist Beverly Orlove of Schubert’s monumental, 24-song cycle Winterreise was cited by The Boston Phoenix in an annual summary of Boston’s “Unforgettable Classical Events.”

More information about Mr. Lima is available at philiplima.com, and at his YouTube channel, PhilipLimaSings.

Japanese-American conductor Ken Yanagisawa is the Music Director of the Boston Opera Collaborative and the Boston Annex Players, the Associate Conductor of the Boston Civic Symphony, the Assistant Conductor of the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music. He made his Japanese debut conducting Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte with Kansai Nikikai and the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra in February 2023 and will return in Fall 2026 to conduct Mozart’s Clemenza di Tito. A 2024 Aspen Conducting Academy Fellow and James Conlon Conductor Prize recipient, Ken has previously served as a Conducting Apprentice with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and has assisted/covered the National Symphony Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Berlin Academy of American Music, and Berlin Opernfest, among others.

Ken recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestral Conducting at Boston University under the guidance of James Burton and also holds graduate degrees in conducting from the Manhattan School of Music and a B.A. in music from Yale University. Prior to Yale he attended the New England Conservatory as an Undergraduate Diploma candidate for Oboe Performance under the tutelage of John Ferrillo. His other teachers include George Manahan, William Lumpkin, Bernard Labadie, and Tatsuya Shimono. In masterclasses and festivals, he has been taught by renowned artists and pedagogues such as Robert Spano, Leonard Slatkin, Mark Stringer, Dame Jane Glover, Gerard Schwarz, and Jorma Panula. He is deeply grateful for all the excellent guidance and mentorship he has received thus far in his life as a musician.