Brian Law Opera Scholarship
Competition 2005
The Winners
The 2005 Brian Law Opera Scholarship Competition took place on Saturday 29 January 2005. The winner of the $2000 first prize was Joyce El-Khoury. New for the 2005 Competition were bursaries for the runners-up, donated by Cavaliere/Chevalier Pasqualina Pat Adamo, a Board member of the National Capital Opera Society. First runner-up Maghan Stewart received $300, while 2nd runner-up Liliana Piazza received $200.
Finalists
On 27 November 2004, the preliminary jury chose the following candidates for the competition recital:
Joyce El-Khoury, soprano
Joyce El-Khoury, soprano. Joyce was the winner of the 2005 Brian Law Opera Scholarship Competition. Her biography can be found here.
Bryan Estabrooks, baritone
Bryan Estabrooks was born and raised in Ottawa. He received the degree of Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto in 2002, and the further degree of Master of Music from the University of Michigan (where he was on full scholarship) in 2004. He has received a trophy and scholarships from the Kiwanis Music Festival as well as the Greta Kraus Memorial Scholarship.
Bryan began singing on the stage in important roles in various musicals such as West Side Story, Forever Plaid, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and A Chorus Line at Centrepointe Theatre, the Ottawa Little Theatre, and the Seagle Memorial Theatre.
On the opera stage in Ottawa he was in the Opera Lyra chorus for virtually all productions between 1994 and 1998, singing the role of The Registrar in Madama Butterfly (Puccini) in 1996. Since then he has appeared as The Cat in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (Ravel) with the University of Toronto, Ariodate in Xerxes (Handel) and Marco in Gianni Schicchi (Puccini) with the University of Michigan. Most recently he sang Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore (Donizetti) with the Camp musical de St. Jean, Sciarrone in Tosca (Puccini) with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra and Germont in La Traviata (Verdi) with the Seagle Music Colony.
In 2004 he participated in performances of Mozart’s Requiem in Toronto and in March of that year Bach cantatas at Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa. In December he appeared as Death in The Summoning of Everyman (Wilson) and in multiple roles in Dream Play (Sullivan) with Opera in Concert.
Liliana Piazza, mezzo-soprano
Liliana Piazza was born in the National Capital Region and studied here with Yoriko Tanno-Kimmons and Sandra Cooke before going to Toronto to attend the Vocal Performance Programme at the University of Toronto, where she is now in her third year. She has won a trophy and scholarship from the National Capital Region Kiwanis Music Festival and in 2003 the National Association of Teachers of Singing Senior Scholarship.
While in Ottawa she appeared in the sixth and seventh annual Shooting Stars: An Operatic Showcase, as well as singing with the Ottawa University Choir. In Toronto she has appeared as soloist with the MacMillan Singers and took part in a showcase called Great Young Canadian Singers. Besides an active participation in the chorus of Opera in Concert, Liliana has sung major roles with that company such as Ninetta in I Vespri Siciliani (Verdi) and Frasquita in El Gato Montes (Penella). This past year she also participated in productions of The Chocolate Soldier with Toronto Operetta Theatre and sang the role of Metella in La Vie Parisienne (Offenbach) with Summer Opera Lyric Theatre.
In addition to the major operatic roles for mezzo-soprano Liliana’s repertoire comprises an extensive collection of art songs and oratorio arias.
Maghan Stewart, soprano
Maghan Stewart began her training at the University of Toronto, completing the Bachelor of Voice Performance in 2001 and going on to complete the Master of Voice Performance degree at the University of Ottawa in 2004. Besides her participation in the years 2001-2004 in the Opera Lyra Ottawa Young Artists Program, she has attended Oberlin College’s summer program at Cassalmaggiore, Italy, Banff Arts Festival called Opera as Theatre, and L’Académie internationale d’été de Nice under the direction of Dalton Baldwin.
At the University of Toronto she won the Lois Marshall, Greta Kraus and Douglas Bodle Scholarships and in Ottawa the Vivian Asfar and the Galaxie Rising Stars of the CBC Awards. In the past year she was a semi-finalist (out of 200 singers participating) in the Dutch International Voice Competition ‘s-Hertogenbosch 2004.
In addition to several concert and oratorio appearances Maghan has already been seen on the operatic stage in a number of important roles: Cherubino in 1998 and The Countess in the following year in Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart) in Casalmaggiore, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Britten), and Nanetta in Falstaff (Verdi) with the Banff Arts Festival. With Opera Lyra Ottawa she sang The Slave in Salome (Strauss), Nananina in Zeus and the Pamplemousse (McCune) and most recently she appeared as Countess Ceprano in Rigoletto (Verdi).
With her recent experience in Holland behind her, she intends to enter more vocal competitions such as the Eckhardt-Gramatte in Manitoba and Les Jeunesses Musicales in Montreal. She has been personally invited to audition for the Düsseldorf Opera Studio.