Event Details - Patricia Ainspac: Celebrating a Life in Song

Patricia Ainspac: Celebrating a Life in Song
with Nancy King, soprano, and Emery Stephens, baritone

Reception in the Cultural Arts building lobby follows the recital.

Sunday, October 27
4:00 pm
Beckwith Recital Hall
open to the public and free of charge (tickets are not needed for this event)

An afternoon of song and celebration with Patricia Ainspac (piano), Nancy King (soprano), Emery Stephens (baritone), featuring selections by Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben and Dichterliebe. The recital marks the retirement of Ainspac, UNCW vocal coach.

Patricia Ainspac studied vocal coaching in Vienna, Austria, on a Fulbright Scholarship. She was the accompanist for the New York Concert Choir under the direction of Margaret Hillis, and the American Opera Society of New York City. She has accompanied such well-known singers as Marilyn Horne, Eileen Farrell and Leontyne Price. Ainspac has taught at UNCW for the past 15 years.

Nancy King, soprano, is an active performer, guest lecturer, and associate professor/coordinator of vocal studies at UNCW. King toured with Chamber Music Wilmington throughout southeastern North Carolina in a series of Bach concerts.  Last year, she performed Steven Errante’s Cradle Songs with the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra (with whom she performs again on Sept. 21). Other performances include Handel’s Messiah with Toronto Classical Singers and Mount Olive College, Vaughn Williams’s Serenade to Music with the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus in Eugene, Oregon, Bernstein’s Candide, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Canteloube’s Chants D’Auvergne, and the Poulenc Gloria with the Wilmington Symphony.

Emery Stephens, baritone is an assistant professor of voice at Wayne State University. He has performed with the Boston Lyric Opera/Opera New England, Boston Opera Theatre, Handel and Haydn Society, Orchestra Canton, Carolina Ballet, University of Michigan Opera Theatre, Ann Arbor Symphony, Prism Opera, Instages Theatre, Lake George Opera Festival, Boston Opera Institute and Wilmington Symphony Orchestra, among others. His operatic roles include Benoit and Alcindoro in Puccini’s La Boheme, Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Melchior and Balthazar in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, Father in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Junius in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia, Damis in Mechem’s Tartuffe, Maximilian in Bernstein’s Candide, and Dosher in James P. Johnson’s blues opera, De Organizer. This performance marks a return to Beckwith Recital Hall for Stephens, having performed there with King in 2012.