The "Negro Spiritual" Scholarship Foundation

This past summer, Mr. Singletary performed the title role in Don Giovanni at Aspen Opera Theatre. He is a Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals winner, where he was the youngest competitor, and won the Joseph Volpe Award. He is a top prize winner in several competitions, including First Prize in the 2009 Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, First Prize in the 2009 Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition, Second Prize in the 2009 Mario Lanza Vocal Competition, the George London Competition’s Robert Jacobson Memorial Award, Second Prize in the Licia Albanese-Puccini Competition, First Prize in the Mt. Dora Festival Competition in Florida, First Prize in the Heinz Rehfuss Singing Actors Competition, and Second Prize in the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition. He has performed with the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. In the summer of 2008, as a Gerdine Young Artistwith Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Mr. Singletary made his professional debut as Hermannin The Tales of Hoffmann. Mr. Singletary received his Bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from Stetson University in Deland, Florida, and pursued additional music studies at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.

	World Premiere Artists
			Bass-baritone, Donovan Singletary is from Crestview, Florida, and is in his third year of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program with the Metropolitan Opera. Mr. Singletary’s upcoming engagements include Pinellino in Gianni Schicchi at the Met, and a concert with Vero Beach Opera in Florida. Last season Mr. Singletary made his Metropolitan Opera debut, singing the role of Second Nazarene in Salome. He also made his Carnegie Hall debut singing Mark Hayes’ Te Deum, and returned to Carnegie Hall last spring to sing Fauré’s Requiem and Haydn’s Paukenmesse.

	This past summer, Mr. Singletary performed the title role in Don Giovanni at Aspen Opera Theatre. He is a Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals winner, where he was the youngest competitor, and won the Joseph Volpe Award. He is a top prize winner in several competitions, including First Prize in the 2009 Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, First Prize in the 2009 Giulio Gari International Vocal Competition, Second Prize in the 2009 Mario Lanza Vocal Competition, the George London Competition’s Robert Jacobson Memorial Award, Second Prize in the Licia Albanese-Puccini Competition, First Prize in the Mt. Dora Festival Competition in Florida, First Prize in the Heinz Rehfuss Singing Actors Competition, and Second Prize in the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition. He has performed with the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. In the summer of 2008, as a Gerdine Young Artistwith Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Mr. Singletary made his professional debut as Hermannin The Tales of Hoffmann. Mr. Singletary received his Bachelor’s degree in Vocal Performance from Stetson University in Deland, Florida, and pursued additional music studies at the Mannes College of Music in New York City.
			Uzee Brown, Jr. is the 2010 Composer-In-Residence to the GRADY-RAYM PRIZE In Sacred Music. Mr. Brown, a native of Cowpens, South Carolina,is chair of the Department of Music at Morehouse College. For twelve years he was director of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir. He has enjoyed a diverse career in music, and the combination of his professional activities as singer/performer, composer/arranger, educator and choir director has taken him to more than sixteen countries, including Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Luxembourg, Spain, five countries of Africa and the Caribbean.

	As Director of the Ebenezer Baptist Church Choir, he led the choir in concert tours of Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy. He has likewise appeared as a baritone soloist on three continents. Dr. Brown holds the B.A. degree from Morehouse College, M.M. degree in Composition from Bowling Green State University and the M.M. and D.M.A. degrees in Voice Performance from the University of Michigan. He is past president of the National Association of Negro Musicians. He studied composition with T. J. Anderson and Burton Beerman, and choral arranging and conducting with Wendell P. Whalum. For more than thirty years he has researched the Negro spirituals. His CD, Great Day, released in 2006, is a compilation of Brown’s solo spiritual arrangements. His composition commissions include works for the National Public Radio and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, colleges, universities, soloists and ensembles. His works have been performed by fourteen national and regional symphony orchestras throughout the country, and have been presented in Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall and the Kennedy Center.