Graduate Students Valdis Jansons and Erik Lawrence to present virtual concert in partnership with Quarantine Concerts and Verbier Festival

UC Santa Barbara graduate students Valdis Jansons (baritone) and Erik Lawrence (piano) will present a virtual concert in partnership with Quarantine Concerts and the Verbier Festival on Wednesday, June 24, 2020 at 9 am PST. The program will include works by Modest Mussorgsky, Henri Duparc, Roger Quilter, Ernesto De Curtis, Salvatore Cardillo, and Enrico Cannio. The duo will perform live from St. Athanasius Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Santa Barbara, CA.

Jansons, an alumnus of the Verbier Festival, is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice and studies under Associate Professor Isabel Bayrakdarian. Lawrence is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Accompanying and studies under Professor Robert Koenig.

About Valdis Jansons

Latvian baritone, Valdis Jansons, made his opera debut in 2004 under the direction of Antonello Allemandi. Winner of many international competitions (Giuseppe Di Stefano 2006, As.Li.Co. 2009 etc.), he has sung more than 60 roles in more than 70 theaters all over the world. Among them: Teatro alla Scala in Berg's Lulu, directed by Peter Stein and conducted by Daniele Gatti in 2011; Teatro Carlo Felice di Genoa as Capulet in Romeo et Juliette, directed by Jean Louis Grinda and conducted by Fabio Luisi in 2012; Teatro Filarmonico di Verona, Teatro Regio di Parma; Sao Carlos Theater of Lisbon, Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater, Theater an der Wien; Teatro San Carlo di Napoli, Lincoln Center, NCPA in Beijing. Among his recent engagements are: Enrico Ashton in Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti at Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Il Conte di Luna in Il Trovatore at Teatro São Carlos (Lisbon, Portugal), at San Carlo Theatre in Naples as the baritone soloist in Carmina Burana by Orff, at the Monte-Carlo Opéra in Rusalka, Figaro at Carlo Felice Opera House in Genoa, then at Theatro Municipal in Rio De Janeiro (Brazil) as Escamillo in Carmen, again as Escamillo in Genoa, Don Giovanni at the opening of the 16th International Music and Dance Festival of Bangkok (Thailand). In April 2015 Mr. Jansons made his debut as Billy Budd at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. In December 2015 he made his debut as Onegin at Opera Wrocławska, in March 2016 as Rodrigo in Verdi’s Don Carlo at Lithuanian National Opera, Zurga in The Pearl Fishers at Opera Wrocławska, Rigoletto, Valentin in Faust, Verdi’s Macbeth, Wolfram in Tannhäuser by Wagner at Latvian National Opera, Giorgio Germont in La Traviata at Teatro Marrucino in Chieti, Italy, in 2017 he sang with Ramon Vargas in Lucia di Lammermoor at National Opera of Bucharest (Romania), has performed Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca in Tours, France, King Roger in Szymanowsky's eponymous opera in Krakow, Poland, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus at Teatro Petruzzelli di Bari, Nello in Pia de’ Tolomei by Donizetti at the theatres of Pisa, Lucca, Livorno as well as at Spoleto Festival in Charleston (SC) in May and June 2018, then Rodrigo in Don Carlo at Opera pa Skäret (Sweden), Ping in Turandot in a tournèe in China. In February - March 2019 made his stage debut at Oper Graz (Austria) as King Roger. His upcoming engagements include Nabucco by Verdi in Latvia and Ramiro in L’Heure Espagnole by Ravel in Italy.

About Erik Lawrence

Pianist Erik Lawrence has experience in orchestral, chamber music, art song, operatic, and choral genres. Erik has given performances at the Canadian Opera Company’s Virtuoso Pianist Afternoon Concert Series, at the International Holland Music Sessions in Bergen, Netherlands, and performed Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto with the Lake Charles Symphony. He was orchestral keyboardist with the Topeka Symphony Orchestra. Erik is currently doing doctoral studies in Collaborative Piano at UC Santa Barbara with Robert Koenig, and was a TA at UM Kansas City where he earned a Master’s Degree with Dr. Robert Weirich. Before that, he received an Artist’s Diploma from the Glenn Gould School with pianist John O’Conor and Bachelor’s Degree from Rice University with Dr. Robert Roux in his hometown of Houston, Texas. Erik currently plays with the Santa Barbara Master Chorale, and in private voice lessons as a TA collaborative pianist with Dr. Isabel Bayrakdarian at UCSB, as well as in the voice studio of Marilyn Horne.

Read More