THE WILLIAM MATHEUS
SULLIVAN MUSICAL
FOUNDATION, INC.

phone: 860-927-1320
fax: 860-927-1680
P.O. Box 189 Kent, CT 06757
info@sullivanfoundation.org

Sullivan Audition Judges
are distinguished artists
and professionals, including,
among many others:

  • Susanne Mentzer
  • Charles MacKay
  • Anthony Fogg
  • Christine Brewer
  • Craig Rutenberg
  • Richard Gaddes
  • John Moriarty
  • George Shirley
  • Evans Mirageas
  • Bruce Donnell

Awards for 2011-2012

The William Matheus Sullivan Musical Foundation awarded ten $11,000 grants to young artists who auditioned for the Foundation in New York on November 14 & 15, 2011. In addition to these cash awards, for the next five years winners are eligible to apply for Preparation Grants for new roles which are one of the unique features of the Sullivan program.

Winners of $11,000 awards and continuing assistance starting in 2012 are: sopranos Elizabeth Baldwin, Andrea Carroll, Michelle Johnson, and Danielle Pastin; mezzo-sopranos Jenni Bank and Erica Brookhyser; counter-tenor John Holiday; tenor Paul Appleby; and baritones Aleksey Bogdanov and Edward Parks. $5000 Career Development Awards were given to sopranos Ashley Emerson and Ileana Montalbetti; mezzo-sopranos Samantha Korbey and Kathryn Leemhuis; bass-baritone Joseph Beutel; and bass Jeremy Milner.

Judges for the auditions were well-known soprano and English diction specialist Erie Mills, Cincinnati Opera artistic director Evans Mirageas, former Central City Opera artistic director John Moriarty, and stage director Bruce Donnell.

Edward Parks’s award is named for Theodor Uppman, the famed baritone who was a longtime member of the Board of the Foundation; Danielle Pastin’s award is named for soprano Rose Bampton, also a longtime member of the Foundation’s board. Erica Brookyser and Michelle Johnson received awards honoring former board members Gail Robinson and Betty Allen.

These winners join the current roster of Sullivan artists who have won awards since 2008, all of whom may apply to the Foundation for grants for preparing new roles in opera or other works with full orchestra. The William Matheus Sullivan Foundation was established in 1956 by a well-known New York lawyer who represented many opera singers and whose interest in music was extensive, to aid young singers at that crucial point after their training is completed but before they are established. For more than fifty years it has supported the careers of literally hundreds of young artists.