Jennifer Fletcher and Dan McCoy Perform on February 4th at 7:30 pm
Jennifer Fletcher presents an eclectic programme of music spanning four centuries, from vocal hits of the seventeenth century to modern Broadway classics. Her artistic collaborator, Dan McCoy, will accompany her on this noteworthy journey with the help of a 9-foot Steinway concert grand piano and will also present virtually unheard-of masterpieces written originally for solo harpsichord. More than a standard vocal concert, this staged performance will highlight the duo’s inner thoughts as they discuss their repertoire and the role music plays in our lives, concluding that life itself can indeed be interpreted most succinctly as “Music for a While”.
Jennifer Fletcher, mezzo-soprano, is a fourth year student of Classical Voice at York University in Toronto. Raised in Gravenhurst, Jennifer has been a proud member of the community and has been involved with the Youth and Senior Choirs at Trinity United Church, as well as a former member of the Just 8 Jazz Choir.
Jennifer has studied with vocal coaches Dean Perry and Doreen Uren Simmons. She is currently studying under Catherine Robbin at York University and has been coached in several vocal masterclasses by Norma Burrowes, Leslie Fagan, Bruce Ubakata, Colin Ainsworth, Caroline Schiller and Sophie Roland.
Jennifer has participated in Orillia Kiwanis Music Festivals, Newmarket Voice Festivals and NATS Auditions. In 2010 Jennifer won first place for third year secondary women in the Ontario Chapter Auditions of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. She was the recipient of York Universities Sterling Voice Award in 2010/2011. Last year she achieved the role of Emily in York’s production of The Garden Party. Locally, Jennifer participated in the Muskoka Opera Festival once again. She presented recitals in Gravenhurst and Toronto. In the coming year, Jennifer will be performing the role of the sorceresses witch in York Universities Opera production of Dido and Aeneas in March. In May, she will be on a European Tour singing with York Universities Chamber Choir.
Dan McCoy is a Gravenhurst resident who has earned postgraduate degrees in Musicology and in Harpsichord Performance from the University of Toronto and The Liszt School of Music in Weimar, Germany, respectively. Musicologically speaking, he has presented at international Baroque music conferences in Spain, Germany, and, most recently, in Aberdeen, Scotland; he is also scheduled to speak in June 2012 at McGill University in Montréal about 18th-century composer Geminiani’s unique yet little-discussed composition treatise, Guida Armonica, and its potential application for students of thorough-bass. Dan’s publications include recording reviews for the scholarly journal, Early Music, from Oxford University Press, and his most recent article about the tune, “Fortune My Foe,” which first became popular at public executions in early modern England, can be found in the forthcoming collection of essays entitled “Musical, Cultural, and Religious Networks in Early Modern Europe” from Ashgate Publishing. Dan is currently preparing continuo realisations for a set of sonatas from the Harrach Collection in Austria recently rediscovered in the New York Public Library and to be published by Edition Musiklandschaften based in Hamburg, Germany. Finally, Dan has performed in various venues including the Mellon Estate on Lake Muskoka, the Bachhaus Museum in Eisenach, Germany, Ehrenstein Palace in Ohrdruf, Germany, and at the Sondershausen Palace in Germany. He is currently the Director of Music at Trinity United Church in Gravenhurst and runs a community ukulele group there.
