Recording artist Patrice Michaels presents a concert of songs for voice and piano on Saturday, October 13 from 1:30-2:15pm.  The performance, at the Logan Center for the Arts (915 E. 60th St), University of Chicago, will feature familiar and newly-composed blues, ragtime, ballads and art songs — a glorious musical conversation linking jazz and classical music. She will be joined by pianist Kuang-Hao Huang.

Admission is FREE. Click here for more information.

“Like the Romantic ideal of art, Patrice Michaels‘ voice is both natural and passionate” says Classical CD Digest. “A formidable interpretative talent” (The New Yorker), Ms. Michaels receives raves for her “poise, musicianship and impressive fioratura” (Los Angeles Times), “a voice that is light, rich and flexible” (Opera News), and “pinpoint-accurate…bravura” (Boston Globe). Recent seasons have included engagements with the Shanghai, Czech National, St. Louis, Omaha, Atlanta, Phoenix, Milwaukee, and Minnesota Orchestras, the Maryland Handel Festival, Dallas Bach Society and Charlotte, Kansas City and Virginia Symphonies, as well as New York’s Concert Royal and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque. Ms. Michaels has sung the Great Mass in C Minor with Skrowaczewski, Christmas Oratorio with Shaw, Mahler 4 with Zdenek Macal Mozart Arias with Andrew Parrott and Nicolas McGegan, Carmina Burana with Joanne Falletta and Beethoven 9 with Andreas Delfs and Victor Yampolsky.

Ms. Michaels includes in her operatic credits the Hal Prince production of Candide at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She made her debut in the 1990-91 season with the Cleveland Opera as Marzelline in Fidelio and has sung with Central City Opera, Tacoma Opera , The Banff Centre, Canada andChicago Opera Theater. Her recording as Monica in Menotti’s The Medium (Cedille Records) continues to receive international critical acclaim.

Recital appearances for Ms. Michaels include three consecutive seasons at the Festival of Contemporary Music in Havana, Cuba and tours of Mexico, Japan, Venezuela, Barbados and Belize. She performs frequently in the United States and Canada, including a recital with pianist John Browning forMusic at the Supreme Court, as guest artist with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, for the Schubert Club of St. Paul and for many academic institutions, including Harvard, Northwestern and as guest clinician at the University of Tel Aviv.

This season begins for Ms. Michaels with the release of her latest disc on the Cedille label (which is her twentieth commercial recording): American Songs. She will appear with several of the Ensembles of Lawrence University, record music of composer Laurie Altman in New York, sing inBeethoven’s Symphony #9 with the Fox Valley Symphony, and conclude her season with The Passion According to Saint John for Bach Week in Evanston.

Pianist Kuang-Hao Huang has performed throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Asia. Mr. Huang is most often heard as a collaborator, performing concerts and radio broadcasts with Chicago’s finest musicians, from instrumentalists of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to singers with the Lyric Opera. He has been a regular guest of the Chicago Chamber Musicians and has performed with the Vermeer and Chicago String Quartets. Mr. Huang can be heard in recordings on the Cedille and Naxos labels.

An advocate of new music, Mr. Huang gave the world premiere performances of solo works by Louis Andriessen and Chen Yi at Weill Hall as part of Carnegie Hall’s Millennium Piano Book Project. He has also premiered numerous ensemble works, including pieces by Jacob Bancks,Stacy Garrop, John Harbison, Daniel Kellogg, Rami Levin, James Matheson and Laura Schwendinger. Mr. Huang is a member of Fulcrum Point New Music Project. He has been involved with the Chicago Chamber Musicians Composer Perspectives series since its inception in 2001.

Also a dedicated teacher, Mr. Huang serves on the faculties of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, Concordia University-Chicago and the Merit School of Music. As a member of the International Music Foundation’s Bootinsky Piano Trio, he has presented educational outreach programs throughout the Chicago Public Schools. For a decade, he coordinated the piano program at Northwestern University’s National High School Music Institute. He has also served on the faculty of the Mimir Chamber Music Festival at TCU in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Mr. Huang has degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Northwestern University. His principal teachers include Leonard Hokanson, Joseph Kalichstein, Howard Karp, Rita Sloan and Sylvia Wang. During his graduate studies, Mr. Huang was a recipient of the U.S. Department of Education’s Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. He was also a member of the New World Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas’s orchestral academy. A native of Whitewater, Wisconsin, Mr. Huang currently resides in Oak Park, Illinois with his wonderful wife and kids.