During campus visit by Frederica Von Stade Jan. 18-19
The visit to the Brigham Young University campus by renowned mezzo-soprano Frederica Von Stade Jan. 18-19 will mark the inauguration of the Nancy Peery Marriott Visiting Artist Endowment at BYU.
”For several generations, the vocal division of the BYU School of Music has produced outstanding young singers of professional potential,” said Dale Monson, director of the School of Music.
“But because the university is located in the Mountain West, far from musical centers on the East and West coasts, all of them have had to go elsewhere in order to gain recognition and professional networking, most notably to eastern conservatories and to summer training programs in Europe and the United States,” he said.
Recognizing both the caliber of the singers at BYU and the challenges they face to gain professional exposure, Nancy Perry Marriott created an endowment to bring professional artists and teachers to BYU each year to hear and train the best students during a brief residency.
Nancy Peery Marriott, wife of Richard E. Marriott, was born in Palo Alto, Calif., to H. Taylor and Mary Rich Peery. She credits her mother for a lifelong passion for music.
She began voice lessons in fifth grade and has been singing ever since. She studied at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., and went on to perform as a soloist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, at the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Wolf Trap (Virginia), Strathmore Hall (Maryland), Boston’s Symphony Hall and in the Marriott Center as a recent BYU Homecoming Spectacular. She also sang to her four daughters, frequently waking them up in the morning with a rousing rendition of the Cougar Fight Song.
For more information about the endowment, please contact the BYU School of Music, (801) 422-6304.
Writer: Marissa Ballantyne
