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Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara announces 2024 Marilyn Horne Song Competition Winners Mariam Mouawad mezzo-soprano & Eric Head piano

by Community Contributor • August 5, 2024 • Comments Off

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Mariam Mouawad, mezzo-soprano and Eric Head, piano (photo credit Zach Mendez)

For immediate release

SANTA BARBARA — The Music Academy of the West, 2024 Summer Music Festival, which kicked off June 12 and runs through August 3 at the Music Academy’s idyllic campus — and throughout the stunning setting of the American Riviera in Santa Barbara, California — has featured nearly 130 live events including the Academy Festival Orchestra, Bizet’s opera Carmen, public masterclasses, and world-renowned competitions in solo piano, duo, and song.

The 2024 Marilyn Horne Song Competition, open to the Lehrer Vocal Institute vocalists and vocal pianists, took place on August 2 from 11 am to 5 pm in Hahn Hall at the Music Academy. The winners were announced shortly after the competition concluded by an esteemed panel of adjudicators: Music Academy soprano alum Brenda Rae (’08), Director of Opera at UCLA Peter Kazaras, and pianist Howard Watkins.

Tzu Kuang Tan, Kayla Rae Stein, Mariam Mouawad, and Eric Head (credit Zach Mendez)

Congrats to Mariam, Eric, and all of the Lehrer Vocal Institute fellows on their outstanding performances!

The Grand Prize recipients each receive a $5,000 cash award and digital assets for career promotion.

Thanks to the generosity of Linda Yawitz, Kayla Rae Stein, soprano and Tzu Kuang Tan, piano, will each receive special recognition awards of $750 cash.

Thank you to our adjudicators, Peter Kazaras, Brenda Rae, and Howard Watkins.

MARIAM MOUAWAD mezzo-soprano, born in Zahlé, Lebanon, is a recent Resident Artist of the Shreveport Opera. She studied with Melanie Sonnenburg at the University of Houston. She placed first at the 2023 Music Teachers National Association Young Artist Competition and the 2022 La Jolla Symphony and Chorus Young Artist Competition. Roles with Shreveport Opera include Dorabella in Mozart’s Cosí fan tutte and Musetta in Puccini’s La bohème. With the Moores Opera Center, Mariam appeared as Federico García Lorca in Golijov’s Ainadamar.

ERIC HEAD vocal piano, from Fairmont, Minnesota, is earning his master’s degree in collaborative piano from the University of Michigan, where he studies with Martin Katz. He won the Rosholt Distinction in Accompanying Prize in 2021 and 2022 and was a Luther College Concerto Competition winner in 2021. Recent performances include Puccini’s La bohème and Gianni Schicchi as well as in Johann Strauss II’sDie Fledermaus. From 2017-2021, he was the Summer Theater Music Director for the Fairmount Opera House.

For more Summer Festival information, download the
Music Academy Summer Festival
press kit

The 2024 Lehrer Vocal Institute fellows (photo credit Zach Mendez)

About the Music Academy

Located in Santa Barbara, the Music Academy of the West creates a space where exceptional talent can thrive by encouraging artists to stretch, experiment, improvise, and play. The Music Academy provides artists with the tools they need to become not just great musicians but great leaders. The Music Academy’s programs include the annual eight-week Summer School & Music Festival which trains up to 150 fellows ages 18-34 and presents more than 130 performances and events, competitions, and a fully staged opera; Sing!, a children’s choir that performs with local, national, and international partners; the MAX (Music Academy Exchange) partnership with international orchestras; the innovative Alumni Enterprise Awards; and the Mariposa Series of concerts by Academy-affiliated artists. The 2024 Summer School & Festival takes place from June 12 through August 3. Learn more at musicacademy.org.