Munroe Saturday Nights Performance to Feature Gems of Victorian Operetta

The following is a press release from the Munroe Center for the Arts.

Music from the golden age of Victorian operetta will warm the cold January night at the next Munroe Saturday Nights this Saturday, Jan. 14, at the Munroe Center for the Arts.

The program, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at 1403 Massachusetts Ave., is free and open to the public, with donations gratefully accepted.

Rebecca Hains, soprano, Thomas Dawkins, baritone, and Lexington resident Shaylor Lindsay, a pianist, will headline the program, which will feature the music of Jacques Offenbach, Johann Strauss, Gilbert and Sullivan, and others. The program is presented in cooperation with the New England Gilbert and Sullivan Society (www.negass.org).

Hains, an alumna of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, frequently appears a soloist in regional musical theater and opera concerts, including the concert series of Longwood Opera, Mass Theatrica, the New England Gilbert and Sullivan Society, New England Light Opera, and Worcester Opera Works. Her past on-stage engagements include Mabel (The Pirates of Penzance), Marion (The Music Man), and Cunegonde (Candide), as well as appearances in The Magic Flute and as a soloist in the Lord Nelson Mass and Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Thomas Dawkins is a magna cum laude graduate in Music with Highest Honors from Brandeis University, where he became the first winner of the Ira Gershwin Prize for excellence in musical performance. He is a member of the choruses of both the Handel Haydn Society (with whom he has made two recordings) and Boston Baroque, and has also sung as a bass-baritone soloist with Mass Theatrica (including roles as Guglielmo in Così fan Tutte, Schaunard in La Bohème, Father in Hansel and Gretel), and with Worcester Opera Works (Pooh-Bah in Mikado, for which he received the accolade of being “a resonant marvel”).

And Lexington’s Shaylor Lindsay received her Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University and her Master of Music in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music. She has studied piano with Lois Shapiro, Victor Rosenbaum, Thomas Stumpf, and Patricia Zander, and fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson. Ms. Lindsay has appeared with such performing organizations as the Master Singers, the Concord Chorus and the Concord Orchestra, where she has performed in numerous chamber orchestra versions of works by Mahler and Stravinsky. She has appeared live on WGBH’s “Classical Performances” series as both soloist and chamber musician. She is currently on the faculties of the Longy School of Music and the Waring School.

Munroe Saturday Nights is a performing arts series for Lexington and the greater Boston community. Other events during this year’s season will feature Klezmer music and staged readings of original plays.

Performances are free to the public with donations gratefully accepted. Seating is limited. All events are held at the Munroe Center for the Arts, 1403 Mass Ave., Lexington. Parking is available in the lot at the rear of the building or on the street.

For reservations or further information, email: saturdays@munroecenter.org. Please include the number in your party and plan to arrive by 7:10 PM to claim your reservation.

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