Usually by December I’ve had a pretty good chance to see the COC’s Ensemble Studio. Not this year of course. So it was good to see at least a few of them in a stream of a short concert recorded at the Aga Khan Museum.

First up was Midori Marsh with “Non disperar chi sa?” from Giulio Cesare.  She kicked it out of the park.  She seems so effortless.  Even the overly bright Aga Khan acoustic couldn’t diminish this. Next up was baritone Jonah Spungin which prompted a “who he?” moment until I recalled that he competed in Centre Stage in 2017.  He produced a quite lyrical and pleasant account of “Bella siccome un angelo” from L’Elisir d’amore.  Matt Cairns was next with the very short “Amor ti vieta” from Giordan’s Fedora.  A short aria but a big and rather lovely voice.  I hope I’m still around long enough to see the big guy sing Tristan.  Last up was Jamie Groote with “Song to the Moon” from Rusalka.  This was really good and it looks like whatever (considerable) effort went into Czech language skills during the COC’s recent Rusalka paid off!  Piano accompaniment throughout was the excellent Alex Soloway.

All 19 minutes and 42 seconds of the performance can be watched here at your leisure.