May 26, 2020
Pinkall wins 2020 American Prize in Vocal Performance
Submitted by School of Music, Theatre, and Dance
Bryan Pinkall, assistant professor of music, has won the 2020 American Prize in Vocal Performance (men's art song, professional division) for his recital production "Voices from the Western Front," performed with K-State faculty collaborative pianist, Amanda Arrington.
Through live art song performance, video imagery, and other immersive multimedia, "Voices from the Western Front" celebrates four artists who perished during the First World War. It includes the world premiere performance of "Flanders Triptych," a song cycle by former U.S. Army captain and K-State graduate Patrick Dittamo set to poems by Canadian John McCrae, as well as the world premiere performance of rediscovered music by composer Frederick Septimus Kelly, an Australian soldier and 1908 rowing Olympic Gold-medalist who perished in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
The American Prize in Vocal Performance (the Friedrich and Virginia Schorr Memorial Award) annually recognizes the best performances by classically trained vocalists in the United States based on submitted commercial and non-commercial recordings.
"Voices from the Western Front" is one of a series of concerts developed by Pinkall, an Emmy and Grammy award-winning musician, that have premiered many new and rediscovered works from the First and Second World Wars at prominent performing arts centers and museums around the world since 2015, including the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, the Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, and the Sydney Opera House. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, scheduled performances at Lincoln Center in New York City and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. have been postponed to 2021.