She’s been hailed as an artist possessed of “a lovely voice, full of color and body in every register, and the poise to perform unselfconsciously in an intimate space” — a setting of which the reviewer observed, “can be more of a challenge than a large hall with 3,000 people.”
When soprano Alexis Rodda performs a Thursday evening concert at St. Anthony of Padua, she’ll be working on a scale that’s cozier than Carnegie — but she’ll also be feeling very much at home, as the Red Bank resident is a regular choir member at the Bridge Avenue house of worship. And, together with pianist Manon Hutton-DeWys, she’ll help to inaugurate a new series of public-welcome music presentations at St. Anthony’s.
Voice students around the Greater Red Bank Green may know Rodda as a highly regarded instructor at Monmouth Vocal Studio, the borough-based business that she founded last year. Music educators and professionals around the tri-state region know her as the winner of several prestigious awards and competitions, most recently the Violetta DuPont Competition for 2016. The acclaimed young singer is also a recipient of a five-year fellowship at New York’s CUNY Graduate Center, where she is currently going for her doctorate in music performance.
For their program scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., Rodda and Hutton-DeWys will perform a pair of selections which, while written more than a century apart from each other, are characterized as “two massively important works of the Romantic era of classical music.” The 1841 “Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights)” by Hector Berlioz is followed by the “Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs)” of Richard Strauss, completed in 1948 but not premiered until nearly a year after the composer’s 1949 death.
Tickets are priced at $10 and amy be purchased at the door or reserved in advance by calling (732)747-0813. All proceeds will benefit the music ministry at St. Anthony. Additional information on this and other events in the series can be obtained by emailing [email protected].
