Soprano Magdalena Kuźma
Winners Announced of the KF 2024 Marcella Sembrich International Voice Competition
Polish-American soprano Magdalena Kuźma has won the Kosciuszko Foundation 2024 Marcella Sembrich International Voice Competition, receiving the first prize of $8,000 and special performance awards offered by the Gerda Lissner Foundation and the Connecticut Lyric Opera.
“We had a great semi-final round followed by a very difficult decision to select singers for the finals. We are very pleased with the very high artistic level of the participants,” said Thomas Lausmann, Artistic Director of the Competition to the Polish Press Agency. “We are very proud of Magdalena Kuźma, who demonstrated very good performance skills and that special artistic touch that moves us as an audience,” he added.
“I’m very proud of my performance in the competition. In the finals, I competed with singers who did not speak Polish. I so admire how hard they worked to learn beautiful music and difficult diction in order to participate in the competition. My goal as an artist is to present Polish repertoire so that those who don’t know the music come to like it and eventually decide to perform Polish works,” stated Kuźma.
A former Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program Participant, Magdalena Kuźma made her mainstage Met debut in the 2023 season as Giannetta in L’elisir d’amore. The following season at the Met, she sang Sister Catherine in the premiere of Dead Man Walking; Papagena in The Magic Flute, and Yvette in La Rondine. She is the first prize winner of numerous vocal competitions, including this year’s Jensen and Orpheus competitions. Magdalena holds degrees in Music from the Juilliard School, Oberlin College & Conservatory, and Yale University. During her studies at Yale, she received the Dean’s Award, the highest excellence award, and was honored as Valedictorian.
Lyric tenor Michael Butler was awarded the second prize of $5,000, along with a $1,000 special award for the best performance of a Polish work by a non-Polish entrant funded by Drs. Francine and Henry Sikorski and a solo performance during the Sembrich Summer Festival.
Butler made his Washington National Opera debut as the Mission Coordinator in the world premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded. An alumnus of Des Moines Metro Opera, he has been frequently seen in the D.C. Metropolitan Area in numerous concerts and productions with notable companies such as Opera Baltimore, Washington Opera Society, BelCantanti Opera, and Partners4theArts.
The Competition’s third prize of $3,000, along with a masterclass offered by acclaimed bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny, was awarded to hailed from Montreal, Canada, contralto Rose Naggar-Tremblay. A graduate of McGill University with a Bachelor’s in Music specializing in vocal performance with a minor in European literature and culture, she frequently performs in opera houses in Europe, including the Metz and Reims Operas, the Bayerische Staatsoper as well as the Edmonton Opera in BC, Canada. During the 2025 season, she will make her debut at La Scala in Milan, as well as at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, playing Farnace in a concert version of Mozart’s Mitridate.
A Special Prize of $2,500 for artistic vitality, funded by Ms. Ann C. Zagoreos in honor of Halina Rodzinska, was awarded to mezzo-soprano Rubby Dibble, a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and Oberlin Conservatory, currently a student at the Juilliard School of Music. This year, she performed at the Carnegie Hall Glimmerglass Festival and was a 2024 National Finalist of The Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and the First Place Grand Prize winner at the Annapolis Opera Vocal Competition.
Korean-Australian soprano Gemma Nha won a special prize of $1,000 for the youngest finalist funded by Drs. Henry and Francine Sikorski. She is a first-year soprano at the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center and will be making her house debut this upcoming season. She holds a Master of Music in Vocal Arts from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor of Arts Gesang (Honours) from the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
The auditions were held on the weekend of October 12-13 at the Kosciuszko Foundation’s house in NYC. Of nearly 120 applicants, 34 singers were admitted to participate. The Competition, presented under the artistic direction of Thomas Lausmann, Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera, was adjudicated by the following esteemed musicians: Maestro Daniele Callegari; Beata Klatka, Director of the International Stanislaw Moniuszko Vocal Competition hosted by the Polish National Opera; Lee Ann Myslewski – Vice President of Opera and Classical Programming for Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts and three-time Grammy Award-winning bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green. Acclaimed opera singers Piotr Beczala, tenor, and Tomasz Konieczny, bass-baritone, served as Honorary Patrons of the Competition. Established pianists Katelan Tran Terrell and Michal Biel provided the piano accompaniment for the singers.
The Kosciuszko Foundation Marcella Sembrich International Voice Competition was established in 1968 to encourage young singers to study the repertoire of Polish composers and to honor the legacy of Polish soprano Marcella Sembrich Kochanska, one of the greatest artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who made her Metropolitan Opera debut on the second night after Met’s opening in 1883 and remained one of its biggest stars for nearly three decades. After an enormously successful career, the renowned singer founded the vocal programs at both Juilliard and the Curtis Institute. Marcella Sembrich was an avid promoter of Polish art, and her concerts almost always included a piece by a Polish composer. She was one of the first benefactors of the Kosciuszko Foundation when it was created in 1925 and a great philanthropist supporting humanitarian, educational, and cultural causes.
‘I am honored to be able to sponsor the Competition, as Marcella Sembrich is a role model for all Polish-American women. She was a great artist, philanthropist, and an able voice teacher whose role in creating the voice program at both Juilliard and Curtis helped chart the course of vocal music in the United States. Equally important was her conscious decision to promote the concept of a free and independent Poland by promoting Polish music, which can only serve as an inspiration to all of us,’ said Krystyna Piórkowska, member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, sponsor of this edition of the Competition.
