Mark Steven Doss Recital – an album celebrating the Bel Canto Foundation
Cedille Records requests your support to produce and release a recording celebrating the successes of the Bel Canto Foundation and the renowned Bel Canto opera contest evenings. The recording will feature former competition winner, bass-baritone Mark Steven Doss.
The Bel Canto Foundation, and the Bel Canto competition, meant quite a lot to all of the singers, especially the students, having that funding was very important to continue their studies. To record an album for the Bel Canto Foundation is an extreme honor.
–Mark Steven Doss
BEL CANTO FOUNDATION AND MARK STEVEN DOSS
Since 1973, the focus of the Bel Canto Foundation’s activities has been to promote Italian operatic repertoire through contests, seminars, and concerts, which provide young American singers with financial support, vocal training, and performance opportunities. Founded and led by the Montastero family, owners of Montastero’s Ristorante in Chicago, IL, the Bel Canto Foundation provided monetary prizes, numerous performance opportunities, and all-expenses paid trips for vocal study for emerging opera singers.
Bass-baritone Mark Steven Doss is one singer who benefited from the support of the Bel Canto Foundation. A Grammy Award-winner, Doss has sung with the major orchestras of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, and Toronto, and performed 100 roles with more than 60 major opera companies around the world — including Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, the Vienna State Opera, London’s Royal Opera Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Canadian Opera Company.
ALBUM REPERTOIRE
Mark Steven Doss, bass-baritone
Ken Smith, piano
*with Stas Venglevski, accordionist
BEETHOVEN: Flohlied
BOITO: Ecco il mondo – Mefistofele
BERLIOZ: Une puce gentille – La damnation de Faust
MUSSORGSKY: Pesnja a Blaxe
GOUNOD: Le veau d’or – Faust
DORSEY: Peace in the Valley
DORSEY: Take my Hand, Precious Lord
GRAHAM & LOVLAND: You Raise Me Up
WEBSTER & BRODSZKY: I’ll Walk with God
DE CURTIS: Torna a Surriento*
DE CURTIS: Non ti scordar di me*
DI CAPUA: ‘O Sole Mio*
MOZART: Non più andrai – Le nozze di Figaro
ROSSINI: Là del ciel – La Cenerentola
HANDEL: Sibillar gli angui d’Aletto – Rinaldo
BIZET: Toreador Song – Carmen
GIORDANO: Nemico della patria?! – Andrea Chénier
GRUENBERG: Lawd Jesus, heah my Prayer – Emperor Jones
WEILL: Lost in the Stars – Lost in the Stars
WEILL: O Tixo, Tixo Help Me – Lost in the Stars
WEILL: Thousands of Miles – Lost in the Stars
PRODUCTION TEAM
James Ginsburg, producer
Bill Maylone, Engineer
The [Bel Canto Foundation and the Monastero family] have supported my career from the very beginning. I hope that audiences take away the sense of inspiration — that they understand how necessary it is to have people support [singers] and give [us] opportunities. The Monasteros and the Bel Canto Foundation and its supporters have always done that.
–Mark Steven Doss
Cedille Records’ Mission and Commitment to Vocal Recordings
Cedille Chicago, NFP is dedicated to bringing Chicago’s finest classical musicians to a worldwide audience by recording, distributing, and promoting their work. Through its high-quality recordings on the Cedille Records label, Cedille furthers the careers of outstanding Chicago classical performers and composers as they present innovative programs featuring the music about which they are most passionate.
In 2022, Cedille Records launched The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Fund for Vocal Recordings. The Fund commits Cedille to releasing at least one vocal album every year beginning in 2023. This recording will be one of the first to be supported, in part, by this special Fund.
Cedille humbly requests your support to help us fully fund this album, which will help cement the legacy of both the Bel Canto Foundation and Mark Steven Doss for years to come. To donate specifically to this unique recording project, please use the form below.
Please contact Julie Polanski (773.989.2518) to learn more about the project and/or the work of Cedille Records.