About the Vocal Arts Society

Since its first season, the Vocal Arts Society has tripled its subscribers, more than doubled its number of recital presentations, and has become a vital and proven force in the cultural life of the Washington, D. C., metropolitan area.

The Vocal Arts Society has collaborated and co-presented with such local, national, and international institutions as the Marilyn Horne Foundation, the Gérard Souzay Vocal Arts Foundation, the University of Maryland, the Peabody Conservatory, the French Embassy, the Austrian Embassy and the Washington Performing Arts Society.

At its inception, Washington Post critic Joseph McLellan described the Vocal Arts Society as "the most promising new organization on the Washington musical scene."

Summing up his first four years as the Washington Post's chief music critic, Pulitzer Prize winner Tim Page said it all: "If I were to name the most reliably first-rate of all presenting organizations in Washington, I'd have to select Gerald Perman's Vocal Arts Society. The group, which now offers eight concerts a year, most of them in the French Embassy, gave first Washington recitals to soprano Renee Fleming, mezzo-sopranos Lorraine Hunt and Suzanne Mentzer, tenors Stanford Olsen, Ian Bostridge and Rockwell Blake, counter-tenor David Daniels, and baritone Sanford Sylvan long before these estimable artists were generally known."

To this list may be added Susan Graham, Sir Thomas Allen, James Morris, Catherine Malfitano, Benita Valente, Deborah Voigt, Stephanie Blythe, Michelle DeYoung, Eva Podleś, Wolfgang Holzmair, Helen Donath, Olaf Baer, Christoph Prégardien, Marjana Lipovsek, Rodney Gilfry, Nathan Gunn, Roberta Alexander, Anthony Dean Griffey, Christine Goerke, Katerina Karnéus, Elizabeth Futral, Stephan Genz, Gerald Finley, José van Dam, Susan Platts, Edith Wiens, Lisa Saffer, Matthias Goerne, Joyce DiDonato, Bernarda Fink, Measha Brueggergosman, Christopher Maltman, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Soile Isokoski, Joan Rodgers, Frederica Von Stade, Richard Stilwell, Dorothea Rõschmann, Stephen Salters, Lawrence Brownlee, Dame Felicity Lott and Christine Brewer. A complete listing can be found under "Roster."

In 2000, following several years of performances at La Maison Francaise (Embassy of France) and in celebration of the Society's 10th Anniversary, Gerald Perman, Founder and Artistic Director, was made a chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic for his "contribution to the lyric arts." Not long afterwards the VAS was invited to present its programs at the Kennedy Center by its president Michael Kaiser, who said "Gerald Perman has produced one the great vocal series of the world. We are delighted to bring the VAS to the Kennedy Center which will allow more people to experience the extraordinary quality of these performances." Tim Page wrote that the VAS moved into the Kennedy Center "giving what may be the most distinguished series of vocal recitals in the country" and on another occasion, " there isn't a musical capital in the world that wouldn't envy Washington this venturesone series."

The Society is regarded as the nation's premier presenter of classical voice recitals. It continues to receive glowing reviews and has maintained a loyal and generous subscriber base. In the past five years it has developed the Discovery Series in which two singers are selected by audition and presented in community venues in the Washington metropolitan area. It continues also to bring many local singers into the area schools where they are enthusiastically received.

In the upcoming season of 2007-2008, the Society presents a stellar array of artists, baritones Christian Gerhaher, Konrad Jarnot and Mariusz Kwiecień, sopranos Anne Schwanewilms, Christine Schäfer, Measha Brueggergosman, Dame Felicty Lott, and, in collaboration with the Marilyn Horne Founation, Isabel Leonard. The Society also continues to present annually a program by the New York Festival of Song with Steven Blier.

It must be noted (specifics in the roster) that great singers collaborate with great pianists. We are honored to have had many of the world's best in our recitals, among whom are the celebrated Graham Johnson, Roger Vignoles, Julius Drake, Malcolm Martineau, Craig Rutenberg, Warren Jones, Martin Katz, Dalton Baldwin and Brian Zeger.