Tenor Vinson Cole: Eleventh-Hour Artistry

Cecelia Porter
Washington Post
Wednesday, March 14, 2007; C03

It's not every day that a singer and pianist walk onto one of Washington's premier stages with only 24 hours' notice and give a superb recital... But on Monday night, tenor Vinson Cole, along with pianist Jonathan Kelly, did just that at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater. (Scheduled tenor Jonas Kaufmann was indisposed.)

Cole has a vibrant, appealing and versatile voice. He is a veteran performer whom the legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan (who died in 1989) invited to the Salzburg Festival ... Cole's distinguished record became clearly apparent as he summoned his voice to lofty heights and to his deepest lower range with utter control and support, doing this with a buoyant sense of spontaneity whether in outgoing theatrical innuendos or in hushed intimacy... Most striking on Monday was the sensitive way he tailored changes of color to communicate the emotional meaning ... The evening, sponsored by the Vocal Arts Society, was an engaging one ... Kelly is a singer's dream. He listened attentively and followed Cole with full awareness.