To honour the legacy of our founder and further our mission of championing the Canadian opera artists of tomorrow, Toronto City Opera is producing the first annual Giuseppe Macina Operatic Voices Competition.
Meet our 8 finalists
Be part of the excitement at the public performance on Saturday May 11 at 2PM at the Church of the Redeemer, 162 Bloor Street West. Vote for the Audience Choice Prize!
Tickets are only $20 general admission plus a $2.50 service fee. There is no HST.
Competition Highlights
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Monetary prizes totalling $5,000 to be distributed at the discretion of the adjudicators
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Future performance opportunities with Toronto City Opera
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Future performance opportunities with select Southern Ontario orchestras
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Five distinguished adjudicators : Adrianne Pieczonka, Tom Diamond, Denis Mastromonaco, Jennifer Tung, Stephen Carr
Jennifer Tung - Artistic Director, Toronto City Opera
“Discovering and nurturing local/Canadian talent has always been important to me. It is my goal that this competition will allow TCO to further this mission by providing performance opportunities and industry networking in addition to the prize money.”
Giuseppe Macina - Founder, Toronto City Opera
“My thanks to TCO for launching the voice competition in my name. This is an excellent opportunity to enable the young singers to continue to improve their singing and performance skills. I wish them all the best."
This competition is made possible by a generous donation from Anthony Fusco Sr.
Giuseppe Macina took Toronto's oldest opera workshop and transformed it in 1967 into the Toronto Opera Repertoire (later Toronto City Opera) in partnership with Toronto's public school board, presenting a whole repertoire of fully staged operas with the greatest detail and musical integrity. He retired as Artistic Director in 2013. In 1977, he was awarded the Jubilee Silver Medal by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to Italian culture in Canada. In December of 2005, Mr. Macina was made a member of the Cavagliere Ordine della Croce della Stella della Solidarietá Italianat, the equivalent of a knighthood, bestowed by the Italian government.
Adjudicators
Adrianne Pieczonka is one of the world's leading sopranos of her generation. She is internationally celebrated for her operatic interpretations of Wagner, Strauss, Verdi and Puccini. She is a dedicated educator, mentoring young singers around the world and conducting guest master classes throughout North America and Europe. Adrianne has worked with the Young Artists at the Lindemann Program at the Metropolitan Opera, with Young Artists at the Vienna State Opera, with the COC Ensemble and at many of Canada's leading universities. Since 2019, Adrianne is Chair in Voice at GGS where she plans and casts the opera productions and oversees all visiting masterclass visitors, as well as teaching voice.
Tom Diamond is an award-winning opera director whose career highlights include the world premiere of Florence, The Lady With The Lamp (Elora Festival/Chalmers Award). His production of SQUONK was an off-Broadway hit, which transferred to Broadway winning the American Theatre Wing’s Hewes Award. His many stagings for the COC include Canadian premieres of Giasone, La Calisto and the Dora-winning production of Handel’s Julius Caesar. He was the Resident Director/Dramaturg at Tapestry for a decade staging multiple premieres including Iron Road (Dora Award as Outstanding New Musical), The Shadow, and OKSANA G. He is currently on staff at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould Studio and is the Senior Acting Coach of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio.
Denis Mastromonaco is a graduate of the University of Toronto, and pursued post-graduate studies in Orchestral Conducting at the State University of New York, where he graduated with a Master of Music Degree, summa cum laude. He holds diplomas in conducting from the Wiener Konservatorium, the Salzburg Mozarteum and the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Denis is Music Director for the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra and Youth Orchestra, York Symphony Orchestra and Burlington Symphony Orchestra.
Jennifer Tung is the Artistic Director of Toronto City Opera, a Dora nominated conductor (Gould's Wall), and assistant conductor of the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra. In 2020/21, she was selected as a conducting fellow in the inaugural year of the Women in Musical Leadership program. She has conducted with the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Opera McGill, Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic and Kamloops Symphony. In 2023, Jennifer conducted the world premieres of Show Room (Rodney Sharman/Atom Egoyan) and Of the Sea (Ian Cusson/Kanika Ambrose). Jennifer is on faculty at Toronto’s Glenn Gould School.
Stephen Carr is Director of Development and Engagement for TCO. He has directed recent productions of Lucia di Lammermoor for the Korean National Symphony, Turandot and Tosca at the Seoul Arts Center, Cavalleria Rusticana and Die Fledermaus for TCO, and Le Nozze di Figaro with the Seoul Philharmonic. His 2014 production of Les Dialogues des Carmélites was awarded the American Prize for Stage Directing. Stephen spent eight years on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music, and now teaches at the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music, while also pursuing a PhD at York University. This season, he will be directing Tosca (MSO), Les Dialogues des Carmélites (Koerner Hall), Carmen (TCO), and Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Brott Opera).
Ivan Estey Jovanovic is the accompanist / Music Director at TCO. He completed his BMus and MMus in piano performance at the Belgrade University of Arts. In 2004, he joined Belgrade Opera Orchestra as répétiteur and concert pianist and in 2005 joined their staff as a principal vocal coach. In 2013 he completed his MMus. in Collaborative Piano at the UofT, won the Gwendolyn Williams Koldofsky Prize in Accompanying, then joined UofT’s Opera Division as a vocal coach and pianist. He is a vocal coach and harpsichordist in UofT’s Early Music Department and Schola Cantorum and the vocal coach/harpsichordist with Toronto Lyric Opera.