By Jessica Wu
Staff Writer
The spotlight will be on junior Hannah McDermott this spring. On April 11, she will perform at the esteemed Carnegie Hall in New York as a solo vocalist.
“I’ve always sung. I started training more rigorously and participating in more competitions a few years ago. I switched to my current teacher, Kathleen Martin, in eighth grade and started competing, and that’s how I really got started singing ‘professionally,’” McDermott said.
McDermott has always loved to sing, and it was evident from an early age that music would play an important role in her life. Although she has only been competing for a few years, she has already distinguished herself as the top of her age group in opera.
McDermott was selected to sing at Carnegie Hall via a vocal group that she was a part of last year called Junior Chamber Music. Junior Chamber Music selected McDermott through auditions in order to represent its organization and sing within an opera division at the prestigious Carnegie Hall.
“We’re all so proud of her. She’s worked hard to get to this level. She’s been singing ever since she could talk and has always had a beautiful voice. It’s so incredible to see your child accomplishing so much so young,” McDermott’s mother, Anne Marie McDermott, said.
McDermott will sing a 20-minute song cycle called “Deepest Desire” for flute, piano, and mezzo-soprano which was written in 2002 by contemporary composer Jake Heggie. The piece was written to protest capital punishment and was originally a poem by Sister Helen Prejean, who is notable for her work to ban the death penalty and for being the inspiration behind the 1995 film “Dead Man Walking.”
“It’s a very modern-sounding piece. There are a few strange musical techniques used, but the lyrics are really meaningful, and I enjoy singing the piece,” McDermott said.
Her other operatic accomplishments include being a semi-finalist in the National Classical Singers High School Competition in Chicago, winning the Professional Opera Singers Association Competition and receiving the “Madame Dorthea Derrfuss Mezzo-Soprano” award for two years in a row.
“I’m really excited and honored to have been selected to sing at such a prestigious hall, and I really hope that I perform well,” McDermott said.
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