Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote in recital April 2, 2010

Remarkable mezzo-soprano Alice Coote makes her San Francisco recital debut, presented by San Francisco Performances. The accompanist will be Coote's regular recital partner, the highly regarded pianist Julius Drake.

In a program she's entitled "Speak, Music: English Songs and Lyrics," Coote will perform songs by Edward Elgar, Roger Quilter, C.V. Stanford, Dominick Argento ("Songs From the Diary of Virginia Woolf"), Peter Warlock and others.

"Audiences are powerful things," says Coote. "You can't simply be a singer standing there: you have to talk, human being to human being."

Coote's operatic roles include Gluck's Orfeo, Ariodante, Ruggiero, Poppea, Penelope, Dorabella, Cherubino, Orlando, Idamante and Carmen for opera companies including Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, Frankfurt, Paris, the MET, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. Upcoming engagements include Marguerite in "Le Damnation de Faust" in Frankfurt; Oktavian in "Der Rosenkavalier" for the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Composer in "Ariadne auf Naxos" in Munich; and Hansel in "H￤nsel und Gretel" at Glyndebourne and the MET.

Pianist Drake has created a song series, "Julius Drake and Friends," held in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, featuring such outstanding vocal artists as Ian Bostridge, Angelika Kirchschlager, Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman and Christoph Pregardien. His recent recordings with Finley for Hyperion "Barber Songs" and then "Schuman Heine Lieder," won the 2008 and 2009 Gramophone Awards.

Official Website: http://www.performances.org