The George and Nora London Foundation Competition for Opera Singers 2025
Holds its Final Round on Friday, February 21, at The Morgan Library and
Museum, a Public Event Which Will Be Livestreamed

_The Prestigious Competition Marks Its 53rd Year_

_The Foundation Announces Its First Commissioned Work, To Celebrate the
30th Anniversary of the Recital Series: A Song Cycle by Jake Heggie and
Gene Scheer, To Be Premiered by Megan Moore on April 6_

_George and Nora London President John Hauser, fourth from right, with
2024 George London Award winners (left to right) Darren Drone, Samuel
White, Benjamin Dickerson, Erin Wagner, Katerina Burton, and Emily
Treigle, photo by Beth Bergman_

The George and Nora London Foundation Competition for American and
Canadian opera singers, one of the opera world's oldest and most
prestigious competitions, will hold its 53rd event in 2025, with a
public final round at New York's Morgan Library and Museum on Friday,
February 21, at 4:00 pm. The finals will also be livestreamed free of
charge on the foundation's website [3] and YouTube channel [4]. The
event will confer its George London Award of $12,000 upon six singers,
and Encouragement Awards of $2,000 upon the remaining finalists.

After three days of semi-finals, a dozen of the best young opera singers
from the U.S. and Canada will perform in the final round with pianist
Lachlan Glen before a panel of judges and audience at The Morgan Library
& Museum's Gilder Lehrman Hall. Each finalist performs one selection,
and the winners are announced to the audience immediately after the
judges' deliberations.

This year's judges are soprano Harolyn Blackwell, mezzo-soprano Susan
Quittmeyer, tenor Dimitri Pittas, bass James Morris, and Gayletha
Nichols, soprano and former Executive Director of the Metropolitan Opera
National Council Auditions, who will act as chair.

Since 1971, the foundation's annual competition has given more than 300
awards, and a total of more than $2 million, to an outstanding roster of
young American and Canadian opera singers who have gone on to
international stardom - the list of past winners includes Joyce
DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Ryan Speedo Green, Catherine
Malfitano, James Morris, Eric Owens, Matthew Polenzani, Sondra
Radvanovsky, Neil Shicoff, Dawn Upshaw, and Willard White, to name just
a few. As The New York Times noted, "this prestigious competition …
can rightfully claim to act as a springboard for major careers in
opera."

The Foundation's First Commission: A Song Cycle Based on Nora London's
WWII Diary, with Music by Jake Heggie and Text by Gene Scheer

To mark the 30th anniversary of its annual recital series by George
London Award winners, the London Foundation has made its first
commission of a composition: a song cycle by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer
based upon the WWII diaries of Nora London, telling the dramatic story
of her family's escape from France to America when she was 16 years old.
The work's world premiere will be performed by mezzo-soprano Megan
Moore, a 2022 George London Award winner, at a recital presented by the
London Foundation on April 6, 2025, at The Morgan, at which Ms. Moore
will also perform music by Rossini, Strozzi, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and
Prokofiev with pianist Francesco Barfoed.

Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer have worked together frequently in both
opera and song; among their collaborations are the operas _Moby-Dick_,
_It's a Wonderful Life_, _Intelligence_, and, last year, _Before It All
Goes Dark_; and a song cycle _Camille Claudel: Into the fire_, premiered
by Joyce di Donato and the Alexander String Quartet.

George London and the George and Nora London Foundation for Singers

George London (1920-1985) was one of the greatest opera stars of the
20th century, who blazed a trail for American singers on the
international stage and created some of the most indelible
interpretations of prominent bass-baritone roles. In his later years, he
devoted much of his time and energy to the support and nurturing of
young singers, in partnership with his wife, Nora. See the full list of
George London Award winners:
https://www.georgeandnoralondon.org/competition.html [5]

In addition to the annual competition, the George and Nora London
Foundation also presents a recital series to give grantees exposure and
experience, and, in many cases, a New York recital debut. The foundation
also awards scholarships to promising high school students attending the
pre-college program of The Juilliard School, a program now in its 12th
year.