Canteloube/ Merritt/ Kennard - L'arada / Chants de France

French composer Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957) made a life's work of collecting, transcribing, and arranging folksongs. His Chants d'Auvergne has long been very popular. Much of the rest of his songs, though, have been unjustly neglected. Among these, L'arada emerges as a particularly intriguing work. A native of North Carolina, Dr. Coker-Merritt received her Master of Music degree from UNC-Greensboro, and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocal Performance at Florida State University. She began her professional operatic career with Pittsburgh Opera, studying as an apprentice with opera legends Renata Scotto, Régine Crespin and Renée Fleming. She made her professional operatic debut with Baltimore Opera in 2003. Sean Kennard has won top prizes in the Queen Elisabeth Competition (Belgium), the International Music Competition of Viña del Mar (Chile), the Vendome International Piano Competition (Portugal), the Sendai International Music Competition (Japan), the Hilton Head International Piano Competition (USA), the National Chopin Competition, the Iowa Piano Competition, the American Pianists Association, and the International Chopin Competition of the Pacific.