Episode 39: The Marvelous Marvis Martin
Marvis Martin
Internationally celebrated for the exquisite beauty of her voice, her radiant artistry and a rare ability to communicate with her audiences, Marvis Martin has emerged as one of the foremost American sopranos of her generation.
“Ms. Martin possesses a voice that, like the old and much loved spiritual ‘This Little Light of Mine’ sheds a warm glow wherever it is heard. She doesn’t just sing a song; she illuminates it. The light comes from deep within her and radiates out, enfolding all of us in its beauty and expressiveness. Above all, she is the mistress of legato and can spin and shape a musical line into a diaphanous vocal fabric.” John Ardoin
“The amplitude and security of Martin’s soprano was a joy. The ecstatic, splintering beauty of Strauss’ music [Four Last Songs] came pouring out in a suddenly flooding opulence of tone reminiscent in quality, if in smaller scale, of the cushiony dark velvet sound of Leontyne Price. It was nostalgic music in more ways than one.” James Roos
Marvis Martin was born in Tallahassee and raised in Miami, Florida where, as a student of Mary Henderson Buckley, she earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Miami. While a student, Miss Martin performed with various symphony orchestras in Florida including the Miami Philharmonic and the Sarasota Symphony. Following her studies there, she was offered the coveted Helena Rubinstein full tuition scholarship for graduate study at the Manhattan School of Music. While earning her Master of Music degree, Miss Martin studied with the renowned voice teacher, Margaret Hoswell. Following her studies at the Manhattan School, Miss Martin was encouraged by her teacher to travel to Paris to compete in the 1980 Concours International de Chant.
In what would become the first in a series of competition triumphs and the beginning of a remarkable two year debut period, Miss Martin won three events of the Competition, a rare and impressive showing in this prestigious international vocal competition. In addition to winning First Prize of the Paris Competition, she also won the Prize for Melodie Française and the Mozart Prize. Her winning of the Paris Competition resulted in many performing opportunities, including her European recital debut in Nantes, France and her Paris operatic debut in Donizetti’s rarely heard Maria de Rudenz.
One of the adjudicators of the Competition was Joan Ingpen, Artistic Administrator of the Metropolitan Opera and co-founder with James Levine of the Metropolitan Opera’s Young Artist Development Program. So impressed was she with Miss Martin’s talent that Miss Ingpen invited her to audition for the newly established program. After a successful audition, Miss Martin was accepted as one of eleven promising young singers in this selective Metropolitan Opera Program in its inaugural year. Following this, she embarked on an intensive program of studies both at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where she worked with the preeminent soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
In the spring of 1981, Miss Martin emerged as the National Award winner of the celebrated Young Concert Artists Competition in New York City, winning the Kathleen Ferrier Award. Under the auspices of Young Concert Artists, Miss Martin made her New York City recital debut on December 8, 1981, at the 92nd Street Y Kaufmann Concert Hall. The same year the soprano was awarded First Prize in Chicago’s WGN-Illinois Opera Guild’s Auditions of the Air, an honor that led to her debut at the Ravinia Festival where she performed Mozart’s Mass in C minor under the baton of Maestro James Levine.
1982 brought another series of achievements for Marvis Martin. The 1982 Metropolitan Opera tour marked the successful debut of this young soprano in the role of Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. And in yet another important vocal competition, she received the Gold Medal in the National Opera Institute’s Competition. The same summer Miss Martin appeared at the Aix-en-Provence festival as a recitalist, and sang her first Liu in Turandot. Rarely has a vocal career been launched with such consistent competition victories, in leading roles at notable venues, and in such distinguished company.
As an operatic performer, Marvis Martin has earned critical praise for her appearances with the Metropolitan Opera in such diverse roles as Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Clara in the Met’s first production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo, Echo in Strauss’ Aridane auf Naxos, Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and the Celestial Voice in Verdi’s Don Carlos. Miss Martin made her house debut in the role of the Princess in the Metropolitan Opera’s widely heralded production of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges.
In other operatic ventures, she has sung the role of Dorinda in Handel’s Orlando with Marilyn Horne in Carnegie Hall’s critically acclaimed Handel Opera Series. In addition, she has performed the role of Ilia in Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Netherlands Opera, a role which she repeated with the Metropolitan Opera. Her more eclectic operatic repertoire includes Ismene in Mozart’s rarely performed Mitridate, Rè di Ponto at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the role of Euridice in Gluck’s Orfeo in Italian with the Boston Baroque Ensemble and in French with L’Opera Française at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, the role of Agnes Sorel in the infrequently heard Tchaikowsky’s Joan of Arc at Carnegie Hall with the Opera Orchestra of New York conducted by Eve Queler, and the title role in Scott Joplin’s Tremonisha. Miss Martin has repeated her successful portrayals of the Mozart heroines Pamina and Ilia in her home town with the Greater Miami Opera.
Marvis Martin belongs to a special class of American artists, appearing as a frequent guest soloist with major orchestras throughout North America. Miss Martin has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Orchestra, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in collaboration with such distinguished conductors as Sir Georg Solti, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Robert Shaw, Pinchas Zukerman, James Conlon, Gunther Herbig, Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Andrew Davis.
Miss Martin has also collaborated with conductors Christoph Eschenbach, Claudio Scimone, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Gabriel Chmura, Herbert Blomstedt, Sergiu Comissiona, Hugh Wolff, Jahja Ling, Richard Westenburg, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Andrew Litton, and Sir David Wilcox. The soprano’s busy orchestral schedule includes appearances with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Musica Sacra at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and Carnegie Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Oratorio Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center, the Orchestra of the Accademia Nationale di Santa Cecilia di Rome, Ottawa’s National Arts Center Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Orchestra of Paris at the Theatre de Champs E’lysées, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the St. Louis Symphony, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. One of the many highlights of the soprano’s career was an appearance with Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw Orchestra, performances which were broadcast live over Dutch National Radio.
Marvis Martin performs an extensive and diverse orchestral repertoire. In addition to the oratorios of Bach, Handel, and Mozart, the soprano has performed such standard repertoire as Mozart’s Mass in C minor with James Levine, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem with Sir Georg Solti, both with the Chicago Symphony, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. Miss Martin is especially noted for her interpretations of all the Mahler Symphonies with soprano solo, and her repertoire extends to the more unusual fare of Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony, Copland’s Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, and Tippett’s Child of our Time.
Marvis Martin is a frequent guest artist at major summer music festivals including performances with Charles Dutoit and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Festival, James Levine and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, Zubin Mehta and the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Music Center, Andrew Davis and the Cleveland Orchestra at the Blossom Music Festival and Michael Tilson Thomas and the Pittsburgh Symphony at the Edinburgh Festival. In addition, Miss Martin has appeared at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Wolf Trap Festival with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati May Festival, and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Festival appearances outside the United States include the Festival of Two Worlds (Spoleto, Italy), the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, the Savolinna Festival in Finland, where she was featured in recital and performed the role of Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and at the Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festival in Berlin where she sang the soprano solo in Henryk Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs.
Recognized as one of her generation’s leading recitalists, Marvis Martin has performed on many prestigious concert series throughout the world, including the Ambassador Concert Series in Los Angeles, the “Une Heure Avec” Series at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Festival of Two Worlds in both Spoleto, Italy and Charleston, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at the Van Cliburn Concert Series in Ft. Worth, Texas. The soprano made her well received Lincoln Center recital debut at Alice Tully Hall as the recipient of Young Concert Artists’ distinguished “Michaels Award”. She has also appeared at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in a joint recital with Marilyn Horne.
Marvis Martin is universally hailed for her warmth and the special rapport she shares with audiences. Especially eager to champion American works, highlights of Miss Martin’s career would have to include her many critically acclaimed performances throughout the country of Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915, most notably with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. A special highlight for Marvis Martin was a guest appearance at Carnegie Hall with Skitch Henderson and the New York Pops in the world premiere of a series of spirituals arranged especially for her by Maestro Henderson.
Miss Martin joined the Chamber Orchestra of the Auvergne throughout the ensemble’s United States debut tour. This fifteen city tour, which featured Miss Martin’s interpretation of Cantaloube’s Songs of the Auvergne, concluded with performances at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. This collaboration produced her highly praised CD recording of these haunting songs on the Denon label.
Honors and awards have not been limited to Marvis Martin’s early years. In 1987 she was the recipient of the University of Miami’s Distinguished Alumna Award. The following year the New York Times awarded Miss Martin the Florida Prize. She was particularly privileged to share her pedagogy with young vocalists when she was asked to hold the Dannenberg Artist In Residence Chair at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music for one year. Marvis Martin was similarly privileged to be invited to perform at the 100th Anniversary Celebration of Carnegie Hall. And Miss Martin was honored to have been invited to sing at the White House for President and Mrs. Reagan, accompanied by James Levine, a performance that was seen nationwide on PBS’s Great Performance Series.
Internationally celebrated for the exquisite beauty of her voice, her radiant artistry and a rare ability to communicate with her audiences, Marvis Martin has emerged as one of the foremost American sopranos of her generation. A frequent guest soloist with major orchestras throughout North America, Miss Martin has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in collaboration with such distinguished conductors as Sir Georg Solti, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Robert Shaw, Pinchas Zukerman, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Andrew Davis.
Marvis Martin has been heard extensively throughout North America and Europe as a recital soloist, including appearances in New York, Chicago, Vancouver, with the Ambassador International Series in Pasadena, and the prestigious “Une Heure Avec” series in Aix-en-Provence, France. Her summer schedule frequently includes engagements with the world’s most prestigious music festivals: Edinburgh, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Blossom, Mann Music Center, Hollywood Bowl, and the Festival of Two Worlds (Spoleto).
Miss Martin has earned critical praise for her operatic performances with the Metropolitan Opera in such roles as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Clara in the Met’s first production of Porgy and Bess, Almirena in Handel’s Rinaldo, Echo in Aridane auf Naxos, and the Princess in L’Enfant et les Sortileges. She has sung the role of Dorinda in Orlando with Marilyn Horne in Carnegie Hall’s Handel Opera Series, and has been heard as Ismene in Mitridate at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. In addition, she has performed the role of Ilia in Idomeneo with the Netherlands Opera, a role she repeated with the Metropolitan Opera and in her hometown with the Greater Miami Opera.
Recipient of numerous professional awards, Miss Martin won the First Prize, the Mozart Prize and the Melodie Française Prize at the 1980 Concours International du Chant in Paris. In 1981 Miss Martin was named the winner of Young Concert Artists, Kathleen Ferrier Award. The same year the soprano was awarded first place in Chicago’s WGN-Illinois Opera Guild’s Auditions of the Air and was also selected to join the Metropolitan Opera’s distinguished Young Artist Development Program in its premiere season. In 1982 she received the gold medal in the National Opera Institute’s Competition. In 1987 Marvis Martin was the recipient of the University of Miami’s Distinguished Alumna Award and the New York Times awarded Miss Martin the Florida Prize in 1988. In addition, Marvis Martin was honored to have been invited to sing at the White House for President and Mrs. Reagan, accompanied by James Levine, a performance that was seen nationwide on PBS’s Great Performance Series. Miss Martin’s CD recording of Cantaloube’s haunting Songs of the Auvergne can be heard on the Denon label.