Featured Soloists for May 2023
Rachel O’Brien
Rachel O’Brien (formerly Rachel Lee Hall) is the First Prize winner of the 2019 Ima Hogg Competition, won the 2013 Lyon & Healy Award, and has received prizes from the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra’s Anne Jett Rogers Award, Saratoga Harp Colony “Play with the Pros” Competition, Roanoke Youth Symphony Orchestra Young Artist’s Awards, and the James Bland Music Contest of the Lions Club. The 2015 Cleveland Institute of Music Presser Scholar, has been soloist with the Houston Symphony and has been an orchestral harpist with the Cleveland, Akron, Firelands, and Roanoke symphony orchestras. She holds both a Bachelor and a Master’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music and has an ever-growing presence on social media, with over 40,000 followers. She will be featured in G.F. Handel’s Concerto for Harp in Bb Major.
Lalia Mangione
Lalia Mangione‘s music making has taken her across the United States and as far away as Italy, Russia, and Lithuania. She has been concerto soloist with orchestras playing works by Lalo and Sibelius, and holds solo performance awards from the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation and the Music Teachers National Association. Lalia holds a Master of Music in Violin Performance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she studied under Marjorie Bagley and held a graduate assistantship as a member of the Graduate String Quartet. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Violin Performance from Westmont College in California. She is currently working with the Cleveland based non-profit musical organization Renovare which is dedicated to sharing music at the highest level of artistry in diverse settings and with innovative programs to love neighbors, affirm the value of all people, and cultivate reconciled communities.
Brooke Tolley
Brooke Tolley, General Director of the Roanoke Opera, will be the featured soprano soloist taking the role of the disobedient daughter in J.S. Bach’s charming and very humorous “Coffee Cantata.” She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance from Liberty University and a Master of Arts in Voice from Radford University. Brooke’s opera roles include Kate Pinkterton in Madama Butterfly, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Laetitia in The Old Maid and the Thief and Lucy in Menotti’s The Telephone. As a concert soloist, Brooke has performed in Handel’s Messiah, DuBois’ Seven Last Words of Christ, Schubert’s Mass in G, and Pepper Choplin’s A Journey with the Shepherd, which she premiered at Lincoln Center in 2017. As an experienced voice teacher, she has maintained a private voice studio for students across the Roanoke Valley since 2012 and has taught lessons at Opera Roanoke, the Jefferson Center’s Music Lab and Hollins University.
Charlie Blueweiss
Charlie Blueweiss is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and recently arrived in Roanoke. He sings regularly at First Evangelical Presbyterian Church and with the Roanoke Valley Choral Society. Charlies was the featured soloist singing the role of Jesus in Roanoque Baroque’s recent presentations of “The Seven Last Words From the Cross” by Heinrich Schütz. He will be preforming the baritone part of the frustrated father.
Paul Brockman
Paul Brockman, a tenor, serves as director of music for the First Church of the Brethren in Roanoke and also sings with the Roanoque Baroque Chamber Choir. He was recently featured as the Evangelist in performances of the Viictoria “St. John Passion” and Schütz “The Seven Last Words of Jesus From the Cross.”