Guest Artist Recital Will Feature UW Music Alumni in Concert May 2

A guest artist recital, hosted by the University of Wyoming Department of Music, will feature UW alumni Meghan Dawson (2008), a soprano from Lander, and tenor Leandro Lacava (2007), originally from Brasilia, Brazil, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 2, in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall. The concert is free and open to the public.

Dawson and Lacava are UW performance graduates from the studio of Professor Katrina Zook, chair of the music department. Dawson and Lacava will be accompanied by UW Department of Music faculty pianist Jiwon Han in a program featuring music by Gaetano Donizetti, Tchaikovsky, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Richard Strauss, Ernesto de Curtis, Gabriel Fauré, Charles Gounod and Leonard Bernstein.

Dawson, winner of the 2014 Concurso Maria Callas Award, signed a recording contract with Sony Music as a soloist in the pop/opera group Qu4ttro while living and performing in Brazil. Described by critics as a “revelation” with “a warm-timbered voice,” she has performed throughout Europe, Brazil and the U.S.

Her international operatic premiere was in the role of Meg Page in Verdi’s “Falstaff” at the Theatro São Pedro in São Paulo, Brazil. In subsequent seasons at the same venue, she also sang the roles of Idamante in “Idomeneo,” Malcom in “La Donna del Lago” and Nicklausse in “The Tales of Hoffman.”

Dawson was Rosina in “The Barber of Seville” in several Brazilian cities, including Jacareí, São José dos Campos and São Caetano. She also performed as a soloist at the prestigious Sala São Paulo. Other notable roles include Dorabella in “Così fan tutte”; Isabella in “L’italiana in Algeri”; Isolier in “Le Comte Ory”; and Madame Melibea in “Il Viaggio a Reims.”

Lacava has performed roles ranging from Don Ramiro in Rossini’s “Cenerentola” to Schroeder in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” He was Hylas in the Brazilian premiere of “Les Troyens” at the prestigious Amazonas Festival of Opera. Recently, he shared the stage with Brazilian leading lady Christiane Torloni as Anthony Candolino in the Tony Award-winning play “Master Class.” Lacava’s first operatic performance was in the world premiere of “A Carta” by Brazilian composer Elomar Figueira Mello. He had several subsequent roles in his home country of Brazil.

His performances in the United States include Don Ramiro in Rossini’s “Cenerentola”; Frederick in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance”; Catullus in Carl Orff’s “Catulli Carmina”; and Filch in John Gay’s “The Beggar's Opera.” He has performed in several venues in Portugal and Italy, including a performance at Vatican City of the “Missa Longa em Ré Menor” by Brazilian composer Marconi Araújo. Pope John Paul II attended that performance, which was televised nationally in Italy.

Lacava successfully branched into musical theater, and his voice also has appeared in the Brazilian versions of several Disney and Discovery Kids television series, including “Sofia the First”; “The 7D”; “Mike the Knight”; “Gravity Falls”; and the feature film “Oz the Great and Powerful.”

For more information, call Kathy Kirkaldie, UW Fine Arts coordinator, at (307) 766-2160 or email kirisk@uwyo.edu.