Middleton Community Orchestra

"Soprano Emily Birsan was guest soloist, always a blessing for any concert. This talented young woman is surely on the brink of a major career breakthrough. I have followed her singing since her days as an MA student at the UW School of Music, and each time she has seemed to mature more and more as an artist."

"Birsan's contribution was a group of three very different opera arias. For each one, she aimed not only for beauty of sound but for a projection of character and situation. She was appropriately sober and pensive in an aria from Mozart's La clemenza di Tito -- part of a role she will sing in full in the coming production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She was all flirtatious coquette in Adele's "laughing" song from Strauss's Die Fledermaus. Above all, in the long and demanding "mad scene" from Donizetti'sLucia di Lammermoor, she not only poured out sounds of wonderful beauty and power, but captured the anguish of the demented heroine with moving pathos. What an impressive Madison product she is!"

- John W. Barker, Isthmus  12/24/2013