University of Nebraska alumna Kayla Wilkens (M.M. 2014), is one of 15 singers selected nationwide as a finalist for the 19th annual Lotte Lenya Competition, sponsored by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music.
More than 200 singers/actors, ages 19-32, from 11 countries, submitted audition videos of their performances of diverse repertoire from the operatic, golden age and contemporary musical theatre stage, as well as the music of Weill.
Thirty-one singers were selected as semi-finalists. The final competition for the Lotte Lenya Competition will take place April 16 in New York City.
Each finalist will present a 15-minute program of four selections in the daytime round. An evening concert, in which contestants sing only a segment of their programs, follows in the evening. The concert concludes with the announcement of awards and prizes.
All finalists receive a cash award of $1,000 with additional discretionary awards of $3,500 each and top prizes ranging from $7,500 to $15,000. Total prizes exceed $60,000.
In addition, Jeremy Brown, a Bachelor of Music senior in the Glenn Korff School of Music from Elwood, Nebraska, was awarded one of only eight Emerging Artist Awards of $500 as encouragement to enter the competition again in the future in an earlier round of the competition.
More than a vocal competition, the Lotte Lenya Competition recognizes talented young singer/actors who are dramatically and musically convincing in repertoire ranging from opera/operetta to contemporary Broadway scores, with a focus on the works of Kurt Weill.
Both students currently study with Alisa Belflower, UNL’s Coordinator of Musical Theatre Studies. Wilkens studied opera and art song performance with Assistant Professor of Voice Jamie Reimer, while a student at UNL.
“Kayla’s beautiful voice and her enchanting stage presence are a perfect fit for the Lotte Lenya Competition,” Belflower said. “In this unique competition, the artists must create four starkly different characters—each brought to life through four different styles of singing. Kayla's audition ranges from an operatic mad scene to an insecure girl on a blind date. She transforms on stage in unexpected ways that are astonishing.”
In 2013, Wilkens was one of eight finalists in the National Opera Association’s Vocal Competition. A native of Salem, Ore., who earned her bachelor's degree at Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore., Wilkens was a semifinalist at the 2012 Classical Singer Vocal Competition and the recipient of the 2011 Bev Sellers Memorial Award from the Young Singers Foundation.
She is currently working as a freelance performing artist since completing her degree at UNL and just recently closed “Civil War Voices” at Haymarket Theatre.
The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc. (http://www.kwf.org) is dedicated to promoting understanding of the life and works of composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950) and preserving the legacies of Weill and his wife, actress-singer Lotte Lenya (1898-1981).