Karen Lykes Mezzo-soprano Karen Lykes has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Japan and Central America with orchestras and choral societies such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, New Japan Philharmonic, Shinsei Nihon Symphony, Baltimore Choral Arts Society and the National Chamber Orchestra Society. She has worked with an array of conductors including Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Petr Altrichter, Luciano Berio, Carl St. Clair, Thomas Dunn, Gustav Meier, Seiji Ozawa, and Maxim Shostakovich. Her repertoire spans the Baroque to the Contemporary, including Bach's Mass in B minor, Mozart's Grand Mass in C minor, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Berlioz' L'Enfance du Christ, Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Ruckert Lieder and Symphony No. 4 and Bernstein's Symphony No. 1, "Jeremiah". Equally at home in musical theatre, Ms. Lykes has also performed the works of Gershwin, Kern, Weill/Brecht, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Sondheim in concert. For twelve years Ms. Lykes was the alto soloist in the American VocalArts Quintet, a prize-winner in the 1987 Concert Artists Guild International Competition. Twice a finalist in the New England Regional Metropolitan Opera Auditions, she has been the recipient of a Vocal Fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center. Ms. Lykes studied Lieder at the Franz-Schubert-Institut in Austria on a scholarship from the Alban Berg Foundation, winning the Franz Schubert Prize for Excellence in Interpretation of the Lied. An active recitalist, she has most recently presented concerts in Oregon, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Virginia, Costa Rica and Japan, as well as for The American Schubert Institute. Ms. Lykes has recorded the vocal chamber music of Brahms, Massenet, Schumann and Boulanger for Titanic Records with the American VocalArts Quintet, and songs of Charles Ives for Koch International Classics with the Detroit Chamber Winds. Ms. Lykes also maintains an active career teaching voice. Her students have performed with New York City Opera, Pacific Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Florida Grand Opera, Sarasota Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Glimmerglass Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera; in regional theatres, national tours and on Broadway in A Little Night Music, Nine, Little Shop of Horrors, Les Misérables, Follies, Urinetown, The Boys from Syracuse, The Full Monty, Candide, Fosse, Footloose, and Grease. Her students include nominees for the Grammy Award, Tony Award and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. Ms. Lykes has served on the voice faculties of New York University and the University of Michigan. She is currently a Master Teacher of Vocal Technique for the Bel Canto Northwest Vocal Institute in Portland, Oregon, and Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. e-mail: Karen.Lykes@UC.EDU