“Skylark delivers Rachmaninoff’s a cappella masterpiece with conviction, vigor, and a disarming earnestness”
- Boston Musical Intelligencer
- Boston Musical Intelligencer
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Rachmaninoff VespersAn apocryphal story recounts that when conductor Nikolai Danilin first heard Sergei Rachmaninoff play the score for his All-Night Vigil (‘Vespers’), Danilin said “Where am I to get such basses? They are as rare as Asparagus at Christmas!" Skylark returns this spring with its stunning rendition of Rachmaninoff's Vespers, performing from its own edition of the score prepared by Artistic Director Matthew Guard and Skylark soprano Fotina Naumenko.
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Luthien Brackett, mezzo-sopranoBorn in San Diego, California, Luthien Brackett was named after a character in J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium. Praised by the press for her “lushness and delicacy,” and “silky tone among all registers,” she is in great demand as an alto soloist and professional chorister.
Luthien can be heard in the role of Anima (“the soul”) in Seraphic Fire’s well-regarded recording of Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, released in 2021. She appears regularly with some of the world’s preeminent professional vocal ensembles, including The Monteverdi Choir, with whom she performed Berlioz’s Les Troyens to sell out audiences at the Berlioz Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Berlin Festival, and the BBC Proms last year. Her recent solo appearances include her debut with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem as the alto soloist for their recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s adaptation of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which was listed as one of the best classical albums of 2024 (so far!) by the London Times. Among her numerous commercial recordings are six GRAMMY®-nominated albums, including Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Anthracite Fields with the Bang on a Can All-Stars (2015), It’s a Long Way with Skylark (2022), and Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil with The Clarion Society (2023). Luthien enjoys cooking, traveling, reading, binge-watching K-dramas, and practicing her French, German, and Korean on Duo Lingo. She lives in northwest London. |
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Haitham Haidar, tenorHaitham Haidar is a Lebanese-Palestinian Canadian tenor based in Montreal. He is a proud graduate of Yale's Institute of Sacred Music, McGill's Schulich School of Music, and the University of British Columbia. Haitham is praised for his "musical and linguistic versatility" and his "bright" and "innately lyrical voice" and enjoys performing oratorio, opera, and chamber music across North America, Europe, and Asia.
He has recently been seen as a tenor soloist with Early Music Vancouver, Belgian ensemble Zefiro Torna (at the Morgenland Festival in Osnabrück) and as the Evangelist in Bach’s St. John Passion at the Winnipeg Baroque Festival. He has also been a recent soloist with TENET Vocal Artists, Orchestre Arion, as well as the Evangelist in Schütz’s Weinachtshistorie with Folger Consort. Haitham is a featured soloist on Conspirare’s GRAMMY®-nominated album House of Belonging. Haitham has also performed as a soloist and ensemble member with groups like Seraphic Fire and Skylark. Haitham’s debut solo album Zaytoun will be available on streaming platforms summer 2025. Haitham’s approach to performance has always been humanity first. Being an Arab immigrant in North America comes with its unique set of oppressive challenges and it is because of that and what he sees around him in the field, that he aims to touch people’s hearts with music and compassion and make change in the world the best way he knows how. |
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