Grace Keagy News

The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music has identified the twenty rising singer-actors who have advanced to the Lenya Competition's semifinal round.

Kim H. Kowalke, President and CEO of the Kurt Weill Foundation, is pleased to announce the semifinalists for the 2021 Lotte Lenya Competition.

Twenty-eight performers selected to compete for a chance to win top prizes of $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000; total prizes to exceed $75,000; an all-star team of musical theater, opera, and Kurt Weill experts to adjudicate semifinals and finals.

Twenty-eight performers selected to compete for a chance to win top prizes of $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000; total prizes to exceed $75,000; an all-star team of musical theater, opera, and Kurt Weill experts to adjudicate semifinals and finals.

Kim H. Kowalke, President of the Kurt Weill Foundation, has announced the semifinalists for the 2018 annual Lotte Lenya Competition, its twentieth anniversary year. The Foundation received 235 audition videos, from singer/actors ages 19-32, hailing from thirty-one US states and Puerto Rico, and sixteen countries on five continents. From that pool, fourteen men and fourteen women from the US, Canada, Austria, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Slovenia have been selected to perform at the semifinals at the Manhattan School of Music on 8 and 9 March.

Bradley Smoak, 32 of Cary, NC, won First Prize in the 2017 Lotte Lenya Competition, sponsored by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music. Smoak took home $20,000, the largest single prize amount given in the competition's nineteen year history.

Fourteen exceptionally talented young singer-actors have been selected as finalists in the 2014 Lotte Lenya Competition. They will compete for top prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $7,500 on Saturday, April 12, 2014, in Rochester, New York. Broadway conductor and Encores! music director Rob Berman, 2-time Tony Award winner Judy Kaye, and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Artistic Director James Robinson will judge.

Twelve exceptionally talented young singer-actors, with previous stage experience ranging from roles on Broadway to the Metropolitan Opera House, have been named finalists in the 2013 Lotte Lenya Competition. They will compete for top prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $7,500 on Saturday, April 13, 2013, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Acclaimed soprano and 2010 Opera News Award winner Patricia Racette, British opera and musical theater conductor James Holmes, and Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization President and American Theater Wing Vice-Chairman Theodore S. Chapin will serve as judges.

Twelve exceptionally talented young singer-actors have made it through two rounds of auditions for the 2012 Lotte Lenya Competition and will compete for top prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $7,500 in the finals, to be held on April 21, 2012, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Three-time Tony Award nominee Rebecca Luker, Broadway and Encores! music director Rob Berman, and Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization President and American Theater Wing Chairman of the Board Theodore S. Chapin will serve as judges.

Twelve exceptionally talented young singer-actors from the United States, United Kingdom and China have been selected to compete for top prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $7,500 in the finals of the 2011 Lotte Lenya Competition, to be held on April 16, 2011, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

Broadway actress Grace Keagy died of ovarian cancer in Rochester, New York on Sunday, October 4, at the age of 87.