Music Director Rohan Smith
Midcoast Symphony plans first performance at Heritage Center
The March 6 concert in Lewiston will present an acclaimed young mezzo-soprano singing arias from ‘Figaro’ and ‘Carmen.’

The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra will present a program containing operatic highlights and the great Symphony in D minor by French composer Cesar Franck at two upcoming concerts.

On Saturday, March 6, at 7:30 p.m., the symphony orchestra will make its first appearance at the Franco-American Heritage Center at St. Mary’s in Lewiston. The second concert, on Sunday, March 7, at 3 p.m., will be in the Orion Performing Arts Center in Topsham.

Heather Johnson, a young mezzo-soprano from New York, will join the orchestra for a series of arias from operas ranging from Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” to Bizet’s “Carmen.”

Johnson, a 2002 Metropolitan Opera National Council semifinalist, has received critical acclaim both in opera roles and on the concert stage. A featured young artist with the Portland Opera Repertory Theater several years ago, she has appeared in major roles with the Glimmerglass Opera and the Minnesota Opera, and as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Later in March, Johnson will appear in a chamber music version of “Die Walkyrie” with the Eos Orchestra in New York. She has already been signed by the New York City Opera to appear next season as Annina in Verdi’s “La Traviata,” among other roles. Critics have said that she sings “with flair and feeling” and have called her performance “interesting as well as sexy.”

The Midcoast Symphony is excited to be performing for the first time in the newly renovated Franco-American Heritage Center at St. Mary’s in Lewiston. “It will be a real thrill for us to perform there,” says Music Director Rohan Smith. “The acoustics are marvelous and the community has been incredibly welcoming. We look forward to making Lewiston our ‘home away from home.'”

The Midcoast Symphony Orchestra, based at Topsham’s Orion Performing Arts Center since 2002, was formed in 1990 and is now comprised of some 60 players who perform eight, series concerts per season.

FMI: go online to www.Mid-coastSymphony.org; or phone 371-2028. Tickets: $12 for adults; 21 and under admitted free. They may be purchased at the door or in advance at Maine Coast Book Shop and Café, Damariscotta; Café Créme, Bath; Macbeans Music, Brunswick; and at Carroll’s Music and Victor News, Lewiston.