of two and sings this to her own children).

The last song was the dance-like “Drinking Song” by the very famous composer Aram Khachaturian (best known for the ballet “Spartacus”). Khachaturian also wrote many songs and this was a catchy and colorful piece. Mayilyan’s voice has a warm vibrant color typical of Armenian voices resembling a rich sparkling red wine. Occasionally around register breaks the tone would go out of focus briefly – with each song this became less evident. Each song was vividly characterized and sung with passion.

Our final performer was tenor Dashuai Chen, a native of Shanghai China, with three Chinese songs in Mandarin. Chen was a 2019 winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. I was surprised how lyrical and non-Eastern sounding these three songsclimax of the third song had Chen pouring out high tessitura and a climactic high note that firmly announced his tenor status. Chen seems to have lots of voice everywhere. Initially in the first song, Chen seemed a little stiff and preoccupied but with each song he loosened up and revealed more of himself culminating in the overwhelming vocal and emotional outpouring of the final song. The final phrases of “Love for the Sea” could have come from the passionate final scene of an Italian verismo opera sung in Chinese translation!

I was impressed with how Maestro Aza Sydykov managed to learn all this unfamiliar music of widely disparate national styles and genres adapting so well to each singer’s different needs and methods.

Meche asked each singer to sing something