and keening high notes where Seth’s opera background became evident – there was a flexibility of tone and purity of attack that showed her operatic training. Seth believes in blending cultures and also performs songs by Adele and Amy Winehouse, sings with a progressive jazz rock band, has done American musical theater and loves Bollywood music. At age 26, Pallavi Seth is open to the entire world of music and eager to explore everything.

Paris-born French soprano Claire de Monteil has studied at AVA where she performed operatic roles like Leonora in Il Trovatore and the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos. This is a large, forward placed and deeply resonant soprano with a wide range of dynamics. Monteil did not program French opera which I would like tosofter grain to the tone and a darker color would have brought out the melancholy in the piece.

The first half ended with two short pieces by the Ghana West Africa-born bass Kofi Hayford. The two pieces were national anthems: the first the official one in English “God Bless Our Homeland Ghana” by Victor Gbeho and the second the unofficial folk anthem “Yen Ara Asaase Ni” by Ephraim Amu in the Akwapim Twi language (only one of eleven languages in Ghana!). It turns out that Victor Gbeho was Kofi’s great uncle!

The first was a grand scaled oration which got a new English sung text in the 1970’s. The second folk anthem which translates as “This is our native land” is a declamatory warning instructing the Ghana people not to