Accomplished tenor to give recital at UB

Tenor Miles Mykkanen, winner of the 2019 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, will appear at UB on Feb. 4 in the fifth concert of this season’s Slee Visiting Artist Series.

The concert, which will feature UB faculty member and pianist Eric Huebner, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.

The program:

Ludwig van Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved), Op. 98

Franz Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill), Op. 25, D. 795

Tickets are $20, and can be purchased in advance at Ticketmaster.com, or at the Center for the Arts box office from noon to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. UB students with a valid ID receive one complimentary ticket to all Department of Music concerts.

Called a “focused, full-voiced tenor” by The New York Times, Miles Mykkanen returns to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera for no less than three productions in the 2021-22 season: Boris Godunov, conducted by Sebastian Weigle; Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, led by Sir Antonio Pappano; and Ariadne auf Naxos, with Marek Janowski. He debuts at Lyric Opera of Chicago under the baton of Enrique Mazzola in the company’s new production by James Darrah of Proving Up, by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek, and at the Festival d’Aix en Provence in L’incoronazione di Poppea in a new production by Ted Huffman conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón.

Mykkanen made is Metropolitan Opera debut in the 2019-20 season in the company’s new William Kentridge production of Wozzeck led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; he made his New York Philharmonic debut in a program of excerpts from West Side Story conducted by Leonard Slatkin. He has sung Handel’s Messiah with the symphonies of Atlanta, Indianapolis and New Jersey; with the National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center; and at the University of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium under the auspices of the University Musical Society.

He is a 2019 Sara Tucker Study Grant winner, youngARTS Gold winner and the recipient of prizes from the Sullivan Foundation, Toulmin Foundation, Novick Career Advancement Grant, and Juilliard’s Joseph W. Polisi Award. A graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy, Mykkanen earned his Artist Diploma in Opera Studies, along with his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, from The Juilliard School under the tutelage of Cynthia Hoffmann.

Pianist Eric Huebner has drawn worldwide acclaim for his performances of new and traditional music since making his debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at age 17. In January 2012, he was appointed pianist of the New York Philharmonic and currently holds the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Piano Chair. He has been featured in orchestral works by Lindberg, Stravinsky, Ives, Milhaud, Carter and R. Strauss, among others, and regularly appears in chamber music performances with musicians from the Philharmonic at New York City’s Merkin Hall and elsewhere.

A passionate interpreter of the music of our time, Huebner has premiered countless new works, including a recent set of piano études by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds. Huebner has been involved with the New York Philharmonics CONTACT! series since its inception and is a member of the orchestra’s Contemporary Music Ensemble Committee.

A devoted teacher as well as performer, Huebner is associate professor of music at UB, where he maintains a studio of graduate and undergraduate piano majors and minors, and teaches courses in 20th-century piano music and piano literature. Since fall 2014, he has been a member of the adjunct faculty of The Juilliard School, where he teaches a course in orchestral keyboard performance.

Huebner holds a BM and MM from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal.