Centennial Gala Concert

Two-time Grammy Award-winning American mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, known for her “plush-voiced mezzo-soprano” (New York Times) and “calmly commanding stage presence” (New Yorker) has been “marked out at an early stage as a singer headed for top flight” (Financial Times), gracing the world’s leading operatic and concert stages.

In the 2025–26 season, Ms. Bridges makes her house debut in the title role of Carmen at Teatro Real in Madrid, reprising the role later in the season at both Seattle Opera and Cincinnati Opera. She sings Maddalena in Rigoletto in her debut at San Francisco Opera, conducted by Eun Sun Kim, and returns to Washington National Opera as Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible, directed by Francesca Zambello and conducted by Robert Spano. In concert, she reprises Maddalena in Rigoletto with Baltimore Symphony conducted by Jonathon Heyward and joins Nashville Symphony for Brian Field’s Hymn for the Hurting, with text by Amanda Gorman and Julia Perry’s Stabat Mater. She also presents Damien Geter’s COTTON alongside Justin Austin and Laura Ward at La Jolla Music Society, and a program of Coleridge-Taylor, Libby Larsen, Elgar, and others with Terrence Wilson and the Catalyst Quartet at the Library of Congress and Emory University.

Ms. Bridges has emerged as a leading figure in classical music’s shift toward conversations of inclusion and racial justice in the performing arts. In 2022, she was announced as one of the Kennedy Center’s NEXT50 cultural leaders and appeared with the National Philharmonic in the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s A Knee on the Neck. Bridges led a panel on race and inequality in opera with the Los Angeles Opera that drew international acclaim. Ms. Bridges was also featured in the Converse shoe brand’s All Stars Campaign for its Breaking Down Barriers collection and performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel for two episodes of the digital SOUND/STAGE series.

Bridges is a recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, a Richard Tucker Career Grant, the Sullivan Foundation Award, the Marian Anderson Award, and a Sara Tucker Study Grant. She has also won first prize at the 2015 Gerda Lissner Competition and won the 2008 Leontyne Price Foundation Competition, among others.

She is also highly acclaimed for her portrayal of Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová, making her debut with that role at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Best New Opera Production at the 2019 Olivier Awards). She was described as “Katya of the moment,” following the London Symphony Orchestra concert performance conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in 2023.

Ms. Majeski begins the 2025–26 season with a role debut at the BBC Proms, singing the title role in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. She returns to Oper Frankfurt as Marta in The Passenger, sings the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier with New Orleans Opera, and joins the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and conductor Edward Gardner for Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater and Mahler’s 4th Symphony. Future seasons will include her return to London’s Royal Opera House.

The 2024–25 season included an anticipated return to the role of Strauss’ Salome with Semperoper Dresden. She also joined the Madison Symphony for Strauss’ Four Last Songs and Mozart’s Requiem and celebrated the centennial of her alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, both in residence as a visiting instructor and for a special gala performance.

During the 2023–24 season, Ms. Majeski returned to the Teatro Real Madrid as Marta in the Spanish premiere of The Passenger and to the Semperoper Dresden as Káťa in a new production directed by Calixto Bieito. She also gave a solo recital at Opera Philadelphia’s O23 Festival and returned to the Tanglewood Music Festival as Gutrune in the final act of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung, paced by Andris Nelsons.

Ms. Majeski holds degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and Northwestern University. She was a member of the Merola Opera Program, the Gerdine Young Artist Program at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Steans Institute at Ravinia. Awards include the George London Foundation Award, first prize in the Palm Beach Opera Vocal Competition, and aSara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Foundation.

In the 2025–26 season, Mr. Ott returns to Santa Fe Opera and Lyric Opera Kansas City as Sharpless in Madame Butterfly, Seattle Opera as Hawkins Fuller in Fellow Travelers, and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte with Opéra de Lille. In concert, he makes his Carnegie Hall recital debut with pianist Kunal Lahiry, a program they will also perform at the Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris, Pascal Dusapin’s Antigone at the Philharmonie de Paris, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Minnesota Orchestra, and Vaughan-Williams’ A Sea Symphony with the Seattle Symphony.

In the 2024–25 season, Mr. Ott made his Metropolitan Opera debut singing Agrippa in John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra and reprised Rameau’s Samson with the Opéra Comique in Paris. Other appearances included Conte in Le nozze di Figaro with Teatro Regio di Torino, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas with the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and concert appearances with the Grand Teatro del Liceu as Riff in West Side Story, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées on tour in Europe, and a tour of Mozart’s Requiem with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of his many concert appearances include the title role in David Lang’s world-premiere prisoner of the state with the New York Philharmonic and Stephano in Sibelius’ The Tempest and Weimar Nightfall: The Seven Deadly Sins at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mr. Ott has performed the world premiere of Hyland Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and pieces by Vito Zuraj and Bach with Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris. Mr. Ott has toured with MusicAeterna as Don Pedro de Alvorado in concerts of Purcell’s Indian Queen, with stops in Geneva, Köln, Bremen and Dortmund, and later in a run of shows at the Salzburg Festival, was a featured soloist with Le Concert d’Astrée for a gala event at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, which was later released on Warner Classics/Erato, and Maximilian in Candide with the Hamburg Symphoniker at the Lausitz Festival.

A native of Pen Argyl, Pennsylvania, Jarrett Ott is based in New York and received his master’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Praised as “one of opera’s strongest voices at present—both as a singer and a shaper of its culture” (Washington Post), Grammy Award-winning soprano Karen Slack is celebrated as both an extraordinary performer and a changemaker in classical music.

Recently, Slack has been on a nationwide tour for her critically acclaimed African Queens, which continues into her 2025–26 season, including an orchestral version presented by the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. Slack’s season engagements include world premieres of Tamar-kali’s new work with the Miró Quartet for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music and Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Kathryn Bostic’s Drag, and Brittany J. Green’s Letters to America, part of American Composers Orchestra’s program Hello, America: Letters to Us, from Us. She also appears with the Orlando Philharmonic, Chamber Music Cincinnati, the Iris Collective, and Spivey Hall.

Slack’s Beyond the Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price with pianist Michelle Cann in collaboration with ONEcomposer on Azica Records won the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. In 2025, Slack was featured on Shawn Okpebholo’s album Songs in Flight, released with Cedille Records.

Slack has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington National Opera, Scottish Opera, and many others. In concert, her credits include the Melbourne and Sydney symphonies, Bergen Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall, and Philadelphia Orchestra. She made her New York Philharmonic debut in May 2024.

A recipient of the 2022 Sphinx Medal of Excellence and 2025 MPower Artist Grant, Slack is an artistic advisor for Portland Opera, serves on the board of the American Composers Orchestra, and holds a faculty position at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. In the 2024–25 season, she served as artist in residence at both Lyric Opera of Chicago and Babson College.

A native Philadelphian, Slack is a 2002 graduate of Curtis Institute of Music, as well as an Adler Fellow of the Merola Opera Program at the San Francisco Opera. She joined the Curtis faculty in 2025.

Born in Bratislava, Slovakia and raised in France and Canada, Miloš Repický has developed a diverse musical presence as pianist, conductor, chamber musician, educator, and producer. He is on the music staff at the Metropolitan Opera, where he serves as assistant conductor and prompter, played harpsichord continuo for Le nozze di Figaro, and has led the musical preparation of Jenufa, La fanciulla del West, Anna Bolena, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, among many other operas. He has collaborated regularly with the Cleveland Orchestra for operas including Tristan und Isolde, Cunning Little Vixen, Ariadne auf Naxos, Pelléas et Mélisande, and Daphne; Vienna’s Musikverein; Luxembourg Philharmonie; Lincoln Center Festival; and the Joffrey Ballet. He works regularly with the Santa Fe Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, and has also worked with Houston Grand Opera, Spoleto Festival, San Francisco Opera, the Dallas Symphony, the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman, and the Orquestra Sinfónica de Galicia. Mr. Repický is also the artistic director of Music for Montauk, on Long Island, N.Y.

Credits as music director with Toronto-based Against the Grain Theatre include #UncleJohn and the development of a new, immersive work, No One’s Safe, at the Banff Centre. At Kennedy Center’s World Stages Festival, he conducted Tobin Stokes and Heather Raffo’s opera, Fallujah. He has performed chamber music and partnered singers at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, Alice Tully Hall, Curtis on Tour, Carnegie Hall, Four Seasons Centre, Manchester Music Festival, Medici TV, TED, Jeunesses-Musicales de Montréal, and the Banff Centre. He is featured pianist on the Sundialtech Pictures multimedia DVD of Pierrot Lunaire. In addition to the Met’s HD, radio and SIRIUS satellite broadcasts, his performances have been heard on NPR, Performance Today, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, New York’s WQXR radio, and CUNY TV.

Mr. Repický studied at the University of Victoria with Robin Wood and Winifred Scott Wood, at the Manhattan School of Music with Warren Jones, and is an alumnus of the Music Academy of the West, San Francisco Opera Center, and the Banff Centre for the Arts. He has served on the faculties of the Juilliard School, Yale Opera, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Castleton Festival.

Mr. Repický joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2016 and was named the Hirsig Family Chair in Vocal Studies in 2022.