Weiser treated to an evening of opera

By: 
Steve Lyon

The voices of soprano Jordan Bowman and mezzo-soprano Madelein Bowman filled the auditorium at the Snake River Heritage Center on Saturday for an entertaining evening of “Ol’ Time Opera.”
 The sisters and Opera Elect performed a concert of arias, duets, classic musical theatre and contemporary cross-overs for an appreciative audience of about 50 people.
 Jordan said the mix of songs they picked worked well with their voices, both as soloists and as a duet, and were complementary together.  
 The concert featured standard opera selections from Mozart and Puccini, along with modern tunes like the musical theater classic “Till there was you” from “The Music Man” and “Summertime” from “Porgy and Bess.”     
 They ended the evening with the surprising and wonderful selection of “The Ecstacy of Gold” by Ennio Morricone, a masterful work that showcases the vocal range of a soprano.  
 Cinema fans know the song was part of Morricone’s score for the movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” which starred Clint Eastwood and was released in 1966. The band Metallica liked the song and did their own version in 1999.
 The Bowman sisters have a Weiser connection that goes way back. They are the granddaughters of John and Christy Hoff, who took to the stage to introduce them to the audience.
 Jordan founded Opera Elect as an independent opera production company in 2014. After earning her bachelor’s degree in voice from the College of Idaho, where she won the Bravo Award for outstanding Opera Performance. Jordan ventured all the way to the East Coast to do graduate work.
 She received a Master of Music degree in opera from Binghampton University in New York. The voice and performance training was rigorous. During her grad studies, Jordan performed in both on-campus and off-campus productions. She even debuted in an original opera, “Postcard to Morocco,” that she worked on with a professor.
 In the university’s accomplished music department she worked with four to five coaches, which was on top of voice lessons and three to four master classes a week. She mastered the ability to sing in six different languages.
 She sang with the Tri-Cities Opera in 2017 and has performed in numerous opera and musical theater productions. She has done outreach for Opera Idaho and performed with the organization. She was a finalist in the Idaho Falls Symphony Young Artist Competition in 2015, among many accolades.
 Madelein is currently studying at the University of Idaho. She has performed in numerous roles,  including Nancy in Benjamin Britten’s “Albert Herring,” La Ciesca in Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” and the title role in Bizet’s “Carmen.” Madelein has performed outreach with Inland Northwest Opera as Pauline in “The Toy Shop” by Seymour Barab.
 Both Jordan and Madelein were raised in Pocatello. They did spend time as children on their grandparent’s hay farm on Jenkins Creek Road near Weiser. They know how to bale and buck hay, ride horses and do ranch work.
 Jordan said the sisters came from a musical background. Their dad is a pianist and mom is a jazz singer. Even their grandfather is a singer and a choir conductor. The two sisters began singing opera together in 2015.
 “We had both been singing since we could talk, basically,” Jordan said.
 Jordan said she was inspired to pursue opera after seeing a performance in Salt Lake City at the age of 16. She first performed at the age of 3 when she sang “America the Beautiful” with her father at the county fair in Melba.
 With her independent opera company, Jordan plans to do three productions per year and be able to pay the artists involved. The goal is to showcase modern opera and contemporary artists and composers who are composing right now.
 When she is not performing, she has a passion for teaching and owns Bowman Voice Studio. Bowman is available in both Boise and Pocatello.

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Signal American

18 E. Idaho St.
Weiser, ID 83672
PH: (208) 549-1717
FAX: (208) 549-1718
 

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