Furong Gardner
Furong Gardner, mezzo-soprano, has over fifteen years of experience as a performer with the Shanghai and Sichuan Opera Houses in China. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Shanghai Conservatory and a Master of Music in Voice Performance from Boston Conservatory of Music. She has studied with Elisabeth Phinney at Boston Conservatory, Richard Barrett of the Mannes College of Music in New York City, Xiao-Yan Zhou, Ren-Qing Zhang and Jing-Zu Bien at Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China.
Mrs. Gardner has taught voice at Brevard Community College in Melbourne and Cocoa, Florida and is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
Her operatic repertoire includes roles in Puccini's Suor Angelica, Verdi's Rigoletto, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, The Magic Flute, Bizet's Carmen and Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri and The Barber of Seville. Other roles include alto solos in Verdi's Requiem, Mozart's Requiem, Handel's Messiah, Weber's Mass in G Major, Vivaldi's Gloria, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Purcell's Dido's Lament and Vaughan William's Hodie.
She has performed major operatic roles with the San Francisco Opera and recently performed at a benefit concert at Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory. She made her Carnegie Hall debut on September 11, 1999, performing the alto solo in Handel's Messiah. Mrs. Gardner reprised the role on September 25 with the Newton Symphony at Sander's Theatre, Harvard University. For the millennium celebrations, She was invited to perform with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra at the Shanghai Great Theatre in China for the "New Year's Concert 2000". She was guest soloist with the Brevard Community College Choir for the "European Concert Tour 2000" that performed in Milan, Italy; Lugano, Switzerland and Paris, France. She will be a guest soloist in a performance in Beijing this fall and has been chosen to perform a new Opera in October 2002 in Toronto.