New World School of the Arts Symphony Orchestra celebrates its special annual Arsht Center concert under the baton of Maestro Alfred Gershfeld, featuring tenor extraordinaire and New World School of the Arts music alumnus (1998), Russell Thomas. The performance will feature the symphony orchestra in Gounod’s ballet suite from Faust, Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italienne, Verdi’s Overture to La Forza del Destino and Va Pensiero from Nabucco. Russell Thomas will sing arias from opera favorites including Bizet’s Carmen, Massanet’s Werther, Verdi’s Otello, and Mascagni’s Cavelleria Rusticana.

Acclaimed for his “voice of intrinsic warmth and refined sense of style” (Opera News), Russell Thomas has enjoyed a string of operatic triumphs in recent seasons, including performances as Don Carlo at Washington National Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin; Cavaradossi in Tosca at Los Angeles Opera and Los Angeles Philharmonic; and Pollione in Norma at Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Canadian Opera Company, and Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia. He has debuted as Florestan in Fidelio at Cincinnati Opera, as Stiffelio at Oper Frankfurt, and as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Mr. Thomas has sung Rodolfo in La bohème at the Metropolitan Opera, Loge in Das Rheingold with the New York Philharmonic, Adorno in Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Ismaele in Nabucco at the Metropolitan Opera and Seattle Opera. In addition to being an alumnus of New World School of the arts, he is an alumnus of the young artist programs at the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and has received prizes from the George London Foundation for Singers, Liederkranz Foundation, Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation, and Richard Tucker Music Foundation. In 2010, he swept the Grand Prize, Audience Prize, and Tenor Prize of the Francisco Viñas Competition in Barcelona, Spain.