ICM Orchestra / Victoria Botero Concert

The Park University International Center for Music’s ICM Orchestra will hold its second performance of the ICM’s 2017-18 season on Saturday, Dec. 2, starting at 7:30 p.m. in Graham Tyler Memorial Chapel on the University’s Parkville Campus. Admission to the concert is free.

The concert will feature a special guest, soprano Victoria Botero, who will perform as a soloist with the ICM Orchestra on two selections:

• “Deh vieni non tardar” (“Oh come, don’t delay”), composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for The Marriage of Figaro
• “Popoli di Tessaglia!” (K. 316), also composed by Mozart

From Baroque to new music, from opera to concert and world music stages, Botero can deftly navigate a variety of musical genres and styles. The Columbian-American, fluent in Spanish and Italian, has performed in more than a dozen languages and dialects throughout her wide-ranging concert and recital career. Most recently, she premiered a piece with the Atemporchestra at TEDxKC. She is a soloist with Ensemble Ibérica in a variety of Spanish-themed concerts, and collaborated with them to create an award-winning CD, “Colonia” (Tzigane). Botero tours regularly as a member of the critically acclaimed duo Botero Bledsoe (with classical guitarist Beau Bledsoe) in programs featuring the intersection of art, folk and popular music from around the world. Their CD “Un ramo de voz” was released in 2013 (Tzigane). She has apprenticed with the Des Moines (Iowa) Metro Opera and Tulsa (Okla.) Opera. A resident of Kansas City, Mo., Botero earned a Master of Arts degree in voice and a Master of Music degree in musicology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

The ICM Orchestra, which consists of 20 string students let by Steven McDonald, director of orchestral activities, will also perform the following selections:

• “Symphony in A Major, Wq. 184/4,” composed by Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach
• “Symphony No. 5 in B-Flat Major, D. 485,” composed by Franz Schubert