Soprano who attended The Academy of Vocal Arts, Temple University and Westminster Choir College and has amassed an impressive list of credits, singing in a variety of venues and seemingly every sub-genre of classical music, including art songs, chamber music, opera, and oratorios.
Her operatic adventures have taken her to the Michigan Opera Theater, New York City Opera, Opera Ebony, Philadelphia Opera Company, and Rio de Janeiro’s Teatro Municipal.
Orchestras with which she has worked include The Charlotte Symphony, The National Symphony, The Philly Pops Orchestra, and The Piedmont Triad Symphony.
As a soloist, she has performed with The American Ballet Company, The Cathedral Choral Society, The Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, The New York Choral Society, The Oratorio Society, The Philadelphia Singers, and Princeton Pro Musica.
In 1987, she appeared on The Philadelphia Singers Christmas album, Gloria! Gloria!. She performed with the New York Choral Society and Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony in 2002 in a concert presentation of Porgy and Bess. Other highlights featured stops at The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and international dates in Brazil, China, and France.
On 1st February 2009, she lent her vocal talents to Three Sopranos: An African American Experience, a mix of classical and sacred music, as part of Fordham Church’s Fordham at Four series. Marilyn covered similar territory in 2010 in a program entitled From Spiritual to Art Song with keyboardist Darya Gabay in Washington, D.C., and was a featured soprano in a performance with the Choir of the Church of Immaculate Conception. In the winter of 2010, she played Monisha in a production of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.
In the field of education, she has taught voice at the Levine School of Music.
The Philadelphia Singers recordings
Adeste Fidelis (Frederick Oakeley/John Francis Wade)
RCA 6559-2-RC (Gloria! Gloria!)
Soprano – Benita Valente
Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia
Conductor – Michael Korn
Here she is giving a performance of “Since You Went Away”…
Sources:
- http://www.cttrust.org/2053?highlight=masterpiece
- http://www.levineschool.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_facultybios
- http://fromspiritualtoartsong.eventbrite.com/
- http://www.fordhamumc.org/events.aspx
- http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=6342
- http://www.immaculateconceptionchurchdc.org/music.php